286 episodes

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!

Knowing Animals Josh Milburn

    • Society & Culture
    • 4.7 • 32 Ratings

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!

    Episode 229: What are animal rights for? With Steve Cooke

    Episode 229: What are animal rights for? With Steve Cooke

    Dr Steve Cooke is an Associate Professor of Political Theory in the School of History, Politics, and International Relations at the University of Leicester. His work addresses animal rights, and how we (individually and collectively) should act given that our political communities are not friendly to animals. On this episode, we talk about Steve's new book What Are Animal Rights For?, which was published in 2023 by Bristol University Press.

    • 32 min
    Episode 228: An animal rights archive with Kim Stallwood

    Episode 228: An animal rights archive with Kim Stallwood

    This episode features the independent activist and academic Kim Stallwood. After becoming involved in animal rights campaigning in the 1970s, Stallwood began archiving material relating to the movement. Much of this media is now available to researchers as part of the Kim Stallwood Archive at the British Library. In this episode, we discuss his archive and a series of blogposts about animal rights he produced for the British Library.
    This episode is sponsored by the newly renamed Animal Politics series at Sydney University Press. To learn more about the series, visit the Sydney University Press website.

    • 30 min
    Episode 227: Killing animals in shelters with Angie Pepper

    Episode 227: Killing animals in shelters with Angie Pepper

    Dr Angie Pepper in a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Roehampton in the UK. She works in moral and political philosophy, and has published papers on, among other topics, animals’ right to privacy, animals’ political agency, and what we owe to animals in light of climate change. In this episode, we discuss the collection The Ethics of Animal Shelters, which Angie co-edited with Valery Giroux and Kristin Voigt, including both the guidelines and recommendations in Part I of the book, and Angie’s chapter ‘Caring in Non-Ideal Conditions: Animal Rescue Organizations and Morally Justified Killing’ in part II of the book. The Ethics of Animal Shelters was published in 2023 by Oxford University Press.

    • 37 min
    Episode 226: New omnivorism with Christopher Bobier

    Episode 226: New omnivorism with Christopher Bobier

    On this episode of Knowing Animals, we are joined by Dr Christopher Bobier. Chris is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Saint Mary's University of Minnesota and the Associate Director of the Hendrickson Institute for Ethical Leadership. Among other things, his research concerns ethics, including lots of work on animal and food ethics. Today, we’re going to talk about his collection New Omnivorism and Strict Veganism: Critical Perspectives, especially his chapter 'New omnivore policy: Friend or foe of veganism?'. The book, which Chris co-edited with Dr Cheryl Abbate, was released in 2023 by Routledge.

    • 29 min
    Episode 225: Solitary confinement of humans and animals with Delcianna J. Winders

    Episode 225: Solitary confinement of humans and animals with Delcianna J. Winders

    This episode features Professor Delcianna J. Winders. Delci is an associate professor of law and the Director of the Animal Law and Policy Institute at Vermont Law & Graduate School in the United States. Her published work addresses the law around farmed animals, slaughterhouse workers, captive wild animals, animal advocacy, animal testing, and related subjects in animal and administrative law. We talk about her 2022 paper ‘Treating Humans Worse Than Animals? Exposing a False Solitary Confinement Narrative’. This appeared in the Cambridge University Press book Carceral Logics: Human Incarceration and Animal Captivity, edited by Lori Gruen and Justin Marceau. This book is open access, meaning that you can read and download Delci’s chapter, and the rest of the book, free of charge from anywhere in the world.

    • 33 min
    Episode 225: Animals and Epistemic Injustice with Andrew Lopez

    Episode 225: Animals and Epistemic Injustice with Andrew Lopez

    This episode features Andrew Lopez. Andrew is a PhD candidate in philosophy at Queen’s University in Canada, where he works on critical animal studies, political philosophy, feminist philosophy, and the philosophy of biology. Regular listeners to Knowing Animals will have heard his name before – he was the co-author of the excellent ‘Gendering animals’, which we discussed with Letitia Meynell a few months ago. In this episode, we discuss Andrew's paper ‘Nonhuman animals and epistemic injustice’. This was published open access (meaning it’s free to read and download) in the Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy in 2023.

    • 29 min

Customer Reviews

4.7 out of 5
32 Ratings

32 Ratings

camellia schinner ,

opened up a whole new world

I am a lifelong vegetarian/vegan, and a non-academic—or “layperson” if you will—who only recently discovered the world of animal studies scholarship, thanks in part to this podcast. (I knew there had to be more than just vegan pop culture! It’s a desert out there for the inquisitive, critical thinker who is disillusioned with the same old rhetoric and vegan capitalistic consumerism…) I’m not much of a podcast listener, but whenever I happen to play this one, I am fastidiously note-taking, cross-referencing, and intently listening as if attending a lecture series. On a technical level, it’s well-produced and the ideal length. And the audio quality is excellent; the guests come through clear, volume is balanced, works great on speaker or headphones, etc. The host, Josh Milburn, (whose voice/accent reminds me of Queer Eye’s Tan France), stays focused, acting as architect for the conversation through expertly-posed questions and thoughtful responses, thereby avoiding the sort of chatty “fluff” that takes up a majority of podcasts—but that’s not to say the dialogue between host and guest is devoid of any personable affect. I appreciate how good of a listener Josh is, and, of course, having clearly done his research on the guest, is able to distill and summarize their thoughts, helping create a clarity and ease of understanding for a layperson such as myself. …but layperson I hope to be no longer! This podcast has illuminated to me the vast world of animal studies and theory that can marry all my intersecting interests, so I’m applying to go back to school (undergrad, then grad) and, hopefully, be able to study some of these topics! 🤩🤩

Mychael McNeeley ,

Wonderful Podcast

I have listened to this podcast for many years. It is consistently fantastic. I have learned so much about Animal Studies from many scholars. The hosts, originally Siobhan O’Sullivan, and now Josh Milburn, are thoughtful, super smart, attentive interviewers. I so appreciate both of them. Their styles are different, but they both follow a tried-and-true format that packs a lot of content into a fairly short podcast.

Currently, this is my favorite podcast in the realm of consideration of non-human animals.

branna neukom ,

My FAVORITE podcast

I highly recommend this podcast. My husband and I love listening to it on long drives together. We love learning about animal issues from a variety of perspectives and disciplines. The host does an excellent job with the interviews and makes it a very engaging listen.

Top Podcasts In Society & Culture

Fallen Angels: A Story of California Corruption
iHeartPodcasts
Inconceivable Truth
Wavland
Stuff You Should Know
iHeartPodcasts
This American Life
This American Life
Shawn Ryan Show
Shawn Ryan | Cumulus Podcast Network
The Viall Files
Nick Viall

You Might Also Like