ICAS December 2015 E-Newsletter

• As you all know in January of 2015 ICAS Executive Board of Directors, which include eight Executive Directors – Ian Purdy, Joe Leeson-Shatz, Amber George, Carolyn Drew, Sinem Ketenci, Anthony Nocella, and Johnny Lupinacci and a rotating SCAS member, have been dedicated to building internal administrative systems and procedures so we are more effective in reaching our goal of total liberation. We are in our final edits of a 100 page manual for ICAS. Starting in 2013 ICAS has begun to have monthly Board meetings and in 2014 a group of dedicated activists, noted above began to build together and make ICAS into a reality — a fully-volunteer anarchist and animal liberation grounded center (not an apolitical academic association) truly run by activists for revolutionary and radical change for total liberation.

• The Institute for Critical Animal Studies (ICAS), rooted in animal liberation and anarchism, is an intersectional transformative holistic theory-to-action activist run global scholarly center to unapologetically examine, explain, be in solidarity with, and be part of radical and revolutionary actions, theories, groups and movements for total liberation and to dismantle all systems of domination and oppression, in hopes for a just, equitable, inclusive, and peaceful world.

• Amber George and Joe Leeson-Shatz have a book on media studies and critical animal studies coming out with the Critical Animal Studies and Theory Book Series with Lexington Books.

• Johnny Lupinacci and Anthony Nocella along with their friend Kishi Durce have a book coming out on food and environmental justice and how they are related to the school to prison pipeline.

• ICAS dedicated to fighting repression hosted a success Protest the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act National Week in the United States with more than twenty actions including actions from New Zealand, England, Stockholm, and Australia.
  https://www.facebook.com/events/1428002880859758/

• ICAS dedicated to intersectionality for the third time hosted the Vegans Boycotting Thanksgenocide to protest the celebration in anyway of the mass genocide of Native Americans. We had over 180 people attending on Facebook with 21 groups signing on to the event.
  https://www.facebook.com/events/1499476047047669/

• ICAS dedicated to intersectionality also hosted and co-sponsored the 3rd Annual Eco-ability Conference, which was online and sad to say because of the software we used Facebook as an interface, which gladly worked out. We had over eighty people engaging in the day of the conference around the world with twelve speakers speaking about how environmentalism/ecology, animals, and disability interconnect for social justice and inclusion. Eco-ability is the movement dedicated to bridging animals, the environment, and animals together for total liberation.

• ICAS dedicated to ending police brutality sent out support messages and organized protests with and for Black Lives Matter along with for #Justice4Jamar who was shot by police in Minneapolis.

• ICAS dedicated to ending political repression promoted and organized rallies to Remember Chairman Fred Hampton, who was a Chicago Black Panther Party member who was murdered by police while he was sleeping on December 4 1969.

• Joe Leeson-Schatz provided a talk for the Sierra Club on Poetics and Ethics against Local Animal Agriculture. It can be found at:
  http://speechdebate.binghamton.edu/Videos/Lectures/Academic/163/academic—activist-talks/a-liberationist-poetics-in-opposition-to-environmental-politics/

• ICAS North America is looking for a Host for the 2016 15th Annual North American Conference for Critical Animal Studies. If you are interested contact ICAS soon.
  https://www.criticalanimalstudies.org/2015/12/call-for-host-for-north-american-conference-for-critical-animal-studies/

• Carolyn Drew because of her amazing work to defend in the field and in the streets daily Kangaroos in Australia and being repressed by law enforcement was written up by one of the largest outdoor magazines in the world Outsider Magazine.
  https://www.criticalanimalstudies.org/2015/11/carolyn-drew-interviewed-in-outside-magazine/

• ICAS member and former ICAS board member Stephanie Eccles was the December 2015 ICAS Scholar-Activist. Read more about Stephanie’s activism and scholarship here:
  https://www.criticalanimalstudies.org/2015/12/icas-scholar-activist-profile-series-december-2015-stephanie-eccles/

• As Critical Animal Studies is growing and the definition of CAS is being re-written from what it
  was by more mainstream academics, ICAS’s Top Five was dedicated to the Five Elements that
  are Foundational for CAS, to keep true and not allow CAS to be watered-down or co-opted.
  https://www.criticalanimalstudies.org/2015/12/december-2015-top-5-five-elements-that-are-foundational-for-cas/

• Journal for Critical Animal Studies’s latest issue has been published with the editorialship of Sean Parson, John Lupinacci, and Kim Socha.
  http://journalforcriticalanimalstudies.org/jcas-volume-13-issue-1-december-2015/

• On December 4 ICAS remembered Sam a rhesus monkey, who flew on the Little Joe 2 in the
  Mercury program to 53 miles high in space–December 4, 1959.

• On December 21 ICAS remembered William Rodgers a long time animal and Earth liberationist
  and victim of the Green Scare mass arrests also known as the FBI’s Operation Backfire, who
  took his life because of mass political repression in jail.

• ICAS against capitalism, also on Black Friday protested and sent out messages via social media
  boycotting the consumption and buying of any products on that day.

• Overall, ICAS a fully-volunteer center, with very little money and resources and no office has been very busy for November and December organizing many events and assisting in many publications.

• Finally, and never to forget, ICAS is a proud supporter of Animal Liberation Front since 2001.

Until all are free …

ICAS Board of Executive Directors