Vegatopia: Promoting ethical veganism through academic research and teaching.

“We can see quite plainly that our present civilisation is built on the exploitation of animals, just as past civilisations were built on the exploitation of slaves”

Donald Watson, Vegan Society founder, The Vegan News, Nov 1944, No.1, p.1

“Meat is murder. If an animal doesn’t have the basic right to exist, any other rights become meaningless”

Harriet Schleifer, 1985, “Images of Death and Life: Food Animal Production and the Vegetarian Option”

“The substantial power of institutionalized animal exploitation sustains ignorance, promotes fear, rewards cruelty, and punishes kindness.”

Brian Luke, 1992, “Justice, Caring and Animal Liberation”

Introduction

Vegatopia is dedicated to providing a comprehensive academic resource on all things vegan. If you are a student, researcher or teacher interested in any aspect of veganism this is the site for you. We aim to provide you with access to as wide a range of academic resources on veganism as possible and hope that through the inter- and multi- disciplinary sharing of ideas, this site will facilitate new areas of research into vegan-related issues. We want Vegatopia to be an interactive forum for dialogue, informing individual and collaborative research and teaching, as well as making a contribution to vegan activism and having a positive impact on veganism in a wider sense.

Vegatopia receives no financial assistance or administrative support of any kind from any external organization or individual. All of the material contained on this site, unless duly accredited, is the work of the Vegatopia founders in their spare time.

Vegatopia at the Bristol Vegan Fayre

Many thanks to the fine people at the Bristol Vegan Fayre who helped us with the organization of our Food Survey, to Plamil foods for donating vegan chocolate to help us with our instant raffle, and most of all to everyone who took the time to fill in a questionnaire. Have a look at our Facebook site for more photos.

What’s On The Site

Click the buttons on the left of this page, or follow the hyperlinks below, to find:

Details of how to contact us, whether you want to sign up to our research forum, share vegan information, comment on Vegatopia, or just ask us a question.

More information about us, including our mission statement, our definition of veganism, a discussion of the theory behind Vegatopia and more.

A news page with information about vegan academic activities, like conference papers, seminars, publications or courses, as well as confirmation of major website updates.

A diary with alerts to website updates, forthcoming talks and other events.

A comprehensive and interdisciplinary bibliography. We have archived well over 1800 references relevant to the theory and practice of veganism. The bibliography is searchable according to keywords, such as ‘activism’ or ‘philosophy’ (you will also find a full description and rationale of our keywords on this page).

An archive of significant media sources relevant to veganism, including print media, television and radio broadcasts, films and music.

A set of resources for research and teaching veganism in academia. This includes the text or notes of lectures and essays on veganism, conference papers, a list of relevant higher education courses, and our favourite vegan-related quotations.

A research forum, where we invite discussion of ideas for future academic work to research and promote ethical veganism. We ask that you contact us to request access to the research forum.

An archive of public statements on vegan matters, for instance responses to public consultations or letters to the editor in response to relevant media stories. We invite members of our research forum to prepare and post their own public statements to Vegatopia, either independently or in collaboration with us.

Links to other organizations promoting veganism, including activist groups, educational charities and more.

We very much encourage active participation in Vegatopia, whether by contributing original material to the website, alerting us to information and events, joining our research forum, or just asking us a question. We look forward to receiving your feedback and suggestions.