Reading Group: Animals and the Right to Politics by Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka

Join our interdisciplinary reading group on the book Animals and the Right to Politics by Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka published by Oxford University Press. 

The group will meet for 3 sessions, each covering a part of the book: Register on zoom. 

Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka published Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights (Oxford University Press, 2011), the most important contribution to the political turn in animal rights theories. 

About the book Animals and the Right to Politics: 

The assumption that only humans can engage in politics - that only humans are 'zoon politikon' - is foundational to the Western tradition of political philosophy. While there is increasing recognition of animals' moral status (both within moral philosophy and at the level of public opinion), animals are not recognized as political subjects. This carefully researched but accessibly written volume - following on from the authors' earlier book Zoopolis - argues that animals too have a right to politics: a right to be recognized as political subjects and agents, and as members of political communities entitled to collective self-determination. The book draws on recent scientific work on animal societies, cultures, and decision-making, as well as recent work by political theorists rethinking ideas of agency and community - especially the significance of emplaced and embodied encounters and relationships to the activity of politics. Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka draw a picture of what it would mean to create spaces and practices, not only for politics conducted by humans on behalf of animals, but also politics with and by animals on their own terms. It then explores how this approach could inform a wide range of contemporary debates in human-animal relations, including wildlife conservation, urban planning, and animal labour.

First session: June 18, 2026 12:30 - 14:30

Part A: Context

 1. The Challenge – Political Exclusion 

 2. Political Wardship                                                         

 3. Resistance                                                                       

 4. The Cosmopolitan Temptation                                        

Second session: July 2, 2026 12:30 - 14:30

Part B: Theory

5.   Political Animals                                                        

6.   Bounded Communities                                                   

7.   Political Agency                                                             

Third session: July 16, 2026 12:30 - 14:30

Part C: Applications

8.   Animal Agora                                                               

9.   Diplomacy in the Wild                                               

10.  Multispecies Commons                                           

11.   Realistic Utopias

Free and open to all: Register on zoom. 

Co-organized with the Social Justice Centre at Concordia University, the Research Centre in Ethics (CRÉ), the Groupe de recherche en éthique animale et environnementale (GREEA), the Observatoire québécois en droit animalier (OQDA) and the Canadian Society for Critical Animal Studies (CCAS)