E22: Ecofeminism and Entangled Empathy with Lori Gruen

Episode 4 of Series 3: Equity and Social Justice in Animal Advocacy

Ecofeminist Lori Gruen, shares insights with us about ecofeminist values and the connection between the oppression of women, people of global majority, animals, and the environment. 

Guest: Lori Gruen is the William Griffin Professor of Philosophy at Wesleyan University.  She is also a professor of Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Science in Society, and founder and coordinator of Wesleyan Animal Studies.  She is the author and editor of 15 books, including Entangled Empathy (Lantern, 2015); Critical Terms for Animal Studies (Chicago, 2018) and Ethics and Animals: An Introduction (Cambridge, 2011, second edition 2022). Gruen’s work lies at the intersection of ethical and political theory and practice, she critically interrogates oppressive systems that impact those often overlooked in traditional ethical investigations, e.g. women, people of color, incarcerated people, non-human animals.

Gruen has been involved in animal issues as a writer, teacher, and activist for over 25 years. Her relationships with scholars thinking about animals, activists working to protect animals, and, perhaps most importantly, with many different animals, uniquely inform her perspective on how we need to rethink our engagement with other animals.  She has published extensively on topics in animal ethics and ecofeminism and has become known as a bit of an archivist for chimpanzees in the US given her work documenting the history of The First 100 chimpanzees in research in the US (http://first100chimps.wesleyan.edu) and the journey to sanctuary of the remaining chimpanzees in research labs, The Last 1000 (http://last1000chimps.com).

See: www.lorigruen.com