Knowing Animals
Knowing Animals is on a temporary hiatus, and will return in 2024. Knowing Animals is a free podcast featuring interviews with scholars about new research in animal studies. Guests include philosophers, historians, geographers, anthrozoologists, sociologists, literature scholars, and more. New episodes are released every other Monday. It is hosted by the philosopher Josh Milburn.
info_outline
Episode 229: What are animal rights for? With Steve Cooke
12/11/2023
Episode 229: What are animal rights for? With Steve Cooke
Dr Steve Cooke is an Associate Professor of Political Theory in the School of History, Politics, and International Relations at the University of Leicester. His work addresses animal rights, and how we (individually and collectively) should act given that our political communities are not friendly to animals. On this episode, we talk about Steve's new book What Are Animal Rights For?, which was published in 2023 by Bristol University Press.
/episode/index/show/knowinganimals/id/29016888
info_outline
Episode 228: An animal rights archive with Kim Stallwood
11/27/2023
Episode 228: An animal rights archive with Kim Stallwood
This episode features the independent activist and academic Kim Stallwood. After becoming involved in animal rights campaigning in the 1970s, Stallwood began archiving material relating to the movement. Much of this media is now available to researchers as part of the Kim Stallwood Archive at the British Library. In this episode, we discuss his archive and a series of blogposts about animal rights he produced for the British Library. This episode is sponsored by the newly renamed Animal Politics series at Sydney University Press. To learn more about the series, visit the Sydney University Press website.
/episode/index/show/knowinganimals/id/28801638
info_outline
Episode 227: Killing animals in shelters with Angie Pepper
11/13/2023
Episode 227: Killing animals in shelters with Angie Pepper
Dr Angie Pepper in a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Roehampton in the UK. She works in moral and political philosophy, and has published papers on, among other topics, animals’ right to privacy, animals’ political agency, and what we owe to animals in light of climate change. In this episode, we discuss the collection The Ethics of Animal Shelters, which Angie co-edited with Valery Giroux and Kristin Voigt, including both the guidelines and recommendations in Part I of the book, and Angie’s chapter ‘Caring in Non-Ideal Conditions: Animal Rescue Organizations and Morally Justified Killing’ in part II of the book. The Ethics of Animal Shelters was published in 2023 by Oxford University Press.
/episode/index/show/knowinganimals/id/28612143
info_outline
Episode 226: New omnivorism with Christopher Bobier
10/30/2023
Episode 226: New omnivorism with Christopher Bobier
On this episode of Knowing Animals, we are joined by Dr Christopher Bobier. Chris is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Saint Mary's University of Minnesota and the Associate Director of the Hendrickson Institute for Ethical Leadership. Among other things, his research concerns ethics, including lots of work on animal and food ethics. Today, we’re going to talk about his collection New Omnivorism and Strict Veganism: Critical Perspectives, especially his chapter 'New omnivore policy: Friend or foe of veganism?'. The book, which Chris co-edited with Dr Cheryl Abbate, was released in 2023 by Routledge.
/episode/index/show/knowinganimals/id/28459511
info_outline
Episode 225: Solitary confinement of humans and animals with Delcianna J. Winders
10/16/2023
Episode 225: Solitary confinement of humans and animals with Delcianna J. Winders
This episode features Professor Delcianna J. Winders. Delci is an associate professor of law and the Director of the Animal Law and Policy Institute at Vermont Law & Graduate School in the United States. Her published work addresses the law around farmed animals, slaughterhouse workers, captive wild animals, animal advocacy, animal testing, and related subjects in animal and administrative law. We talk about her 2022 paper ‘Treating Humans Worse Than Animals? Exposing a False Solitary Confinement Narrative’. This appeared in the Cambridge University Press book Carceral Logics: Human Incarceration and Animal Captivity, edited by Lori Gruen and Justin Marceau. This book is open access, meaning that you can read and download Delci’s chapter, and the rest of the book, free of charge from anywhere in the world.
