Tom Regan Visiting Fellowship Awardee Talks with Dr. Joshua Russell

Tom Regan Visiting Fellowship Awardee Talks: "Building Animal Movements and Citizenship Ideals upon Child-Animal Relationships Throughout 20th Century America" with Dr. Joshua Russell

In this talk, Dr. Joshua Russell will discuss how the documents found in the Special Collections Research Center center child-animal interactions as an area of significant focus for both animal movements and citizenship/nation building efforts in 20th century America. From the proliferation of humane societies and humane education programming, as well as agricultural education and cooperative extension organizations in the early 20th century through to renewed focus on animal welfare and animal rights in movements throughout the second half of the 20th century, archival materials demonstrate how children and animals are discursively connected. They also demonstrate how children specifically have been materially and morally implicated in larger sociocultural, economic, and political movements through particular views of proper socialization and education. Thinking critically, how might we trouble this emphasis on child-animal relationships within larger historical movements, including ideologies of citizenship, notions of personal moral responsibility, educational hegemonies, and future visions of multispecies communities?

Following Russell's presentation, Special Collections staff will present of some significant animal protection materials from the archive.

Bio

Dr. Joshua Russell is an Associate Professor in the Department of Animal Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation and the Director of the Anthrozoology graduate program at Canisius College in Buffalo, NY. He earned his PhD in Environmental Studies from York University in Toronto, where he studied children’s experiences of companion animal death. Dr. Russell’s teaching and research explore children’s relationships with animals, education about animals and the environment, human-wildlife relationships, and the applications of phenomenology and queer theory to human-animal relationships and interactions. He is the editor of Queer Ecopedagogies: Explorations in Nature, Sexuality, and Education (SpringerNature). Joshua lives in Niagara Falls, Ontario with his partner Sean.