Animal Studies - Reading List

These resources are recommended by ASRI Scholars. They are organized by discipline, with some overlapping areas.

Animal Law & Policy

• About Canada: Animal Rights (John Sorenson, Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 2010).
• “Animal Rights: The Need for a Theoretical Basis” (Martha C. Nussbaum, Harvard Law Review 114, 2001: 1506-49).
• Animals and the Law (Lesli Bisgould, Irwin Law, 2011).
• Animals, Property, and the Law (Gary L. Francione, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995).
• Animals as Legal Beings: Contesting Anthropocentric Legal Orders (Maneesha Deckha, University of Toronto Press, 2021).
• Canadian Perspectives on Animals and the Law (Peter Sankoff, Vaughan Black and Katie Sykes, eds., Irwin Law, 2015).
• An Introduction to Animals and the Law (Joan E. Schaffner, An Introduction to Animals and the Law, Springer, 2010). Google Books
• Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals (Steven M. Wise, Cambridge, Mass.: Perseus, 2000). Google Books
• “The Salience of Species Difference for Feminist Theory” (Maneesha Deckha, Hastings Women’s Law Journal 17, no. 1 (Winter 2006): 1-38).
• The Subjugation of Canadian Wildlife: Failures of Principle and Policy (Max Foran, McGill-Queen’s Press – MQUP, 2018). Google Books
• “Vulnerability, Equality, and Animals” (Maneesha Deckha, Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 27:1, 2015, 47-70).
• “Welfarist and Imperial: The Contributions of Anti-Cruelty Legislation to Civilizational Discourse” (Maneesha Deckha, American Quarterly 65:3, 2013, 515–548).

Anthropology

• Animal Intimacies: Interspecies Relatedness in India’s Central Himalayas (Radhika Govidrijan, University of Chicago Press, 2018).
• Humans and Other Animals: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Human-Animal Interactions (Samantha Hurn, Pluto Press, 2012).

Art History & Visual Studies

• The Art of the Animal: Fourteen Women Artists Explore The Sexual Politics of Meat (Kathryn Eddy, L.A. Watson, eds., Lantern Books, 2015). Google Books
• Art for Animals: Visual Culture and Animal Advocacy, 1870–1914 (J. Keri Cronin, The Pennsylvania State Press, 2018). Google Books

Biopolitical Approaches

• Animal Capital: Rendering Life in Biopolitical Times (Nicole Shukin, University of Minnesota Press, 2009). Google Books

Companion References

• The Routledge Companion to Animal-Human History (Hilda Kean, Philip Howell, eds., Routledge, 2018). Google Books

Conservation / Environmental Studies / Geography

• Rewilding Our Hearts: Building Pathways of Compassion and Coexistence (Mark Bekoff, New World Library, 2014). Google Books
• The Subjugation of Canadian Wildlife: Failures of Principle and Policy (Max Foran, McGill-Queen’s Press – MQUP, 2018). Google Books

COVID-19 / Zoonotic Diseases

• Animals Manifesto: Preventing COVID-X (With a foreward by Jane Goodall DBE, the 2020 Animals’ Manifesto is a joint call to action from 150 animal and environmental protection agencies, calling for the inclusion of animal welfare in international COVID-19 recovery policies).
• What the Covid Crisis is Telling Humanity (David Wiebers and Valery Feigin, Animal Sentience, 30(1), 2020.

