The Animal Turn

In this bonus episode Claudia talks to Danielle Clode about her recent book on koalas. They talk about koalas’ incredible bodies and some of their social dynamics, including koalas unique digestive and reproductive systems and their long-distance bellows.    Date Recorded: 10 April 2023.    Danielle Clode is a biologist and natural history author based at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia...

Claudia discusses wonder with Jules Howard, author of the book Wonderdog . Using his book a backdrop, they discuss how dogs have influenced (and been influenced) by science. Topics include everything from evolution, to love and responsibility. Ultimately they marvel at how much there is we still don’t know about the creatures we share the world with.    Date Recorded: 31 March 2023.    Jules Howar...

In this bonus episode Claudia talks to Carol Kline and Jes Hooper about why it is important to think about animals in relation to tourism. They touch on some of the ways animals are included in tourism and how to guard against unwittingly contributing to animal suffering. A key feature of this episode is giving an overview of the Emerging Voices for Animals in Tourism Conference.    Date Recorded:...

In this final episode of the season Claudia talks to Amanda Bunten-Walberg and Oliver French, two fellow graduate students with interests in biosecurity. They delve into some the core themes in the season (including questions about scale, reproduction, and power) as well as some of the difficulties for thinking about biosecurity and animals.    Date Recorded: 27 January 2023   Amanda (Mandy) Bunte...

In this episode Claudia speaks to Nina Jamal about One Health. They discuss the changing definition of One Health and its significance for biosecurity and animals. They spend time thinking through the challenges and opportunities, particularly at the level of national and international policy.    Date Recorded: 1 December 2022   Nina Jamal is leading FOUR PAWS’ efforts on Pandemics & Animal We...

Claudia talks to Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka about community led conservation. They discuss her work with gorillas in Bwindi National Park and how helping them involves working together with the community through health initiatives, efforts to create better livelihoods, and paying attention to food security.     Date Recorded: 23 November 2022   Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka is Founder and CEO of Conserva...

In this episode Claudia chats to Chi Mao Wang about “the politics of domestication” which involves talking about the global-agri food industry, the meatification of diets in east Asia, and how this has resulted in increasing biosecurity measures in Taiwan. This leads them to a discussion about the westernization of domestication and the significance of decoupling the eating of meat from ideas of c...

Claudia talks to Camille Labchuk about the two recent legal cases at Smithfield and Excelsior which involved animal activism on pig farms in North America. They discuss how biosecurity is used as a means of creating ag-gag laws, the relative absence of biosecurity considerations in the cases, and the legal exceptionalism animal farms enjoy in Canada.    Date Recorded: 27 October 2022   Camille Lab...

Claudia talks to Thomas Hartung about animal testing in pharmacology and toxicology. They discuss how animal testing involves a weighing of values as well as some of the disruptive technologies that are providing alternatives to animal testing – including stem cell technologies and artificial intelligence.     Date Recorded: 5 October 2022   Thomas Hartung , MD PhD, is the Doerenkamp-Zbinden-Chair...

Claudia talks to Christos Lynteris, an anthropologist with a long history of researching some of the interconnections between animals and disease. In this episode they focus on rats and the third plague pandemic highlighting how rats went from being understood as in relation to others to being cemented as a vilified species in the spread of disease.      Date Recorded: 29 September 2022   Christos...

Claudia talks to Lauren van Patter about the concepts of feral and invasive species. They touch on the differences between the two concepts and consider how issues of colonization, reproduction, and human control lead to the categorization of some animals as biosecurity threats.    Date Recorded: 21 September 2022   Dr. Lauren Van Patter is the Kim & Stu Lang Professor in Community and Shelter...

In this episode Claudia talks to Jeff Sebo about bioethics and how it straddles both health and environmental ethics. They touch on some of the grounding principles of bioethics and how these principles frequently neglect to account for animals. They further discuss why a consideration of animals is necessary to achieve health and environmental justice.   Date Recorded: 16 August 2022   Jeff Sebo...

