Animals & Society Institute News

The latest HAS news, funding opportunities, journal releases, and much more!
Dear Friends and Colleagues, Welcome to the Animals & Society Institute's September Human-Animal Studies Report. It is always heartening to see growth in the field of Human-Animal Studies (HAS), and this month doesn't disappoint. A new HAS doctoral program and HAS articles in widely disparate journals show that...

Dog Parks Are Great for People. Too Bad They’re Terrible for Dogs.
ASI Board Member, Julie Iovine, recently published the essay, 'Dog Parks Are Great for People. Too Bad They're Terrible for Dogs.' in the New York Times. In this essay, Iovine describes the ways in which dog parks are often enjoyed more by humans than their dog companions, and writes that “we’d be wiser to think of...

PLANT, EATS, and BARK: Acronym Wars and Congressional Fights Over Animals in August 2023
PLANT, EATS, and BARK: Acronym Wars and Congressional Fights Over Animals in August 2023 By ASI Board Member Thomas Aiello August began with Jim McGovern, Democratic representative from Massachusetts, introducing the Peas, Legumes and Nuts Today (PLANT) Act. The potential law is designed to grow the plant-based food...

We Are Hiring: Psycho-Educational Diversion Program Project Coordinator
Project-Based Job Opening Oversee the development, implementation, and validation of a psycho-educational diversion program Animals and Society Institute is developing a diversion intervention for adults who have abused animals. As legislation in 34 states mandates or recommends assessment and/or treatment for animal...

Enjoy HAS funding, opportunities, podcasts, and more!
Dear Friends and Colleagues, Welcome to the Animals & Society Institute's Human-Animal Studies Report. Although it doesn’t feel like it should be so, summer—here in the Northern Hemisphere anyway—is more than halfway over. I hope your projects, whatever they are, are going well. If you are looking for a little...

Enjoy Open Access chapters, news, funding opportunities, and much more
Dear Friends and Colleagues, Welcome to the Animals & Society Institute's monthly Human-Animal Studies Report. Summer is always a time when we regroup, reset, and let our hair down a bit. Most faculty and students take (at least somewhat of) a breather, vacations abound, and things generally move just a bit...

Enjoy Open Access chapters, news, funding opportunities, and much more
Dear Friends and Colleagues, Welcome to the Animals & Society Institute’s Human-Animal Studies Report. This month’s Report has a bit for everyone. We at ASI are heartened to see our decades of work into The Link between animal abuse and human violence gaining significant public policy traction with bills...

Policy Corner: Chicken Rescuers, Happy the Elephant, and the Animal Cruelty & Violence Intervention Act
Welcome back to another edition of the Policy Corner! There have been many policy developments in various sectors of late; below are three recent items that could signal a larger change in attitude towards nonhuman animals more broadly. Back in March, two California activists were acquitted of misdemeanor theft...

Enjoy Open Access chapters, news, funding opportunities, and much more
Dear Friends and Colleagues, Welcome to the Animals & Society Institute’s Human-Animal Studies Report. As we at ASI prepare to celebrate our 40th anniversary, it is worthwhile to note just how far the organization and the field of HAS have come. A key gauge of this growth is that this may well be one of the most...

ASI’s Response To “Is There an Ethical Way to Kill Rats? Should We Even Ask?”
Earlier this year, the New York Times published the online article, “Is There an Ethical Way to Kill Rats? Should We Even Ask?” In this article, the author raises the issue of controlling the urban rat population, and questions what the extraction of rats from the urban environment would do to existing ecosystems....