Storytelling Animals

In this bonus episode of Storytelling Animals, I look back on what I've learned from almost two years of the podcast with my brother Kyle Martindale, who designed my logo. We also talk about his new children's book, The ABC's of the Real Dancing Eagle , and share some formative animal encounters from our pasts. Thanks so much for everyone who supported this podcast in any way throughout my first t...

Today's guest is Ben Goldfarb, author of Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet . It's the last episode in my series on the trouble with car dependency, and a nice companion to my earlier series on animal agency. It's also the official season finale of this podcast, although there will be one last bonus episode in September. Patreon subscribers will not be charged next mon...

Part 3 of my series on car dependency, my guest today is Kevin Shen of the Union of Concerned Scientists, who researches transit policy and electrification of large vehicles. Read some of his work here: https://blog.ucsusa.org/author/kshen/ Subscribe to my free biweekly-ish newsletter:  https://apple6.aweb.page/p/de4ee963-cd8d-4ced-9975-e13965236a7d Support my work on Patreon:  https://p...

Today's guest is Jeremy Withers, author of Futuristic Cars and Space Bicycles: Contesting the Road in American Science Fiction . We discuss authors from Ray Bradbury and Ursula Le Guin to Octavia Butler and Kim Stanley Robinson. Part two in my series on the trouble with car culture. Learn more about Jeremy's book here: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/futuristic-cars-and-space-bicycles-9781...

This week I talk with Daniel Knowles, author of Carmageddon: How Cars Make Life Worse and What To Do About It . Part 1 of a new series on transforming our car-dependent culture. Listen to part 2 by starting your 7-day Patreon free trial today: https://patreon.com/storytellingpod Learn more about Daniel's book here: https://www.abramsbooks.com/product/carmageddon_9781419758805/ Subscribe to my free...

Part 4 of my 4-part series on animal agency! An interview with pattrice jones of VINE Sanctuary . We talk about building a just multispecies community, the trouble with effective altruism, and the sexism of the dairy industry. For more on VINE Sanctuary: https://vinesanctuary.org/ For my prior interview with Lori Gruen and Alice Crary: https://shows.acast.com/storytelling-animals/episodes/animal-c...

I talk about Jurassic Park --both the book and the movie--with Matt Haugen of Terrain. It's a joint episode of our two podcasts, and part 3 of my 4-part series on animal agency. Part 4 of that series is now available to Patreon subscribers: https://patreon.com/storytellingpod For Matt's substack and podcast: https://www.terrain.news/ For my article on de-extinction: https://www.vox.com/future-perf...

Part 2 of a series on animal agency! An interview with Eva Meijer, author of  When Animals Speak: Toward an Interspecies Democracy. For more on the book:  https://nyupress.org/9781479863136/when-animals-speak/ For more on the author's work: https://www.evameijer.nl/en/indexen.html Support this podcast with a monthly donation on Patreon:  https://patreon.com/storytellingpod Subscribe...

Part 1 of a series on animal agency! An interview with Carol Gigliotti, author of The Creative Lives of Animals . For more on the book: https://nyupress.org/9781479815463/the-creative-lives-of-animals For the author's recent op-ed in The Scientist : https://www.the-scientist.com/reading-frames/opinion-biodiversity-loss-worsened-by-extinguishing-animal-innovators-70535 Support this podcast with a m...

I am republishing my very first episode, an interview with Emma Marris about her book Wild Souls , out newly in paperback . This is because we'll be talking about her book over Zoom at Storytelling Animals Book Club May 2, 8:30 Eastern! Learn more about our upcoming book club schedule, and how to join:  https://daytonmartindale.com/book-club/ New episodes coming in April. Support this podcast...

Season 1 finale! A personal history of how and why I became a vegan. For more resources on animal liberation, see my website: https://daytonmartindale.com/2023/02/09/further-reading-on-veganism-episode-40/ Support the HarperCollins strike: https://linktr.ee/hcpunion (UPDATE - since I recorded this episode the union has reached a tentative agreement ) Support this podcast with a monthly donation on...

January 25, 2023, is acclaimed writer Virginia Woolf's 141st birthday! To celebrate, I invited scholar of modernist literature Bonnie Kime Scott to talk about how animals and nature show up in Woolf's work, and how novels can represent other consciousnesses. To read Woolf's "The Death of a Moth": https://www.sanjuan.edu/cms/lib8/CA01902727/Centricity/Domain/3981/Death%20of%20A%20Moth-Virginia%20Wo...

