Free Food! Interrogating Perception, Choice and Progress in the Liberation of our Food Supply – March 20th 2010

Opening Remarks: These will be given by Ketan and Krista.

Sentience and Duty: This will be comprised of two presentations. Tristan Laing will speak on “The Ethics of Bare Minimums”, and Harmony will speak on “Sentience Beyond Pain: The Emotional Lives of Animals”.

Food and Culture: This will consist of three presentations. Scott will present on Food and Non-Western Cultures, Zach will speak on Conservatism and Veganism, and Honey will speak on Food and Spiritual Health

Meat and Masculinity: This will consist of a single presentation. Ananya will speak on the role of meat in constructing male identity.

From now on, you can direct all inquiries to vegan.toads@gmail.com

We have been working on this!

Soon we will put out a press release including things like schedule, fees, speakers and talk descriptions, etc!

CFP – Food Ethics/Politics Conference – March 20th, 2010

The Toad Lane Vegan Cooperative, a division of Campus Co-operative Residences Inc. and with support from TBA presents a conference on Veganism and the Politics and ethics of Food and Eating,  entitled:

Free Food! Interrogating Perception, Choice and Progress in the Liberation of our Food Supply

What is “Free” in our food? How is it subsidized, and how does that affect what kind of food choices are readily available to us? And to what extent is our food “unfree” – how much domination of animals and workers occurs such that it becomes “easy” to eat certain diets and difficult to stick to others? What about animal rights, or welfare – is it right to cause harm to a feeling thing when you can avoid it? How is our perception of food a product of social control, of old inappropriate narratives of “authenticity” and gender stereotypes? What about the perceptions of “healthy” food and the diet industry, isn’t “nutrition” a fad anyway? Where is choice left when we are so separated from the realities of production? What does it matter what I eat? How can my choices have broader social implications, how can they be steps on the way to attaining ideals which are not yet universalized? And what is progress – social, technological – and what about moral progress?

You don’t need to be Vegan to come to this conference – but you should be open to discussing its possibility as a serious practice.

Some options for topics include (but are not limited to):

Veganism and Virtue Ethics
Eating as political Strategy
Veganism and Alienation
Diet and Revolution
Decision making and eating
Diet and the Body
Health and Desire
The Alimentary Body
Lifestylism and Veganism
Defending/Attacking Lifestylism
Nutrition: myths and realities
The Ethics of Commitment
Body Patterns, Buddhism and spiritual health
(non-human) Animal Rights and legal challenges
(non-human) Animal Welfare and the idea of compassion
What is an Animal?/ What is a non human animal?
(non-human) Animal Rights and Human Rights
Veganism and Child Slavery/Genocide/Class struggle (i.e. why care about animals when humans are in need)

Presentations can be a talk followed by questions, a facilitation of discussion, a cooking workshop (we can actually host part of the conference inside our kitchen), or a dance, or an outside activity (weather permitting, there is a park next to our house). Talks should be limited to 20 minutes to leave time for questions, facilitated discussions or activities that include audience involvement should be no more than 30 minutes.

Abstracts/Workshop proposals are due January 15th

Email all proposals and questions to toad.lane.vegan.cooperative@gmail.com

If you have a longer presentation that you think is worthwhile, contact us about it and we may be able to accommodate.