/episode/index/show/knowinganimals/id/28158242
info_outline
Episode 224: Animals and Epistemic Injustice with Andrew Lopez
10/02/2023
Episode 224: Animals and Epistemic Injustice with Andrew Lopez
This episode features Andrew Lopez. Andrew is a PhD candidate in philosophy at Queen’s University in Canada, where he works on critical animal studies, political philosophy, feminist philosophy, and the philosophy of biology. Regular listeners to Knowing Animals will have heard his name before – he was the co-author of the excellent ‘Gendering animals’, which we discussed with Letitia Meynell a few months ago. In this episode, we discuss Andrew's paper ‘Nonhuman animals and epistemic injustice’. This was published open access (meaning it’s free to read and download) in the Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy in 2023.
/episode/index/show/knowinganimals/id/27780792
info_outline
Episode 223: The Cheese Paradox with Devon Docherty
09/18/2023
Episode 223: The Cheese Paradox with Devon Docherty
Devon Docherty is a recent graduate of the master’s programme in Human-Animal Interactions at the University of Stirling in Scotland and a tutor in Stirling’s Division of Psychology. She is also a media assistant with the British animal activist organization Surge. In this episode, we talk about her paper ‘The cheese paradox: How do vegetarians justify consuming non-meat animal products?’ This was coauthored with Dr Carol Jasper and published open access – meaning it is free to read online from anywhere in the world – in the journal Appetite.
/episode/index/show/knowinganimals/id/27839742
info_outline
Episode 222: Celluloid specimens with Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa
09/04/2023
Episode 222: Celluloid specimens with Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa
This episode features Dr Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa. Ben is an assistant professor in the Department of Film and Media Studies at Seattle University. He works in critical animal studies, the history of science, documentary studies, and science fiction studies. In this episode, we talk about his 2023 book The Celluloid Specimen: Moving Image Research into Animal Life, which was published by the University of California Press. By the way, this is an open access book – released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license – which means that anyone can read or download the book for free from anywhere in the world.
/episode/index/show/knowinganimals/id/27691611
info_outline
Episode 221: Praising (and blaming) animals with Rhys Borchert and Aliya Dewey
08/21/2023
Episode 221: Praising (and blaming) animals with Rhys Borchert and Aliya Dewey
This episode features not one but two guests. Rhys Borchert is a PhD candidate in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Arizona in the United States and Dr Aliya Dewey is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence Research Centre at the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany. We talk discuss Rhys and Aliya’s paper ‘In Praise of Animals’, which was the winner of the inaugural essay prize competition of The Philosophy of Animal Minds and Behavior Association. ‘In Praise of Animals’ was published in the journal Biology & Philosophy in 2023.
/episode/index/show/knowinganimals/id/27691503
info_outline
Episode 220: Categorizing (and Killing) Cats with Virginia Thomas
08/07/2023
Episode 220: Categorizing (and Killing) Cats with Virginia Thomas
The guest on this episode is Dr Virginia Thomas, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Rural Policy Research at the University of Exeter in the UK. She has a background in literature, science communication, and sociology, and was previously a veterinary nurse. We talk about her paper ‘Categorisation of cats: managing boundary felids in Aotearoa New Zealand and Britain’. The paper was co-written with Dr Alexandra Palmer of the University of Auckland. The paper is due to be published OPEN ACCESS in the journal People and Nature on the same day this episode is released.
/episode/index/show/knowinganimals/id/27610740
info_outline
Episode 219: Gendering animals with Letitia Meynell
07/24/2023
Episode 219: Gendering animals with Letitia Meynell
This episode features Professor Letitia Meynell, of the Department of Philosophy and the Gender and Women’s Studies Program at Dalhousie University in Canada. Her work addresses the philosophy of science, epistemology, and feminist philosophy, which all feed into questions about our relationships with animals. Scholars of animal studies might know her as one of the co-authors of the 2019 Routledge book Chimpanzee Rights: The Philosophers’ Brief. In this episode, we focus on her 2021 paper "Gendering animals", co-authored with Andrew Lopez, which was published in the journal Synthese.