Martha C. Nussbaum is a professor of law and ethics at the University of Chicago, and the author most recently of Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility . On this episode we discuss animal capabilities, the ethics of killing, and how the law can better protect other species. For more on the book: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Justice-for-Animals/Martha-C-Nussbaum/9781982102500...

I read 78 books this year, the most in my adult life, and I want to share some of my favorites, especially some that I didn't get a chance to cover on the podcast! I pick my favorites in the following categories: best overall; 2022 release (fiction); 2022 release (nonfiction); older release (nonfiction); older release (novel); older release (short stories). Plus I list some honorable mentions and...

With CRISPR technology, it is easier than ever for geneticists to alter human DNA, make deadlier pathogens, render mosquitoes infertile, and make other dramatic interventions into organisms and ecosystems. But the science and the ethics of all this is far from straightforward. Biologist Matthew Cobb, author of As Gods: A Moral History of the Genetic Age , guides us through decades of genetic engin...

Rachel E. Gross is the author of Vagina Obscura: An Anatomical Voyage , depicting how a new generation of (mostly) women scientists are changing how we understand female (and other) bodies. For more on the book:  https://wwnorton.com/books/vagina-obscura Support this podcast with a monthly donation on Patreon--help reach 30 supporters by episode 40!  https://patreon.com/storytellingpod T...

Support this podcast with a monthly donation on Patreon--help reach 30 supporters by episode 40!  https://patreon.com/storytellingpod This week's guest is Thom van Dooren, author of A World in a Shell: Snail Stories for a Time of Extinction . We talk about the beauty, wonder, and mystery of snails, and how their worlds are threatened. For more on the book:  https://mitpress.mit.edu/97802...

Support this podcast with a monthly donation on Patreon--help reach 30 supporters by episode 40!  https://patreon.com/storytellingpod This week's guest is Dan Chodorkoff, cofounder of the Institute for Social Ecology and author of the new novel, Sugaring Down. We talk about the Vermont commune lives of his novel's protagonists, as well as his own experience in the 1960s and his work on social...

Support this podcast with a monthly donation on Patreon--help reach 30 supporters by episode 40:  https://patreon.com/storytellingpod Today's guest is fiction writer Talia Lakshmi Kolluri, author of the new collection What We Fed to the Manticore . In our interview we discuss animal senses, meaning and purpose, as well as the research she did to learn to see the world through nonhuman eyes. T...

On today's episode I explore three topics from recent climate and environmental headlines: the devastating flooding in Pakistan, debates over permitting reform, and how single-use plastic bags compare to reusable ones. Below are some relevant links. On Pakistan: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-09-03/pakistan-floods-sindh-balochistan-climate-change-reparations https://theconversation.com...

With a new Lord of the Rings television series out, I thought it was high time to explore the powerful environmental themes of Middle-Earth. Alongisde Tolkien expert Tom Emanuel, I dig deep into Treebeard, Tom Bombadil, power's corrupting force, and finding courage to resist in the face of overwhelming odds. We also briefly give our takes on the first two episodes of The Rings of Power . Whether y...

This week's guest is Ron Broglio, English professor at Arizona State University and author of the book Animal Revolution. We talk about the myriad ways in which nonhuman creatures through sand in the gears of the capitalist machine, and how we might respond to better share the earth. Learn more about the book here: https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/animal-revolution Listen to my prior...

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the biggest climate legislation in US history, just passed Congress. What is the good, the bad, and the ugly of the bill? How did we get here, and what is next for the climate movement? I spoke with Johanna Bozuwa, executive director of the Climate and Community Project (CCP). Read the CCP's analysis of the IRA here:  https://www.climateandcommunity.org/infl...

Today's guests are philosophers Alice Crary and Lori Gruen, authors of the new book Animal Crisis: A New Critical Theory . In it, they argue that the dominant approaches to animal ethics--whether utilitarian or rights-based-- treat animals too much as abstractions and often fail to engage with the political, economic, and social systems that sustain oppression among humans and other creatures alik...

Am I conscious? Yes. How about you, or a chimpanzee or a parrot? Almost definitely. What about an oak tree, a bacterium, an electron, or God? In The Book of Minds: How To Understand Ourselves and Other Beings, From Animals to AI to Aliens , science writer Philip Ball explores the minds or mind-like qualities that seem to exist in the world, and how best to make sense of it all when the science of...