Laura Wright (academic)
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Laura Wright is a professor of English at
Western Carolina University Western Carolina University (WCU) is a public university in Cullowhee, North Carolina, United States. It is part of the University of North Carolina system. The fifth oldest institution of the sixteen four-year universities in the UNC system, WCU ...
. 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 Appalachian State University (), or App State, is a Public university, public research university in Boone, North Carolina, United States. It was founded as a normal school, teachers' college in 1899 by brothers B. B. and D. D. Dougherty and th ...
in 1992, an MA in English from
East Carolina University East Carolina University (ECU) is a public university in Greenville, North Carolina, United States. It is the List of universities in North Carolina by enrollment, fourth largest university in North Carolina and the only one in the state with s ...
in 1995, and a PhD in Postcolonial Literature and World Literature from the
University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst) is a public land-grant research university in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Massachusetts system and was founded in 1863 as the ...
in 2004.


Academic interests

In addition to vegan studies, Wright's academic and research interests include
postcolonial literature Postcolonial literature is the literature by people from formerly colonized countries, originating from all continents except Antarctica. Postcolonial literature often addresses the problems and consequences of the colonization and subsequent deco ...
and theory, South African literature,
ecocriticism Ecocriticism is the study of literature and ecology from an interdisciplinary point of view, where literature scholars analyze texts that illustrate environmental concerns and examine the various ways literature treats the subject of nature. It wa ...
,
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 ...
, and
food studies Food studies is the critical examination of food and its contexts within science, art, history, society, and other fields. It is distinctive from other food-related areas of study such as nutrition, agriculture, gastronomy, and culinary arts in tha ...
.


Impact

Wright's 2015 book ''The Vegan Studies Project: Food, Animals, and Gender in the Age of Terror'' which proposed the academic field " vegan studies," served as the foundational text for and introduced the discipline. 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). Reviewers and academics called the book a "foundational work" and "the foundational text for the nascent field" of vegan studies. 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." 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." Kathryn Dolan said in the journal ''Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment'' that it "will clearly become an area of further study." Jodey Castricano and Rasmus R. Simonsen called it "the first vegan studies monograph to be published by a university press." 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". Emelia Quinn and Benjamin Westwood called the book, "the first major academic monograph" on veganism and the humanities. Marianna Koljonnen in 2019 called Wright "the founder of vegan studies". Marzena Kubisz, also writing in 2019, called ''The Vegan Studies Project'' "the monograph which creates the foundations for vegan studies". 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 The University of Oxford is a 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 second-oldest continuously operating u ...
, ''Animal Politics: Justice, Power, and the State'' at , and a lecture, ''The Dangerous Vegan: The Politics of Scholarship, Identity and Consumption in the Anthropocene'', at Appalachian State. 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". 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. 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. This campaign was posted to the Faculty Senate Instagram and had a caption which included an advocacy to "make fun of this nonsense." 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." 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."


Awards and honors

*
University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the Public university, public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referre ...
Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching (2018) * National Humanities Center Fellowship (2012) * Modern Language Association Florence Howe Award for Feminist Scholarship (2008)


Bibliography

* (2021) ed. ''The Routledge Handbook of Vegan Studies''. London: Routledge. *(2019) ed. ''Through a Vegan Studies Lens: Textual Ethics and Lived Activism''. Reno: University of Nevada Press. * (2015) '' The Vegan Studies Project: Food, Animals, and Gender in the Age of Terror''. Athens: University of Georgia Press. * (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. * (2013) with Elizabeth Heffelfinger. ''Visual Difference: Postcolonial Studies and Intercultural Cinema''. New York: Peter Lang. * (2010) ''Wilderness into Civilized Shapes: Reading the Postcolonial Environment''. Athens: University of Georgia Press. * (2006) ''Writing Out of All the Camps: J. M. Coetzee's Narratives of Displacement''. New York: Routledge.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wright, Laura 20th-century American women educators 21st-century American women educators Living people Year of birth missing (living people) American academics of English literature American veganism activists 21st-century American women writers 20th-century American women writers 20th-century American educators 21st-century American educators American women academics Appalachian State University alumni East Carolina University alumni University of Massachusetts Amherst alumni Western Carolina University faculty Ecofeminists Feminist studies scholars Scholars of veganism