/episode/index/show/knowinganimals/id/27499212
info_outline
Episode 218: Gendered reproductive violence with Stacy Banwell
07/10/2023
Episode 218: Gendered reproductive violence with Stacy Banwell
This episode features Dr Stacy Banwell. Stacy is an Associate Professor of Criminology in the School of Law at the University of Greenwich in London. Much of her research concerns gender and warfare. She’s the author of Gender and the Violence(s) of War and Armed Conflict, which was published open access by Emerald in 2020, and co-editor of The Emerald International Handbook of Feminist Perspectives on Women’s Acts of Violence. In this episode, however, we discuss her 2023 Palgrave Macmillan monograph The War Against Nonhuman Animals: A Non-Speciesist Understanding of Gendered Reproductive Violence.
/episode/index/show/knowinganimals/id/27397494
info_outline
Episode 217: In Memoria Siobhan O'Sullivan
06/26/2023
Episode 217: In Memoria Siobhan O'Sullivan
This episode remembers the life and work of Siobhan O'Sullivan, who founded Knowing Animals in 2015, and died in 2023. The episode features a short introduction from Josh Milburn, and then an interview of Siobhan conducted by Clare McCausland. This interview addresses Siobhan's published research on being an animal studies scholar, coauthored with Yvette Watt and Fiona Probyn-Rapsey. This interview was originally released as an episode of Knowing Animals in 2019, and has become one of our most-downloaded episodes.
/episode/index/show/knowinganimals/id/27256866
info_outline
Episode 216: Buddhist animal research ethics with Andrew Fenton
06/12/2023
Episode 216: Buddhist animal research ethics with Andrew Fenton
On this episode, we speak to Dr Andrew Fenton, an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Dalhousie University in Canada. Among other topics, Andrew's work addresses animal ethics, the philosophy of animal behaviour, and the philosophy of animal cognition. We discuss his chapter ‘Re-Seeing Animal Research Ethics in Light of COVID-19’, which was published in the 2023 Routledge collection Contagion Narratives: The Society, Culture and Ecology of the Global South, edited by R. Sreejith Varma and Ajanta Sircar. This episode is brought to you by AASA (the Australasian Animal Studies Association) and the Animal Publics book series from Sydney University Press.
/episode/index/show/knowinganimals/id/27059886
info_outline
Episode 215: Reducetarianism with Brian Kateman
05/29/2023
Episode 215: Reducetarianism with Brian Kateman
On this episode of Knowing Animals, we speak to Brian Kateman. Brian teaches environmental science, sustainability, and environmental communication at Kean University in New Jersey and Fordham University in New York. However, he is probably best known for his activism and journalism. He is the founder of the Reducetarian Foundation, and the author of several books about food and food systems. In this episode, we discuss his 2022 book Meat Me Halfway, and his 2021 documentary of the same name. The episode is brought to you by AASA (the Australasian Animal Studies Association) and the Animal Publics book series from Sydney University Press.
/episode/index/show/knowinganimals/id/26970660
info_outline
Episode 214: Animal Architecture with Paul Dobraszczyk
05/15/2023
Episode 214: Animal Architecture with Paul Dobraszczyk
This episode's guest is Dr Paul Dobraszczyk, a Manchester-based writer, photographer and artist who is also a Lecturer at the Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London. Paul writes about a range of topics in architecture, including architectural theory, architectural history, and the links between architecture and ecology. He’s an author or editor of 11 books, and in this episode we talk about his most recent: Animal Architecture: Beasts, Buildings and Us was published by Reaktion Books in 2023.
/episode/index/show/knowinganimals/id/26812266
info_outline
Protecting Animals 53: Veganism on the Web with Erik Marcus
05/01/2023
Protecting Animals 53: Veganism on the Web with Erik Marcus
On this episode of Knowing Animals (which is an episode of our intermittent Protecting Animals series) we are joined by Erik Marcus, the animal activist behind Vegan.com, as well as the author of books including Meat Market, The Ultimate Vegan Guide, A Vegan History, Vegan: The New Ethics of Eating, and Self-Care for Activists. We discuss vegan activism in the early days of the internet, communication gaps between activists and academics, and the challenge of uninformed activists. This episode is brought to you by AASA, the Australasian Animal Studies Association, which you can join today. It is also brought to you by the Animal Publics book series from Sydney University Press.