Critical Animal Studies / Sociology

• Anarchism and Animal Liberation: Essays on Complementary Elements of Total Liberation (Anthony Nocella, Richard J White and Erika Cudworth, eds., McFarland, 2015). Google Books
• Animal Factories (Jim Mason and Peter Singer, Animal Factories, New York: Crown, 1980).
• Animal Oppression and Capitalism, ed. David Nibert (2 volumes), ABC-CLIO LLC, 2017. Vol. 1: The Oppression of Non-human Animals as Sources of Food, Vol. 2: The Oppressive and Destructive Role of Capitalism, Google Books
• Animal Oppression and Human Violence: Domesecration, Capitalism, and Global Conflict (David A. Nibert, Columbia University Press, 2013. Google Books
• Animal Oppression and Solidarity: Examining Representations of Animals and Their Allies in Twenty-First Century Media (Tayler Zavitz and Corie Kielbiski, Media, Networking Knowledge 14:2 [Climate, Creatures and COVID-19 Special Issue], Oct. 2021).
• Animal Subjects 2.0 (Jodey Castricano and Lauren Corman, eds., Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2016). Google Books
• Animal Subjects: An Ethical Reader in a Posthuman World (Jodey Castricano, ed., Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2008).
• Animals and Nature: Cultural Myths, Cultural Realities (Rod Preece, UBC Press, 2005). Google Books
• Animals and Society (Margo DeMello, Columbia University Press, 2012). Google Books
• Ape (John Sorenson, Reaction, 2009). Google Books
• The Cow with Ear Tag #1389 (Kathryn Gillespie, University of Chicago Press, 2018). Google Books
• Constructing Ecoterrorism: Capitalism, Speciesism & Animal Rights (John Sorenson, Fernwood Publishing, 2016). Google Books
• Critical Animal Studies: Thinking the Unthinkable (ed. by John Sorenson, Canadian Scholars’ Press, 2014) Google Books
• Critical Terms for Animal Studies (ed. by Lori Gruen, University of Chicago Press, 2018)
• Critical Theory and Animal Liberation (John Sanbonmatsu, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2011). Google Books
• Defining Critical Animal Studies: An Intersectional Social Justice Approach for Liberation (Anthony J. Nocella, John Sorenson, Kim Socha, Atsuko Matsuoka, Peter Lang, 2014). Google Books
• Fear of the Animal Planet: The Hidden History of Animal Resistance (Jason Hribal, AK Press, 2011). Google Books
• Green Is the New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement Under Siege (Will Potter, City Lights Publishers, 2011). Google Books
• How Pigeons Become Rats: The Cultural-Spatial Logic of Problem Animals (article) (Colin Jerolmack, Social Problems 55:1 (2008).
• Muzzling a Movement: The Effects of Anti-terrorism Law, Money, and Politics on Animal Activism (Dara Lovitz, Lantern Books, 2010). Google Books
• The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series: Critical Perspectives on Veganism (Jodey Castricano and Rasmus R. Simonsen, eds., Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). Google Books
• The Rise of Critical Animal Studies: From the Margins to the Centre(Nik Taylor, Richard Twine, Routledge, 2014). Google Books
• The Terrorization of Dissent (Jason Del Gandio and Anthony Nocella, eds., Lantern Books, 2014). Google Books
• An Unnatural Order: Uncovering the Roots of Our Domination of Nature and Each Other (Jim Mason, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993).

Ecofeminism / Feminism / Feminist Care Ethics

• Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations (Carol J. Adams and Josephine Donovan, eds., Durham: Duke University Press, 2011).
• Beyond Animal Rights: A Feminist Caring Ethic for the Treatment of Animals (Josephine Donovan and Carol J. Adams, eds., New York: Continuum, 1996).
• The Biophilia Hypothesis (Stephen R. Kellert and Edward O. Wilson, eds., Washington: Island Press, 1993) Google Books
• Critical Ecofeminism (Greta Gaard, Critical Ecofeminism, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2017). Google Books
• The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery (Marjorie Spiegel, New York: Mirror, rev. ed. 1996).
• Ecofeminism: Feminist Intersections with Other Animals and the Earth (Carol J. Adams and Lori Gruen, eds., New York: Bloomsbury, 2014).
• Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature (Greta Gaard, ed., Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993).
• The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics: A Reader (Josephine Donovan, New York: Columbia University Press, 2007). Google Books
• “Integrating Ethical Frameworks for Animals, Humans, and Nature: A Critical Feminist Eco-Socialist Analysis” (Val Plumwood, Ethics & the Environment 5:2 (2000), 285-322.)
• International Perspectives in Feminist Ecocriticism (Greta Gaard, Simon C. Estok, and Serpil Oppermann, eds., London: Routledge, 2013). Google Books
• The Pornography of Meat (Carol J. Adams, Lantern, 2014). Google Books
• Racism as Zoological Witchcraft: A Guide to Getting Out (Aph Ko, Lantern Books, 2019). Google Books
• The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory (Carol J. Adams, A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory, 10th-anniversary ed. New York: Continuum, 2000).
• “The Rights of Animals and the Demands of Nature” (Dale Jamieson, Environmental Values 17, 2008: 181-99).

