Knowing Animals

On this episode of Knowing Animals, we speak to Dr Catherine Oliver of the Univeristy of Cambridge's Department of Geography about her book Veganism, Archives, and Animals, published by Routledge on 13 August 2021. This episode of Knowing Animals is brought to you by AASA, the Australasian Animal Studies Association. To learn about their upcoming 2021 conference, take a look at https://artsfront.com/event/137832-flourishing-animals. The episode is also brought to you by the Animal Publics book series, from Sydney University Press: https://sydneyuniversitypress.com.au/collections/series-animal-publics.

On this episode of Knowing Animals, we speak to Dr Vasile Stanescu. Vasile is an associate professor of Communication Studies at Mercer University in the United States. Lots of listeners will know him for his work in critical animal studies: he co-edits the Critical Animal Studies book series published by Brill, he’s a former co-editor of the Journal for Critical Animal Studies, and a co-founder of the North American Association for Critical Animal Studies. Today, we’re going to talk about his paper “‘White Power Milk’: Milk, Dietary Racism, and the ‘Alt-Right’”, which was published in 2018 in Animal Studies Journal. This episode is brought to you by the Australasian Animal Studies Association and the Animal Publics book series with Sydney University Press.

Dr Blake Hereth is a philosopher who is, at the time of recording, Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Arkansas. They will soon be taking up a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, where they will be contributing to a project entitled "Warfighter Participation in the Development and Testing of Artificial Intelligence". In addition to work on the ethics of war and peace, which is what we discuss on this episode, Blake has published on a range of topics in philosophy and theology, including work on the ethics of procreation, the ethics of eating, and the afterlife for animals and queer people. In this episode, we talk about Blake’s paper “Animal Rights Pacifism”, which was published “online first” in the journal Philosophical Studies earlier this year. Knowing Animals is brought to you by the Australasian Animal Studies Association (http://animalstudies.org.au/) and the Animal Publics book series at Sydney University Press (https://sydneyuniversitypress.com.au/collections/series-animal-publics).

Dr. Elan Abrell, a cultural anthropologist, discusses animal sanctuaries and the challenges they face in providing care for animals. They explore motivations behind caring for animals in sanctuaries and the ethical dilemmas involved. The episode also touches on the challenges of animal studies research and mentions a new project on the rendering industry.

This episode features an interview with Dr Eva Meijer. Eva is a philosopher who is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Wageningen University and Research, though she will soon be beginning a research fellowship at the University of Amsterdam entitled ‘The politics of (not) eating animals’. She is also an accomplished musician, visual artist, and author of popular fiction and popular non-fiction. She has published ten books, which have been translated into eighteen languages. Her books available in English include the novel Bird Cottage and the non-fiction books Animal Languages: The Secret Conversations of the Living World and The Limits of My Language: Meditations on Depression. In this episode, we talk about her academic monograph When Animals Speak: Toward an Interspecies Democracy, which was published in 2019 by NYU Press, as the first book in their Animals in Context series. This episode of Knowing Animals is brought to you by AASA (the Australasian Animal Studies Association) and the Animal Publics book series (Sydney University Press).

This episode of Knowing Animals features an interview with Professor Laura Wright. Laura is a Professor of English at Western Carolina University. She has authored research monographs of the work of J. M. Coetzee and on postcolonial studies, but is particularly well known in the animal studies world for championing “vegan studies”. Her book The Vegan Studies Project: Food, Animals, and Gender in the Age of Terror was published in 2015 by the University of Georgia Press, and her edited collection Through A Vegan Studies Lens: Textual Ethics and Lived Activism was published in 2019 by the University of Nevada Press. In this episode, we discuss “Framing vegan studies: Vegetarianism, veganism, animal studies, ecofeminism”, which is the first chapter of The Routledge Handbook of Vegan Studies. The handbook, which Laura edited, was published earlier in 2021. This episode of Knowing Animals is brought to you by the Australasian Animal Studies Association and the Animal Publics book series at Sydney University Press.

This episode features an interview with Dr Jishnu Guha-Majumdar. Jishnu is a multidisciplinary political theorist whose work addresses critical animal studies, Black studies, and critical prison studies. He is currently the Postdoctoral Fellow in Animal Studies at Queen’s University in Canada, though he will soon join Butler University's Political Science department as an Assistant Professor of Political Theory. We discuss his paper “Lyons and Tygers and Wolves, Oh My! Human Equality and the ‘Dominion Covenant’ in Locke’s Two Treatises”, which was published in the journal Political Theory in the ‘online first’ format in 2020. Knowing Animals is brought to you by the Australiasian Animal Studies Association and the Animal Publics book series at Sydney University Press.

Guest Karen Bradshaw, Professor of Law, discusses wildlife property rights, indigenous laws on animal property, interdisciplinary learning, and the future of animal scholarship.

On this episode of Knowing Animals, we speak to Dr Bob Fischer. Bob is an Associate Professor in Philosophy at Texas State University and co-director of the Society for the Study of Ethics and Animals. We talk about his book The Ethics of Eating Animals: Usually Bad, Sometimes Wrong, Often Permissible, which was published by Routledge in 2020. This episode of Knowing Animals is brought to you by the Australasian Animal Studies Association (http://animalstudies.org.au/) and the Animal Publics book series (https://sydneyuniversitypress.com.au/collections/series-animal-publics).

In this episode of Knowing Animals, we are joined by Nora Castle. Nora is a PhD student in the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick. We talk about her chapter “‘You Eat or You Die’: Sixth Extinction Cannibalism in Contemporary Speculative Fiction”, from the Routledge collection Interdisciplinary Essays on Cannibalism, edited by Giulia Champion. This episode of Knowing Animals is brought to you by AASA (the Australasian Animal Studies Association) and the Animal Publics book series (Sydney University Press).