24/06/2026
Annie Potts from Aotearoa New Zealand Centre for Human-Animal Studies (ANZCHAS) is the section editor for “Animals”, which is part of Oxford University Press’s new online journal, “Environmental Change and Human Experience”, in the 3 year mega project ‘Oxford Intersections’: https://academic.oup.com/oxford-intersections Annie has curated and is editing 45 original articles for “Animals”, and is delighted to share that the first issue has just been published on 18th June and features original work from academic members and former doctoral scholars in Human-Animal Studies at UC: see Philip Armstrong’s 'Abyssal Life and Deep Trauma: Animals, Ocean Environments, and Racial Politics in Moby-Dick'; Nik Taylor’s ‘Animals, Gender, and Sustainability'; Human-Animal Studies PhD grads work includes Dr Emily Major’s ‘The Boogeymen of Our Forests: Anti-Possum Rhetoric and the Construction of Fear in Dominant Conservation Messaging in New Zealand'; Dr Shannon Johnstone’s ‘Revisiting Obaysch and Inventing Fiona: Anthropocentrism in Representations of Two Captive Hippopotamuses'; Dr Katya Krylova’s 'Only Cuties Left Alive: Social Media, Exotic Pet-Keeping, and Mass Extinction'; Dr Andre Krebber’s 'Scars of Animal History: Wolf Traps as Memorials to the Anthropocene'; and ANZCHAS postdoc researcher Dr Nicolai Skiveren’s 'Persuasion or Polarization? Investigating the Reception of Vegan Advocacy Film'. A real ANZCHAS effort! (with more articles to come by ANZCHAS scholars, Prof Henrietta Mondry, Dr Kirsty Dunn, Dr Madi Williams, Dr Kathleen Jackson and Dr Eilish Espiner).
Other excellent articles in this launch issue include Kelly Struthers Montford's 'Abnormal Eaters, Incarcerated: Vegetarian Prisoners and Shifting Tactics of Normalization'; Vasile Stănescu's 'Becoming Part of the Family: Greenwashing, Animal Agriculture, and the Strategic Capture of Climate Research', Núria Almiron's 'The Propaganda Narrative Behind Animal Experimentation', and Zoei Sutton & Kate Hall's '‘Feral Catastrophe’: Analysing the Narrative Construction of Australian Cats'.
Over the last few decades, scholarship in the arts has undergone a significant shift towards questions and topics related to animals and our relationships with them.