/episode/index/show/knowinganimals/id/26694348
info_outline
Episode 213: Rachel Robison-Greene on In Vitro Meat
04/17/2023
Episode 213: Rachel Robison-Greene on In Vitro Meat
Today's guest is Dr Rachel Robison-Green, an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Utah State University. She works in metaethics, ethics, and epistemology. Rachel does lots of really interesting work challenging stereotypes about what philosophers do and who philosophy is for. For example, she has edited or co-edited no fewer than twelve books in the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series, including American Horror Story and Philosophy. Today, however, we talk about cultivated meat, because Rachel is the author of Edibility and In Vitro Meat: Ethical Considerations, which was released in 2023 by Lexington Books. This episode is brought to you by the Australasian Animal Studies Association, which you should join today, and the Animal Publics series at Sydney University Press, which has just published a new book called Decolonising Animals.
/episode/index/show/knowinganimals/id/26549982
info_outline
Protecting Animals 52: Mercy for Animals with AJ Albrecht
04/03/2023
Protecting Animals 52: Mercy for Animals with AJ Albrecht
This is an episode of our intermittent Protecting Animals series, featuring interviews with activists about the work they do for animals. This episode features AJ Albrecht. AJ is the Managing Director of Mercy For Animals, U.S. & Canada, an organisation she joined in 2019. She is lawyer, and formerly chaired both the American Bar Association’s Animal Law Committee and the New Jersey State Bar Association’s Animal Law Committee. She is also founder of the East Orange Animal Alliance. This episode is brought to you by the Australiasian Animal Studies Association, which you should join today, and the Animal Publics book series, from Sydney University Press, where you can find your next animal-related read.
/episode/index/show/knowinganimals/id/26424189
info_outline
Episode 212: Vegan Socialism with Troy Vettese
03/07/2023
Episode 212: Vegan Socialism with Troy Vettese
Today's guest, Dr Troy Vettese, is a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute. He’s an environmental historian who, in addition to animal studies, has expertise in energy history and environmental economics. We discuss his book Half-Earth Socialism, which was co-authored with Drew Pendergrass and published by Verso in 2022. This episode of Knowing Animals is brought to you by AASA, the Australasian Animal Studies Association, which you should join today. It's also brought to you by the Animal Publics book series at Sydney University Press. Take a look at their new titles!
/episode/index/show/knowinganimals/id/26150583
info_outline
Episode 211: Animal Creativity with Carol Gigliotti
02/20/2023
Episode 211: Animal Creativity with Carol Gigliotti
On this episode, we speak to Professor Emerita Carol Gigliotti. Before retirement, Carol was Professor of Dynamic Media and Critical and Cultural Studies at Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver, Canada. She will be known to many listeners for her work on critical animal studies, animals and technology, and animals in art and design. This includes her 2009 book Leonardo’s Choice: Genetic Technologies and Animals, which was published by Springer. On this episode, however, we talk about her new book, which is called The Creative Lives of Animals. It was published in 2022 by New York University Press as part of their exciting Animals in Context series. This episode of Knowing Animals is brought to you by AASA, the Australasian Animal Studies Association, and the Animal Publics series at Sydney University Press.
/episode/index/show/knowinganimals/id/25868616
info_outline
Episode 210: Saving Animals (and Ourselves) with Jeff Sebo
02/06/2023
Episode 210: Saving Animals (and Ourselves) with Jeff Sebo
Dr Jeff Sebo is a Clinical Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at New York University, where he is also an affiliated professor in Bioethics, Medical Ethics, Philosophy, and Law, as well as the director of the Animal Studies MA Program and the Mind, Ethics, and Policy Program. He’s also co-director of the university’s Wild Animal Welfare Program. He sits on the executive committee of the New York University Center for Environmental and Animal Protection, and is part of the advisory board for the Animals in Context book series at New York University Press. He is also the author or co-author of a number of books about animals; today, we discuss his most recent book, which is Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves: Why Animals Matter for Pandemics, Climate Change, and other Catastrophes. It was published by Oxford University Press in 2022. This episode is brought to you by the Animal Publics book series at Sydney University Press and the Australasian Animal Studies Association, which you can (and should!) join today.