Claudia launches season 5 of The Animal Turn with a conversation on biosecurity with Steve Hinchliffe, a renowned geographer. They discuss how biosecurity is centered on the idea of keeping life safe and how this often operates through spatial logics of trying to keep threats out. They touch on how animals are often blamed for biosecurity threats, questions about whose lives are kept safe, and the...

In this bonus episode Claudia talks to Jamie Woodhouse about his podcast Sentientism. Most of the episode is concerned with sentientism as a concept and they talk about some of the tensions and opportunities guests on Jamie’s show have flagged.    Date Recorded: 26 September 2022   Jamie Woodhouse is working to develop Sentientism (“evidence, reason and compassion for all sentient beings”) as a wo...

In this bonus episode Claudia talks to Alice Crary and Lori Gruen about their recent book “Animal Crisis: A New Critical Theory.” They touch on what inspired the book and spend most of the conversation focused on what “Critical Animal Theory” means. It is a timely and theoretically dense conversation. Date Recorded: 1 August 2022   Alice Crary is University Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at...

In this final episode of Season 4 two graduate students, Hannah Hunter and Bailey Hilgren, chat with Claudia about some of the core themes and tensions to emerge from the season. This includes a focus on sound methodologies, such as issues with how we collect animal sounds to how (or even indeed whether) there is something special about sound in trying to understand the lives of animals.      Date...

Claudia talks to conservationist and ecologist Gloriana Chaverri about the numerous and diverse ways in which bats communicate. This bonus episode deviates from the usual focus on concepts to a more sustained focus on this large order of animals    Date Recorded: 29 March 2022   Gloriana Chaverri is an Associate Professor at the Golfito campus of the University of Costa Rica. She is also a Researc...

Claudia talks to Denise Herzing about her decades of fieldwork with Atlantic Spotted Dolphins in the Bahamas. They touch on some of what she has learnt about dolphins in the wild and the ways in which they communicate using sound. They also talk about the significance and challenges of doing extended field studies.    Date Recorded: 23 March 2022   Denise Herzing is the Founder and Research Direct...

In this episode Claudia chats to Rachel Mundy about the concept “Sonic Specimen” they talk about the historical categorisation of sound illustrates some of the ways in which humans and animals have been hierarchically thought of. They touch on how this has shaped and is shaped by the institutional production of knowledge also hinting at the usefulness of related concepts like “animanities” and “tr...

Claudia talks to Jeremy Gordon about the concept “Republic of Noise”. They discuss the relationship between noise and politics and think through how noise might be used as a tool that enables listening and democracy. They “riff” with each other trying to think through the tensions between noise and harmony as well as whose sounds are considered pleasant or not and how that shapes how one belongs t...

Claudia talks to Eva Meijer about voice as a concept that helps us to think about animal sounds and practices in a more politicised way. Eva touches on how a broader conception of politics and voice allows for a more nuanced actions in response to animals and the lives they are trying to lead. They also touch on the usefulness of a variety of languages, mediums, and disciplines in becoming profici...

In this episode Claudia talks to musicologist Martin Ullrich about animals and music. Together they touch on the multiple ways in which music and animals intersect from how animals inspire human music, to how animals make and listen to music, and the ethics of more-than-human musical encounters. They find that the focus on animals and music destabilizes anthropocentric understandings of both cultu...

In this episode Claudia talks to Cheryl Tipp about sound archives, how they are managed and the ways in which animal studies scholars might use them in trying to research animals. Together they think about why some sounds are included in national archives more than others as well as how recordings of nature and animal voices are valued.  Date Recorded: 1 December 2021   Cheryl Tipp is the British...

In this episode Claudia continues the focus on methodology as it relates to animals and sound. This time Mickey Vallee joins The Animal Turn to talk about the concept of bioacoustics and how using bioacoustics methods alters the ways researchers relate to their research subjects – who are often animals. They discuss some of the theory and ideas circulating bioacoustics generally and Mickey’s exper...

In this episode Claudia talks to Jonathan Prior about sonic methods and together they try to explore the ways in which methods such as recording, sound walking, and listening could help animal studies scholars better understand and appreciate the animals and worlds they are most concerned with.    Date Recorded: 12 October 2021   Dr Jonathan Prior is a lecturer in Human Geography at Cardiff Univer...