Education

• Animals in Schools: Processes and Strategies in Human-animal Education (Helena Pedersen, Purdue University Press, 2010). Google Books
• Education for Total Liberation: Critical Animal Pedagogy and Teaching Against Speciesism (ds. Anthony J. Nocella II et al, Peter Lang Verlag, 2019.)
• Gracious Pedagogy (Patricia MacCormack, Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy 10:1, Taylor & Frances, 2013.)
• Learning Animals: Curriculum, Pedagogy and Becoming a Veterinarian – 1 (Nadine Dolby, Routledge, 2022. Google Books
• Learning to Exploit: The Socialization of Animal Science Undergraduates (Nathan Poirier, Sociological Enquiry 91:4, 2021)
• Reproducing Dominion: Emotional Apprenticeship in the 4-H Youth Livestock Program (Leslie Irvine and Colter Ellis, Society and Animals, Jan. 2010.
• Schizoanalysis and Animal Science Education (Helena Pedersen, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019). Google Books

Ethology

• The Animal Manifesto: Six Reasons for Expanding Our Compassion Footprint (Marc Bekoff, New World Library, 2010). Google Books
• Animal Minds: Beyond Cognition to Consciousness (Donald R. Griffin, University of Chicago Press, 2001). 2nd Edition, Google Books
• Animal Minds Cognitive Ethology and Ethics (Colin Allen and Marc Bekoff, The Journal of Ethics 11: 299-317.
• Animal Social Complexity: Intelligence, Culture, and Individualized Societies (Frans B. M. de Waal and Peter L. Tyack, eds., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003.
• Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? (Frans de Waal, W. W. Norton & Company, 2016). Google Books
• The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy — and Why They Matter (Marc Bekoff, New World Library, 2010). Google Books
• Gifts of the Crow: How Perception, Emotion, and Thought Allow Smart Birds to Behave Like Humans (John Marzluff, Tony Angell, Simon and Schuster, 2013). Google Books
• Ignoring Nature No More: The Case for Compassionate Conservation (Marc Bekoff, University of Chicago Press, 2013). Google Books
• Second Nature: The Inner Lives of Animals (Jonathan Balcombe, St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 2010). Google Books
• What a Fish Knows: The Inner Lives of Our Underwater Cousins (Jonathan Balcombe, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016). Google Books

Philosophy

• Animal Liberation Now: The Definitive Classic Renewed (Peter Singer, Harper Perennial, 2023) Google Books
• Animal Rights/Human Rights: Entanglements of Oppression and Liberation (David Nibert, Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002) Google Books
• The Animal That Therefore I Am (Jacques Derrida, trans. Marie-Louise Mallet, New York: Fordham University Press, 2008) Google Books
• Animals and Ethics: An Overview of the Philosophical Debate. (Angus Taylor, Broadview Press, 2009). (First Edition 2003). Google Books
• Animals’ Rights Considered in Relation to Social Progress (Henry S. Salt, London: Centaur Press, 1980. First published in 1892. Google Books
• The Case for Animal Rights (Tom Regan, University of California Press, 2004) Google Books
• In Search of Consistency: Ethics and Animals (Lisa Kemmerer, Leiden: Brill, 2006). Google Books
• Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility (Martha Nussbaum, Simon & Schuster, 2024) Google Books
• What is Posthumanism? (Cary Wolfe, University of Minnesota Press, 2010). Google Books
• Zoographies: The Question of the Animal from Heidegger to Derrida (Matthew Calarco, New York: Columbia University Press, 2008) Google Books