/episode/index/show/knowinganimals/id/25841766
info_outline
Episode 209: Teaching Literary Animal Studies with Liza Bauer
01/23/2023
Episode 209: Teaching Literary Animal Studies with Liza Bauer
Today's guest is Liza Bauer, a PhD candidate in literature at the University of Giessen in Germany, as well as the manager of the Panel on Planetary Thinking project at Giessen. Her dissertation, Livestock in the Laboratory of Literature, explores literary visions of human-animal relationships as thought experiments for novel political futures. She’s published widely on human-animal studies in both English and German. We talk about her work on animal studies pedagogy. Liza’s paper “Reading the Stretch the Imagination: Exploring Representations of 'Livestock' in Literary Thought Experiments” was published in the open access book Multispecies Futures: New Approaches to Teaching Human-Animal Studies, edited by Andreas Hübner, Micha Gerrit Philipp Edlich, and Maria Moss, and published by Neofelis in 2022. The paper was based on an earlier German-language paper by Liza in Simone Horstmann’s Interspezies Lernen, which was published by Transcript in 2021. This episode of Knowing Animals is brought to you by the Australasian Animal Studies Association, which you can join today, and the Animal Publics book series at Syndey University Press. For more information about our sponsors, take a look at their websites!
/episode/index/show/knowinganimals/id/25669287
info_outline
Episode 208: Victims of Fashion with Helen Cowie
01/09/2023
Episode 208: Victims of Fashion with Helen Cowie
Today's guest is Professor Helen Cowie, a Professor of Early Modern History in the Department of History at the University of York. Her work has a particular focus on the history of animals. Her books include the 2011 Manchester University Press monograph Conquering Nature in Spain and Its Empire, 1750-1850; the 2014 Palgrave Macmillan monograph Exhibiting Animals in Nineteenth-Century Britain; and the 2017 book Llama, part of the Reaktion Books Animal series. Today, we’re going to talk about her book Victims of Fashion: Animal Commodities in Victorian Britain, which was published in 2021 by Cambridge University Press. This episode is brought to you by AASA (the Australasian Animal Studies Association), which you can join today. It is also brought to you by the Animal Publics series at Sydney University Press.
/episode/index/show/knowinganimals/id/25384911
info_outline
Episode 207: Gay Frogs with Hannah Boast
12/26/2022
Episode 207: Gay Frogs with Hannah Boast
Today, we speak to Dr Hannah Boast. Hannah is a Lecturer/Assistant Professor and Ad Astra Fellow in the School of English, Drama and Film at University College Dublin, in Ireland. She is probably best known for her work on literature and water. Her first book was called Hydrofictions: Water, Power and Politics in Israeli and Palestinian Literature, and was released in 2020 by Edinburgh University Press. But she works more broadly in resource politics, political ecology, food studies, queer ecology, and critical animal studies. In this episode, we talk about a paper that touches on several of these themes. ‘Theorizing the Gay Frog’ was released in November in Environmental Humanities. This episode of is brought to you by AASA, the Australasian Animal Studies Association, which you can join today. It's also brought to you by the Animal Publics book series, from Sydney University Press, which features lots of great books about animal studies... Including a book about toads!
/episode/index/show/knowinganimals/id/25177296
info_outline
Episode 206: Vegan Geographies with Richard White
12/12/2022
Episode 206: Vegan Geographies with Richard White
In this very special live episode of Knowing Animals, recorded as part of The Vegan Society's On the Pulse webinar series, we speak to Dr Richard White. Richard is a Reader in Human Geography at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK. He is interested in anarchism, activism, critical animal studies, and vegan geographies. He is the co-editor of five books, including the 2015 collection Anarchism and Animal Liberation. We talk about his paper ‘Re-asserting the Radical Promise of Veganism through Vegan-Anarchist Geographies’, which was published in the 2022 Lantern Publishing book Vegan Geographies: Spaces Beyond Violence, Ethics Beyond Speciesism, which was co-edited by Paul Hodge, Andrew McGregor, Simon Springer, Ophélie Véron, and Richard himself. This episode is brought to you by AASA (the Australasian Animal Studies Association) and the Animal Publics book series from Sydney University Press. Join the former to be part of a major international network of animal studies scholars; take a look at the latter to find your next animal studies read!
