Animals are increasingly at the forefront of research questions – Not as shadows to human stories, or as beings we want to understand biologically, or for purely our benefit – but as beings who have histories, stories, and geographies of their own. Each season is set around themes with each episode unpacking a particular animal turn concept and its significance therein. Join Claudia Hirtenfelder as she delves into some of the most important ideas emerging out of this recent turn in scholarship, thinking, and being.
David Rooney is currently currently an Associate Professor of Practice and Director of Debate at the University of Wyoming. Their research intersects environmental communication, animal studies, critical/cultural studies and digital rhetoric. In particular, some recent works examine how hierarchies of race, gender and sexuality are reproduced through Western norms of appropriate human-animal, and, by extension, human-nature relations.