Dr. Lisa Kemmerer
Photo by Jo-Anne McArthur
Internationally known for her work in animal ethics, Dr. Kemmerer is the founder of the information-sharing non-profit, Tapestry. Dr. Kemmerer—Dr. K to many—earned a BA in International Studies (Reed), a Master of Theological Studies in Comparative Religions (Harvard), and a Ph.D. in philosophy (Glasgow University, Scotland), with a focus on animal ethics. Dr.K taught ethics and religious studies in Montana for 20 years and has written more than 100 articles/anthology chapters and 13 books, including Vegan Ethics: AMORE, In Search of Consistency, Animals and World Religions, Sister Species, and Eating Earth. Dr. Kemmerer retired in 2020 to become a full-time social justice activist with Tapestry.
Formative Years
Dr. Kemmerer’s sense of wonder in nature, smallness of self, and simplicity of lifestyle were shaped by a rural upbringing. As a teen, she started backpacking, then climbing, and was soon going on month-long kayak trips and even longer cycling trips, such as pedaling from Washington to Alaska. A number of close brushes with an early end, and an unwillingness to give up preferred endeavors, speak to her persistence as an anymal activist.
After one year of college, Dr. K dropped out of school, preferring to learn by exploring the larger world. (It would be another decade before her reading disability was diagnosed in graduate school.) To finance overseas travels, she worked as a forest fire fighter with the DNR and as a nurse’s aide in a nursing home. Hitch-hiking and staying in local homes gifted her with the views of hundreds of diverse locals in the areas she visited, including the South Pacific and Asia. In particular, rural Burma and Bangladesh, and little villages on the high ridges of Nepal and the backwaters of India and China, helped rehape Kemmerer’s view of religions and reshaped her understandings of time, “necessities,” and lifestyle. Through travel, Dr. K came to see her way of living and thinking as just one among many.
She eventually returned to college, determined to become a teacher. She earned her undergraduate degree in International Studies at Reed College, where she founded her first anymal activist organization and earned a competitive Watson Fellowship that took her traveling for two-years, exploring the place of women and anymals in religions in Asia, Europe, and the Fertile Crescent. The Fellowship allowed her to venture to remote monasteries and temples of China , spend a month at the Dalai Lama’s school in north India, stay with Palestinians and visit patients a West Bank hospital, visit holy sites in Israel, and travel to remote hermitages in the mountains of Egypt and Turkey.
Seeking broader and deeper understandings, Dr. Kemmerer repeatedly walked away from conventional forms of education. Outdoor adventure and exploring the world shaped her life and worldview as an individual, scholar, philosopher, and activist.
“Those who seek greater justice in our world need to work toward a deeper understanding of oppression.”
Introduction to Sister Species
Professional Life
Between years of travel and wilderness adventure, with an eye to teaching ethics at the college level, Kemmerer repeatedly returned to higher education. She combined her love of adventure with her need to have a degree, by studying abroad, earning a doctorate in philosophy (with a focus on anymal ethics, including intersections with religion and environment).
After graduation, Dr. K taught at the university level for more than 20 years. Her research in anymal studies took her to South America, Europe, Africa, and to many communities and anymal sanctuaries across the United States. While in Kenya, Kemmerer joined other activists and scholars to re-envision methods of preserving both wildlife and rural/indigenous communities (reflected in Animals and the Environment). In Peru she scrambled through thick, steep jungles working with locals to protect endangered yellow-tailed woolley monkeys (reflected in Primate People). She spent time in bear and elephant sanctuaries in Cambodia, pondering the moral boundaries of sanctuary confinement (reflected in Bear Necessities and Animals and Environment).
Speaking engagements took Professor Kemmerer to India, The Netherlands, Brazil, Finland, Estonia, Germany, Latvia, England, Canada, Luxembourg (repeatedly), and many other amazing places, all of which continued to shape Dr. K’s understandings of people and places, animals and the natural world. When Eating Earth was translated into Italian (Mangiare la Terra), Professor Kemmerer was invited on a two-week book-tour through Italy; she was also invited to publish and lecture with a climate change think-tank in Barcelona, both treasured experiences because they allowed Professor Kemmerer to stay for longer periods of time, work closely with other activists, feeling at home in far-away places and getting to know local activists.
“We have extended ethics outward from self to family to community to all of humanity. We are now called to extend moral consideration to other species.”
From In Search of Consistency
Tapestry
In 2020 Kemmerer retired in order to become a full-time social justice activist. Today, she volunteers at Tapestry every day, diligently doing the research, writing, and editing necessary to produce articles, books, and websites. She mentors on request, savoring the gift of working with activists, students, and scholars worldwide. She also volunteers several times a week at the local shelter and works with local restaurants to put vegan options on the menu.
Both adventuresome and artistic since childhood, Dr. K has taken the opportunity provided by retirement to reinvest in the arts that she enjoyed in childhood and youth, including music, painting, and poetry—but now, with an eye to helping bring change to the world. Her oil paintings are most often portraits of farmed anymals, and her poetry gives voice to both anymals and the natural world.
“Motherhood: A feeling I have known”
Pantanal Piranha
In a bluish boat on a brown river,
visitors in bright blouses and khaki shorts
peer through bulky binoculars,
pointing at purple plumes
and knobby orange knees
before steering to wider waters
where they dangle rattan rods
rigged with beguiling barbs.
A fierce pull hoists a frightened fish
(notorious for tearing teeth),
who has snatched a death-catch
that slips between incisors
and out through an eye.
Gasps and squeals of surprise and delight
supplant the gentle lapping of liquid
as I turn my back,
wondering why we are so willfully unaware
of what is blatantly clear
in a fish’s eye.
Questions? Contact Lisa.
For more about Dr. K, check out her resume.
