The Animal Turn
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.
The Animal Turn
S2E10: Grad Review with Pablo Perez Castello, Siobhan Speiran, and Joshua Jones
In this final episode of Season 2, Claudia talks to Joshua Jones, Siobhan Speiran, and Pablo Perez Castello about the theme of Animals and Experience. Together they unpack some of the overarching ideas to emerge in episodes 1 to 9 (such as relationality, imagination, meaning, and beauty) and highlight areas that could be explored more in future.
Date recorded: 4 January 2021
Siobhan Speiran is a PhD candidate in Environmental Studies at Queen’s, working with Dr. Alice Hovorka and The Lives of Animals Research Group. Her research is funded by a SSHRC Bombardier Scholarship and focuses on the lives of nonhuman primates in Costa Rican sanctuaries. Her central research question is interdisciplinary, considering how sanctuaries - as sites of ecotourism - contribute to the conservation and welfare of four monkey species. Follow Siobhan’s research on @theanimalwelfarist via Instagram or her website theanimalwelfarist.weebly.com
Joshua Jones is a PhD candidate at the School of Environmental Studies, Queen’s University. His research interests include extinction studies, the philosophy of ecology/biology, and biosemiotics. Josh’s thesis explores the emptiness that resides in ecological communities after species extinction. Twitter: @joshdanieljones
Pablo Perez Castello is a PhD candidate at the School of Humanities, Royal Holloway University of London. His thesis in Philosophy focuses on understanding the role human language plays in producing anthropocentrism, and the importance of animal language in relation to political agency and zoodemocracy. Pablo is also undertaking research at the Cambridge Centre for Animal Rights Law, where he explores how the constitution of Australia should change in light of the argument advanced by Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka that communities of wild animals should have a right to sovereignty. He has taught Ancient Greek Philosophy, and lectured on philosophical concepts of nature in the MA in Political Philosophy at Royal Holloway. For more information, see here.
Featured: The Complete Capuchin by Dorothy Fragaszy; Decolonizing Extinction by Juno Parreñas; Beasts of Burden by Sunaura Taylor; Being Si
A.P.P.L.EAnimals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.
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The Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. Learn more on our website.
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