Hartwick Hosts Lecture on Intersection of Animal and Partner Abuse

The Hartwick College Sociology Department will host the 2018 Hardy Chair Lecture, which will be delivered by Associate Professor of Criminology Dr. Amy Fitzgerald from the University of Windsor (Canada). Her presentation, “The Co-occurrence of Animal Abuse and Intimate Partner Violence: Why it Matters,” will be held Thursday, April 19 at 6 p.m. in the Celebration Room, Shineman Chapel House, on the College campus. The lecture is free and open to the public.

“We are pleased to welcome Dr. Fitzgerald to Hartwick as this year Sociology Hardy Chair Lecture guest,” said Visiting Assistant Professor of Sociology Dr. Elena Chernyak. “I believe that the intersection of harms against people, animals, and the environment is vital for our society and one of the most ethically challenging research areas. How should we ensure the safety of individuals who are abused at home? What steps should we take to reduce domestic violence, specifically against women? Should we implement special protections for women and their pets? Dr. Fitzgerald’s research aims at answering these questions. Her research explores the relationship between intimate partner violence and animal abuse and its impact upon help seeking behavior and assesses the unique needs of abused women with pets and the best practices for addressing these needs.”

Fitzgerald is an assistant professor in the criminology program of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Windsor, where she has taught in the areas of gender, family, administration of criminal justice, corporate and governmental crime, and victimology. Her areas of interest include gender studies, criminology, environmental sociology, and the sociology of non-human animals.

She has conducted research on the relationship between animal abuse and family violence; the interconnectedness of women, animals, and weapons in the sport hunting discourse; the use of various feminist perspectives to examine the increasing participation of women in sport hunting; and the effects of slaughterhouses on community crime rates, particularly on sexual assault rates.

Her work has been published in academic journals such as Women’s Studies Quarterly, Society and Animals, Visual Studies, and the Annual Review of Environment and Natural Resources. She is author of Animal Abuse and Family Violence: Researching the Interrelationships of Abusive Power (Mellen, 2005) and co-editor of The Animals Reader: The Essential Classic and Contemporary Writings (Berg, 2007).

For more information on Fitzgerald, visit www.amyfitzgerald.wordpress.com.

For more information on the Hardy Chair Lecture, contact Chernyak at chernyake@hartwick.edu or 607-431-4237.