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Laura Wright
Laura Wright
Nationality	American
Occupation(s)	Professor of English, Western Carolina University
Known for	Founding the academic field of vegan studies
Academic background
Alma mater	University of Massachusetts Amherst
Academic work
Discipline	Literature
Notable works	The Vegan Studies Project: Food, Animals, and Gender in the Age of Terror (2015)

Laura Wright is a professor of English at Western Carolina University. Wright proposed vegan studies as a new academic field, and her 2015 book The Vegan Studies Project: Food, Animals, and Gender in the Age of Terror served as the foundational text of the discipline. As of 2021 she had edited two collections of articles about vegan studies.

Education

Wright received a bachelor's in English from Appalachian State University in 1992,^[1] an MA in English from East Carolina University in 1995,^[2] and a PhD in Postcolonial Literature and World Literature from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2004.^[3]

Academic interests

In addition to vegan studies, Wright's academic and research interests include postcolonial literature and theory, South African literature, ecocriticism, animal studies, and food studies.^[2]^[4]

Impact

Wright's 2015 book The Vegan Studies Project: Food, Animals, and Gender in the Age of Terror^[5] which proposed the academic field "vegan studies,"^[6] served as the foundational text for and introduced the discipline.^[4]^[7] She has since edited two collections of vegan studies articles, including Through a Vegan Studies Lens: Textual Ethics and Lived Activism (2019) and The Routledge Handbook of Vegan Studies (2021).^[8]^[9]^[10]

Reviewers and academics called the book a "foundational work"^[11] and "the foundational text for the nascent field" of vegan studies.^[1]^[12]^[13] In her foreword to the book, Carol J. Adams says, "Thanks to this work, we now have a new category: the vegan studies-loving vegan."^[14] Cristina Hanganu-Bresch and Kristin Kondrlik, in their introduction to Veg(etari)an Arguments in Culture, History, and Practice: The V Word, said Wright's proposal had framed vegan studies as a "critical lens to be applied to other cultural artifacts, and, indeed, to a whole new theory of culture."^[15] Kathryn Dolan said in the journal Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment that it "will clearly become an area of further study."^[16] Jodey Castricano and Rasmus R. Simonsen called it "the first vegan studies monograph to be published by a university press."^[17]

Dario Martinelli and Ausra Berkmaniene said, "The presence and legitimacy of 'vegan studies' within the academic world, especially since Wright cared to formalize the expression and define a paradigm, is something that should no longer require an explanation or a justification," and that she "coined the expression".^[6] Emelia Quinn and Benjamin Westwood called the book, "the first major academic monograph" on veganism and the humanities.^[18]

Marianna Koljonnen in 2019 called Wright "the founder of vegan studies".^[19] Marzena Kubisz, also writing in 2019, called The Vegan Studies Project "the monograph which creates the foundations for vegan studies".^[20]

Wright has given several talks to academic conferences about the introduction of vegan studies, including keynote addresses at Towards A Vegan Theory: An Interdisciplinary Humanities Conference at Oxford University,^[21] Animal Politics: Justice, Power, and the State at Internationale School voor Wijsbegeerte [nl],^[2] and a lecture, The Dangerous Vegan: The Politics of Scholarship, Identity and Consumption in the Anthropocene, at Appalachian State.^[22]

Appalachian State University offered a fall 2019 Honors Seminar, What is Vegan Studies? Exploring an Emerging Field, saying that with The Vegan Studies Project's publication "a powerful transdisciplinary field has emerged which is in turn influencing work across the disciplines" and Wright's works the field's "founding texts".^[23]

