

Knowing Animals
Josh Milburn
Knowing Animals is a regular 20 minutes podcast about all things related to animals and ethics; animals and the law; animals and politics; and animal advocacy. It features interviews with academic and animal advocates. It is available free so enjoy!
Episodes
Mentioned books

Oct 31, 2022 • 22min
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.

Oct 17, 2022 • 34min
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!

Oct 3, 2022 • 31min
Episode 201: Personality Psychology and Meat-Eating with Chris Hopwood
On this episode of Knowing Animals, we speak with Professor Chris Hopwood, Professor of Personality Psychology at the University of Zurich. He is a co-founder of the PHAIR Society (The Society for the Psychology of Human-Animal Intergroup Relations), and the editor of the society's journal, PHAIR. We discuss Chris's work on the links between personality and diet, including his paper 'Development and validation of the Motivations to Eat Meat Inventory', published open access in the journal Appetite, which was coauthored with Jared Piazza, Sophia Chen, and Wiebke Bleidorn.

Sep 19, 2022 • 38min
Protecting Animals 51: Sentientism with Jamie Woodhouse
This episode sees the return of our intermittant Protecting Animals series, which features interviews with animal activists. Today, we're talking with Jamie Woodhouse, who runs sentientism.info, the Sentientism podcast, and a range of outreach activities relating to the philosophy of sentientism. This episode of Knowing Animals is brought to you by AASA (the Australasian Animal Studies Association) and the Animal Publics book series at Sydney University Press.

Sep 5, 2022 • 30min
Episode 200: Animals and the International Criminal Court with Marina Lostal
For the 200th episode of Knowing Animals, we are joined by Dr Marina Lostal, who is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Law at the University of Essex. We explore Marina's recent turn to animal law by talking about her paper "De-objectifying Animals: Could they Qualify as Victims before the International Criminal Court?", which was published open access in the Journal of International Criminal Justice in 2021. This episode of Knowing Animals 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. This is a series featuring lots of titles in animal law; take a look, and encourage your library to order copies if you are interested!

Aug 22, 2022 • 42min
Episode 199: Frances Power Cobbe with Alison Stone
On this episode of Knowing Animals, we are joined by Professor Alison Stone. Alison is Professor in the Department of Politics, Philosophy, and Religion at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom. She’s authored nine academic books, and edited or co-edited three others, on assorted topics in feminist philosophy, continental philosophy, and aesthetics. But she joins us on Knowing Animals to talk about her current work on women in 19th century philosophy, and in particular her work on Frances Power Cobbe. Alison is the editor of Frances Power Cobbe: Essential Writings of a Nineteenth-Century Feminist Philosopher (released by Oxford University Press in 2022) and the author of Frances Power Cobbe, a short book in the Cambridge Elements series Women in the History of Philosophy, which was released by Cambridge University Press, also in 2022.

Aug 8, 2022 • 32min
Episode 198: Aurochs and Zooarchaeology with Lizzie Wright
For this episode, our guest is Dr Lizzie Wright, who is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie European Fellow in the Department of Archaeology at the University of York, where she is studying Neolithic cattle husbandry, and a research fellow in the Department of Classics and Archaeology at the University of Nottingham, where she contributes to a project on bear-bating in London. Lizzie is a real champion of zooarchaeology, and is currently the secretary of the International Council of Archaeozoology. In this episode, we talk about her paper ‘The aurochs in the European Pleistocene and Early Holocene: Origins, Evidence and Body Size’, which was published in Lockwood Press’s 2022 collection Cattle and People: Interdisciplinary Approaches to an Ancient Relationship, which was co-edited by Lizzie and Catarina Ginja.

Jul 25, 2022 • 45min
Episode 197: Feeding Animals with Josh Milburn
On this episode, Dr Siobhan O'Sullivan is back to turn the tables on Dr Josh Milburn, the podcast's new regular host! As well as being a podcaster, Josh is a Lecturer in Political Philosophy and British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at Loughborough University in the UK. Today, we explore his new book Just Fodder: The Ethics of Feeding Animals, released in 2022 by McGill-Queen's University Press. This episode is brought to you by AASA (the Australasian Animal Studies Association) and the Animal Publics series at Sydney University Press.

Jul 11, 2022 • 26min
Episode 196: The animal law of peace with Saskia Stucki
On this episode, we speak to Dr Saskia Stucki. Saskia is a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, Germany. Listeners may be familiar with her work in animal law and animal rights, though she also works on human rights, climate law, and environmental law. We discuss her paper ‘Animal Warfare Law and the Need for an Animal Law of Peace: A Comparative Reconstruction’, which is forthcoming the American Journal of Comparative Law. This episode is brought to you by AASA, the Australasian Animal Studies Association, which you can join today. Membership is very affordable! It is also brought to you by the Animal Publics book series, at Sydney University Press. Keep your eyes open for their latest releae, which is Australian Animal Law: Context and Critique, by Elizabeth Ellis.

Jun 27, 2022 • 45min
Episode 195: Animal critical theory with Alice Crary and Lori Gruen
On this very special episode of Knowing Animals, we have two guests! Our first guest is Professor Alice Crary. Alice is University Distinguished Professor in Philosophy, Liberal Studies, and Gender & Sexuality Studies at the New School for Social Research, and she’s currently a visiting fellow at All Souls College, University of Oxford. She’s authored or edited 8 books, including 2016’s Inside Ethics: On the Demands of Moral Thought. Our second guest is Professor Lori Gruen, who is the William Griffin Professor of Philosophy at Wesleyan University. Her many books include the textbook Ethics and Animals: An Introduction, the collection Critical Terms for Animal Studies, and the monograph Entangled Empathy: An Alternative Ethic for Our Relationships with Animals. We talk about about Alice and Lori’s new book Animal Crisis: A New Critical Theory which was published this year by Polity This episode of Knowing Animals is brought to you by AASA, the Australasian Animal Studies Association, which you can and should join today. It is also brought to you by the Animal Publics series at Sydney University Press. Take a look at their list of titles if you're looking to read new work in animal studies.