/episode/index/show/knowinganimals/id/25177122
info_outline
Episode 205: Cubes of Truth with Serrin Rutledge-Prior
11/28/2022
Episode 205: Cubes of Truth with Serrin Rutledge-Prior
On this episode, we speak to Serrin Rutledge-Prior, who is reading for a doctorate at in the School of Politics and International Relations at the Australian National University in Canberra, and is, at time of recording, a Visiting Scholar in the Philosophy Department at the University of Arizona in Tucson, United States. She’s interested in questions about animal politics, animal law, and democratic representation. Today, we’re going to talk about a paper of hers that touches on all three of these issues: ‘Criminalising (cubes of) truth: Animal advocacy, civil disobedience, and the politics of sight’ was published online first in the journal Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy in 2022. This episode is brought to you by AASA (the Australasian Animal Studies Association) and the Animal Publics series from Sydney University Press.
/episode/index/show/knowinganimals/id/25148763
info_outline
Episode 204: Civet Coffee with Jes Hooper
11/14/2022
Episode 204: Civet Coffee with Jes Hooper
Today's guest is Jes Hooper. Jes is a PhD candidate in Anthrozoology at the University of Exeter and the Campaigns and Research Manager for Badger Trust, a British animal protection organisation. The working title of her PhD thesis is Civets in Society: Understanding the Human-Animal Interactions Within Civet Trades. She is also the founder of The Civet Project, an organisation devoted to better understanding human/civet interactions. Unsurprisingly, we're talking about civets! In particular, we’re discuss Jes’s paper ‘Cat-Poo-Chino and Captive Wildlife: Tourist Perceptions of Balinese Kopi Luwak Agrotourism’, which was published open access in the journal Society & Animals in 2022, as well as her developing research on human-civet interaction. This episode is brought to you by AASA (the Australasian Animal Studies Association), which you can join today. It's also brought to you by the Animal Publics book series, which is published by Sydney University Press.
/episode/index/show/knowinganimals/id/24832428
info_outline
Episode 203: Vegan Young Adult Fiction with Ali Ryland
10/31/2022
Episode 203: Vegan Young Adult Fiction with Ali Ryland
On this episode, we speak to Ali Ryland. Ali is an animal studies scholar reading for a PhD in English at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. The working title of her thesis is Changing Representations of Women and Cow, from Milkmaid to Milking Machine. Today, however, we’re going to talk about her chapter in the 2022 collection The Edinburgh Companion to Vegan Literary Studies, which was edited by former Knowing Animals guests Laura Wright and Emelia Quinn. Part II of the book addresses genres and forms of vegan literature, and Ali contributed a chapter on the genre of young adult fiction. This episode is brought to you by AASA (the Australasian Animal Studies Association) which you can join today, and the Animal Publics book series at Sydney University Press. Be sure to take a look at both of their websites.
/episode/index/show/knowinganimals/id/24842979
info_outline
Episode 202: Animal Ethics and Moral Experts with Frauke Albersmeier
10/17/2022
Episode 202: Animal Ethics and Moral Experts with Frauke Albersmeier
On this episode of Knowing Animals, we speak to Dr Frauke Albersmeier. Frauke is a research fellow in philosophy at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. Her research concerns metaphilosophy and ethics, including animal ethics and theories of moral progress, and she’s published a number of papers on speciesism and animal rights theory. In the episode, we talk about her 2022 paper ‘Popularizing Moral Philosophy by Acting as a Moral Expert’, which was published open access in the philosophy journal Kriterion. This provides an excellent opportunity to reflect on the role of animal ethicists and other animal studies scholars when they speak publicly – including, of course, when they speak on podcasts like this one!
/episode/index/show/knowinganimals/id/24679116