In January 2022, Wright was found at the center of faculty-student controversy at Western Carolina University. Serving as the Faculty Senate Chair at the time, she publicly spoke out against student's concerns regarding Residential Assistance DEI training.^[24] Following a Fox News article in which student Resident Assistants spoke about how the training conflicted with their views, Wright organized a t-shirt fundraiser campaign via Custom Ink and posted it to WCU Faculty Senate social media to dismiss students concerns.^[24] This campaign was posted to the Faculty Senate Instagram and had a caption which included an advocacy to "make fun of this nonsense."^[25] In response to this move made by the Faculty Senate and Wright, students at WCU's campus stated that "the fact that the Faculty Senate can mock students opinions just because they don't agree with them ... makes us feel like we don't have anybody to go to at the school."^[25] Chancellor Kelli Brown spoke to the Faculty Senate at their January meeting regarding this issue. In her statement she said, "We need voices to be heard whether we agree or not. We want it to be comfortable for everyone here. We will accomplish this by having open discussions and encouraging dialogue. No faculty, staff, or student should be mocked or receive threats of any kind."^[26]

Awards and honors

University of North Carolina Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching (2018)^[27]
National Humanities Center Fellowship (2012)^[2]
Modern Language Association Florence Howe Award for Feminist Scholarship (2008)^[28]

Bibliography

(2021) ed. The Routledge Handbook of Vegan Studies. London: Routledge.^[8]
(2019) ed. Through a Vegan Studies Lens: Textual Ethics and Lived Activism. Reno: University of Nevada Press.^[9]^[10]
(2015) The Vegan Studies Project: Food, Animals, and Gender in the Age of Terror. Athens: University of Georgia Press.^[29]
(2014) with Jane Poyner and Elleke Boehmer, eds. Approaches to Teaching Coetzee's Disgrace and Other Works. New York: The Modern Language Association of America.^[29]
(2013) with Elizabeth Heffelfinger. Visual Difference: Postcolonial Studies and Intercultural Cinema. New York: Peter Lang.^[29]
(2010) Wilderness into Civilized Shapes: Reading the Postcolonial Environment. Athens: University of Georgia Press.^[29]
(2006) Writing Out of All the Camps: J. M. Coetzee's Narratives of Displacement. New York: Routledge.^[29]

