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]
(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]
^ abcd"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.
^ abNicole, Seymour (2018-10-30). Bad environmentalism: irony and irreverence in the ecological age. Minneapolis. p. 121. ISBN9781452958095. OCLC1039215612.{{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. ISBN9780820348544. OCLC920013340.
^ abMartinelli, 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. S2CID149235953.
^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. ISBN978-3-319-33418-9.
^Quinn, Emelia; Westwood, Benjamin (2018). Thinking Veganism in Literature and Culture: Towards a Vegan Theory. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN9783319733791.
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