Emelia Quinn (born 1992) is a British scholar of

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

known for her work developing vegan theory. She is an

assistant professor Assistant professor is an academic rank just below the rank of an associate professor used in universities or colleges, mainly in the United States, Canada, Japan, and South Korea. Overview This position is generally taken after earning a doct ...

of world literatures and

environmental humanities The environmental humanities (also ecological humanities) is an interdisciplinary area of research, drawing on the many environmental sub-disciplines that have emerged in the humanities over the past several decades, in particular environmental li ...

at the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, ) is a public university, public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Established in 1632 by municipal authorities, it is the fourth-oldest academic institution in the Netherlan ...

Career

Quinn was introduced to

animal studies Animal studies is a recently recognised field in which animals are studied in a variety of cross-disciplinary ways. Scholars who engage in animal studies may be formally trained in a number of diverse fields, including art history, anthropology ...

by Jason Edwards during her MA studies at the

University of York The University of York (abbreviated as or ''York'' for Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a public Collegiate university, collegiate research university in York, England. Established in 1963, the university has expanded to more than thir ...

. She went on to read for a

DPhil A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

. Her

thesis A thesis (: theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: D ...

, which was submitted in 2019, was entitled ''The monstrous vegan: reading veganism in literature, 1818 to present''. The thesis was supervised by Ankhi Mukherjee, and examined by Anat Pick and Sophie Ratcliffe. While at Oxford, Quinn co-edited, with Benjamin Westwood, the

collection Collection or Collections may refer to: Computing * Collection (abstract data type), the abstract concept of collections in computer science * Collection (linking), the act of linkage editing in computing * Garbage collection (computing), autom ...

''Thinking Veganism in Literature and Culture: Towards a Vegan Theory''. This was published in 2018 by

Palgrave Macmillan Palgrave Macmillan is a British academic and trade publishing company headquartered in the London Borough of Camden. Its programme includes textbooks, journals, monographs, professional and reference works in print and online. It maintains offi ...

as part of their Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature series. Quinn briefly taught

art history Art history is the study of Work of art, artistic works made throughout human history. Among other topics, it studies art’s formal qualities, its impact on societies and cultures, and how artistic styles have changed throughout history. Tradit ...

at the

University of Birmingham The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university in Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1825 as ...

before joining the

(UvA) as a

Lecturer Lecturer is an academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. They may also conduct re ...

in 2019. In 2021, she became an

of world literatures and

at UvA. In the same year, she published the

monograph A monograph is generally a long-form work on one (usually scholarly) subject, or one aspect of a subject, typically created by a single author or artist (or, sometimes, by two or more authors). Traditionally it is in written form and published a ...

''Reading Veganism: The Monstrous Vegan, 1818 to Present'' with

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

's Oxford English Monographs series. This book was based on Quinn's doctoral thesis. In 2021, Quinn an became editor of the Oxford University Press and

English Association The English Association is a subject association for English dedicated to furthering the study and enjoyment of English language and literature in schools, higher education institutes and amongst the public in general. It was founded in 1906 by ...

journal ''The Year's Work in Cultural and Critical Theory'', and, in 2022,

Edinburgh University Press Edinburgh University Press is a scholarly publisher of academic books and journals, based in Edinburgh, Scotland. History Edinburgh University Press was founded in the 1940s and became a wholly owned subsidiary of the University of Edinburgh ...

published ''The Edinburgh Companion to Vegan Literary Studies'', which Quinn co-edited with

Laura Wright Laura Alice Wright (née Sisk; born September 11, 1970) is an American actress. She is best known for playing the roles of Allison "Ally" Rescott on ''Loving (TV series), Loving'' (1991 to 1995) and ''The City (1995 TV series), The City'' (1995 ...

Research

Vegan camp

Drawing upon

queer theory Queer theory is a field of post-structuralist critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of queer studies (formerly often known as gay and lesbian studies) and women's studies. The term "queer theory" is broadly associated with the study a ...

, especially

Susan Sontag Susan Lee Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, critic, and public intellectual. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on "Camp", Notes on 'Ca ...

's essay " Notes on 'Camp'", Quinn argues for a vegan form of the

camp Camp may refer to: Areas of confinement, imprisonment, or for execution * Concentration camp, an internment camp for political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or minority ethnic groups * Extermination ...

aesthetic that she calls "vegan camp". She defines this as

an aesthetic lens and sensibility that, while acknowledging the extremity of animal suffering, seeks to draw sustenance from what has previously only caused pain. It ... offers a riposte to the unprecedented scale of animal death and the lived experience of late capitalism in which political resistance feels futile. In drawing pleasure from a state of mass violence, vegan camp provides sustenance for individual vegans while refusing a damaging sense of the vegan as a morally righteous "beautiful soul." ... A camp sensibility performs the inescapable complicity of vegan lives in mass suffering. This performance of complicity ... provides a way of working through horror and continuing to fight for change in the face of the seeming impossibility of living an ethical life. In this sense, complicity affords a temporary mode of ethical affiliation, a way of occupying the present that acknowledges rather than castigates feelings of failure and insufficiency.