References

^ ^a ^b "Author of 'The Vegan Studies Project' returns to alma mater". Wautaga Democrat. 21 March 2016. Archived from the original on 19 March 2020. Retrieved 20 December 2018.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d "Laura Wright". Western Carolina University. Archived from the original on 19 March 2020. Retrieved 20 December 2018.
^ "Laura Wright". Western Carolina University. Archived from the original on 29 December 2018. Retrieved 20 December 2018.
^ ^a ^b Nicole, Seymour (2018-10-30). Bad environmentalism: irony and irreverence in the ecological age. Minneapolis. p. 121. ISBN 9781452958095. OCLC 1039215612.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^ Wright, Laura (2015). The Vegan Studies Project: food, animals, and gender in the age of terror. Athens: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 9780820348544. OCLC 920013340.
^ ^a ^b Martinelli, Dario; Berkmaniene, Ausra (February 12, 2018). "The Politics and the Demographics of Veganism: Notes for a Critical Analysis". International Journal for the Semiotics of Law. 31 (3): 501–530. doi:10.1007/s11196-018-9543-3. S2CID 149235953.
^ Yunker, John (August 25, 2019). "The Emergence of Vegan Studies". Archived from the original on August 28, 2019. Retrieved August 28, 2019.
^ ^a ^b The Routledge handbook of vegan studies. Wright, Laura, 1970-. Abingdon, Oxon. 2021. ISBN 978-0-367-89746-8. OCLC 1198974799. Archived from the original on 2021-01-19. Retrieved 2021-01-02.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
^ ^a ^b Laura Wright (2019). Through a Vegan Studies Lens: Textual Ethics and Lived Activism. University of Nevada Press. ISBN 978-1-948908-11-5. Archived from the original on 2021-01-19. Retrieved 2019-03-13.
^ ^a ^b "Through a Vegan Studies Lens: Textual Ethics and Lived Activism". Brooks Institute. Archived from the original on 2021-01-19. Retrieved 2021-01-19.
^ Quinn, Emilia; Westwood, Ben. "RUNNING AN INTERDISCIPLINARY CONFERENCE: 'TOWARDS A VEGAN THEORY'". University of Oxford. Archived from the original on 31 December 2018. Retrieved 20 December 2018.
^ Brenton, Keith (2015-09-23). "WCU faculty member's book looks at perceptions of veganism". Western Carolina University. Archived from the original on 2018-12-20. Retrieved 20 December 2018.
^ "The Vegan Studies Project: Food, Animals, and Gender in the Age of Terror". University of Georgia Press. Archived from the original on 29 December 2018. Retrieved 20 December 2018.
^ Adams, Carol J. "Foreword", in Wright (2015), p. xvii.
^ Hanganu-Bresch, Cristina; Kondrlik, Kristin (2020). Veg(etari)an Arguments in Culture, History, and Practice: The V Word. Springer Nature. pp. XX. ISBN 978-3-030-53280-2.
^ Dolan, Kathryn (November 2016). "The Vegan Studies Project: Food, Animals, and Gender in the Age of Terror. By Laura Wright". Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment. 23 (3): 644. doi:10.1093/isle/isw059.
^ Castricano, Jodey; Simonsen, Rasmus R. (2016). "Introduction: Food for Thought". In Castricano, Jodey; Simonsen, Rasmus R. (eds.). Critical Perspectives on Veganism. Basingstoke, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. v–xv. ISBN 978-3-319-33418-9.
^ Quinn, Emelia; Westwood, Benjamin (2018). Thinking Veganism in Literature and Culture: Towards a Vegan Theory. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9783319733791.
^ Koljonen, Marianna (August 19, 2019). "Thinking and Caring Boys Go Vegan: Two European Books That Introduce Vegan Identity to Children". Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature. 57 (3). Johns Hopkins University Press: 13–22. doi:10.1353/bkb.2019.0052. ISSN 1918-6983. S2CID 202254232.
^ Kubisz, Marzena (January 2019). "Veganisation of the Academy and the New Humanities: Veganism in the Context of Literary and Cultural Studies". Er(r)go Teoria–Literatura–Kultura (in Polish). Archived from the original on 2021-01-19. Retrieved 2019-09-13.
^ "Towards a Vegan Theory". University of Oxford. Archived from the original on 20 December 2018. Retrieved 20 December 2018.
^ ""The Dangerous Vegan: The Politics of Scholarship, Identity and Consumption in the Anthropocene" with alumna Dr. Laura Wright". “The Dangerous Vegan: The Politics of Scholarship, Identity and Consumption in the Anthropocene” with alumna Dr. Laura Wright. 2019-10-04. Archived from the original on 2020-07-20. Retrieved 2020-07-20.
^ "What is Vegan Studies? Exploring an Emerging Field" (PDF). Appalachian State University. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-01-19.
^ ^a ^b Miller, Andrew (2022-01-11). "Western Carolina students face death threats, faculty mockery for speaking out against 'woke' training". Fox News. Retrieved 2024-02-11.
^ ^a ^b Kays, Holly. "Resident debate: Student, professor field death threats amid debate on diversity training". smokymountainnews.com. Retrieved 2024-02-11.
^ Western Carolina Faculty Senate. (2022, Jan. 19). Faculty Senate Minutes. Western Carolina University Archive. https://www.wcu.edu/WebFiles/PDFs/FS_Minutes_1_19_2022.pdf
^ "Wright Named One of Top Teachers in UNC System". Western Carolina University. Aug 23, 2018. Archived from the original on 5 January 2019. Retrieved 4 January 2019.
^ "WCML Award Winners". Women's Caucus for the Modern Languages. Archived from the original on 4 January 2019. Retrieved 4 January 2019.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e "Laura Wright". Amazon. Archived from the original on 19 January 2021. Retrieved 4 January 2019.