Political Science / Political Theory

• Beyond Boundaries: Humans and Animals (Barbara Noske, Black Rose Books, 1997). Google Books
• Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight (Timothy Pachirat, Yale University Press, 2011). Google Books
• Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health (Marion Nestle, University of California Press, 2013). Google Books
• An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory (Alasdair Cochrane, Springer, 2010). Google Books
• Meat, Modernity and the Rise of the Slaughterhouse (edited by Paula Young Lee, University of New Hampshire Press, 2008). Google Books
• Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights (Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka, Oxford University Press, 2011). Google Books

Postcolonial / Decolonial / Anti-Colonial / Critical Race Theory Studies

• Colonialism and Animality: Anti-Colonial Perspectives in Critical Animal Studies (Kelly Struthers Montford, Chloë Taylor, eds., Routledge, Mar. 2, 2020). Google Books
• Dangerous Crossings (Claire Jean Kim, Cambridge University Press, 2015). Google Books
• Messy Eating: Conversations on Animals as Food (Samantha King, R. Scott Carey, Isabel Macquarrie, Victoria Niva Millious, Elaine M. Power, eds., Fordham University Press, 2019). Google Books
• The Postcolonial Animal: African Literature and Posthuman Ethics (Evan Mwangi, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2019).
• Race Matters, Animal Matters: Fugitive Humanism in African America, 1840-1930 (Lindgren Johnson, Routledge, 2017). Google Books
• Racism as Zoological Witchcraft: A Guide to Getting Out (Aph Ko, Lantern Books, 2019). Google Books
• The War against Animals (Dinesh Wadiwel, Brill, 2015. Google Books

Psychology / Trans-species Psychology

• Anthropocene Psychology: Being Human in a More-than-Human World (Matthew Adams, Routledge, 2020).
• Conservation Psychology: Understanding and Promoting Human Care for Nature, 2nd Edition (Susan Clayton and Gene Meyers, Wiley-Blackwell, 2015).
• Elephants on the Edge: What Animals Teach Us about Humanity (G.A. Bradshaw, Yale University Press, 2009).
• Conservation Psychology: Understanding and Promoting Human Care for Nature, 2nd Edition (Susan Clayton and Gene Meyers, Wiley-Blackwell, 2015).
• Introduction: Combating Speciesism in Psychology and Feminism (A. Potts, Feminism & Psychology, 20:3 (2010), 291-301 ).
• Introduction: Environmental and Conservation Psychology (Susan D. Clayton and Carol D. Saunders, Oxford Handbooks Online, 2012).
• The Psychology of Prejudice: From Attitudes to Social Action, Second Edition (Lynne M. Jackson, APA, 2020).
• “Roosters, hawks and dawgs: Toward an inclusive, embodied eco/feminist psychology” (pattrice jones, Feminism & Psychology, 20:3 (2010), 365-380).
• “Toward a psychology of human–animal relations” (C.E. Amiot & B. Bastian, Psychological bulletin, 1141:1 (2015), 6.
• “Towards a critical psychology of human–animal relations” (Matthew Adams, “Towards a critical psychology of human–animal relations,”<emSocial and personality psychology compass, 12(4), e12375 (2018).
• Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others (Laura van Dernoot Lipsky, San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2009). Google Books

Social Work

• Animals and Social Work: A Moral Introduction. (T. Ryan, Animals and Social Work: A Moral Introduction, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). Google Books
• Animals in Social Work: Why and How they Matter. (T. Ryan. Animals in Social Work: Why and How they Matter, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). Google Books
• “Animal-informed Social Work: A More-than-Critical Practice” (C. Hanrahan and D. Chalmers, “Animal-informed Social Work: A More-than-Critical Practice,” in C. Brown & J.E. MacDonald, Eds., Critical Clinical Social Work: Counterstorying for Social Justice (Canadian Scholars’ Press, forthcoming 2020).
• “Critical (Animal) Social Work” (H. Fraser and N. Taylor, “Critical (Animal) Social Work,” in The Routledge Handbook of Critical Pedagogies for Social Work, 2020).
• Human-animal Interactions: A Social Work Guide (Janet Hoy-Gerlach and Scott Wehman, Human-animal Interactions: A Social Work Guide, NASW Press, National Association of Social Workers, 2017). Google Books