Examples of the vegan camp aesthetic identified by Quinn include a work of

scrimshaw Scrimshaw is scrollwork, engravings, and carvings done in bone or ivory. Typically it refers to the artwork created by whalers, engraved on the byproducts of whales, such as bones or cartilage. It is most commonly made out of the bones and te ...

in the Hull Maritime Museum's ''Turner and the Whale'' exhibition,

Lady Gaga Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (born March 28, 1986), known professionally as Lady Gaga, is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Known for her image reinventions and versatility across the entertainment industry, she is an influ ...

's meat dress, and certain mock meats.

Monstrous veganism

''Reading Veganism'' introduces the "monstrous vegan". Quinn identifies four traits of the monstrous vegan:

First, monstrous vegans do not eat animals, an abstinence that generates a seemingly inexplicable anxiety in those who encounter them. Second, they are hybrid assemblages of human and nonhuman parts, destabilizing species boundaries. Third, monstrous vegans are sired outside of heterosexual reproduction, the product of male acts of creation. And, finally, monstrous vegans are intimately connected to acts of writing and literary creation.Quinn, Emelia (2019). ''Reading Veganism: The Monstrous Vegan, 1818 to Present''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 3.

The

trope Trope or tropes may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Trope (cinema), a cinematic convention for conveying a concept * Trope (literature), a figure of speech or common literary device * Trope (music), any of a variety of different things in medi ...

of the monstrous vegan begins, Quinn argues in ''Reading Veganism'', with the creature created by

Victor Frankenstein Victor Frankenstein is a fictional character who first appeared as the titular main protagonist of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel '' Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus''. He is an Italian-born Swiss scientist who, after studying chemical proces ...

Mary Shelley Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley ( , ; ; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel ''Frankenstein, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' (1818), which is considered an History of science fiction# ...

's 1818 novel '' Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus''. She further identifies monstrous vegans in the work of

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer, prolific in many genres. He wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, hist ...

(including ''

The Island of Doctor Moreau ''The Island of Doctor Moreau'' is an 1896 science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells. It was published on 1 January 1896. The novel is set between 1 February 1887 and 5 January 1888. The text of the novel is the narration of Edward Pr ...

'' and ''

The Time Machine ''The Time Machine'' is an 1895 dystopian post-apocalyptic science fiction novella by H. G. Wells about a Victorian scientist known as the Time Traveller who travels to the year 802,701. The work is generally credited with the popularizati ...

''),

Margaret Atwood Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian novelist, poet, literary critic, and an inventor. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of nonfiction, nine collections of short fiction, eight chi ...

(including the ''

MaddAddam ''MaddAddam'' is a novel by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, published on 29 August 2013. ''MaddAddam'' concludes the dystopian trilogy that began with '' Oryx and Crake'' (2003) and continued with ''The Year of the Flood'' (2009). While the plo ...

'' trilogy),

J. M. Coetzee John Maxwell Coetzee Order of Australia, AC Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, FRSL Order of Mapungubwe, OMG (born 9 February 1940) is a South African and Australian novelist, essayist, linguist, and translator. The recipient of the 2003 ...

(specifically the character Elizabeth Costello of the eponymous novel and ''

The Lives of Animals ''The Lives of Animals'' (1999) is a metafictional novella about animal rights by the South African novelist J. M. Coetzee, recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature. The work is introduced by Amy Gutmann and followed by a collection of resp ...

''), and

Alan Hollinghurst Sir Alan James Hollinghurst (born 26 May 1954) is an English novelist, poet, short story writer and translator. He won the 1989 Somerset Maugham Award and the 1994 James Tait Black Memorial Prize. In 2004, he won the Booker Prize for his novel ...

(in '' The Swimming-Pool Library'' and '' The Sparsholt Affair'').Quinn, Emelia (2019). ''Reading Veganism: The Monstrous Vegan, 1818 to Present''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ''passim''.

Selected works

*Quinn, Emelia, and Benjamin Westwood (2018). ''Thinking Veganism in Literature and Culture: Towards a Vegan Theory''. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. *Quinn, Emelia (2019). ''Reading Veganism: The Monstrous Vegan, 1818 to Present''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. * *Wright, Laura, and Emelia Quinn, eds. (2022). ''The Edinburgh Companion to Vegan Literary Studies''. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

References

External links

Emelia Quinn
at the

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Quinn, Emelia 1992 births Living people Alumni of the University of York Alumni of the University of Oxford Academic staff of the University of Amsterdam Science fiction academics British academics of English literature Queer theorists Scholars of veganism

Career

Research

Vegan camp

Monstrous veganism

Selected works

References

Further reading

External links