On the 2nd of December 2021, Claudia Hirtenfelder, host of The Animal Turn Podcast, was awarded with the inaugural prize for the AASA Popular Communication of Animal Studies.
The judges described the podcast as both aurally and visually appealing noting that it is a significant contribution to the dissemination of knowledge related to animal studies. The judges went on to note that the podcast is valuable not only for its episodes but for the various additional resources available on the website including the reading material, grad reviews, and an events calendar.
"The Animal Turn is not just a podcast, but an archive to distill and enact significant scholarship and promote scholarly events." - Judges
The award itself was made possible by the generous contribution of Siobhan O'Sullivan who is a founding member of the Australasian Animal Studies Association and founder of the Knowing Animals Podcast.
"Through her compelling work on The Animal Turn, Claudia Hirtenfelder fully responds to the Siobhan O’Sullivan Prize for Animal Studies Knowledge Translation. The work is aurally, intellectually and visually engaging, opening up the field in accessible ways. The Animal Turn is centralising animals to stimulate debate and discussion for graduate student audiences and far beyond" - Judges
Claudia thanked the judges for their kind comments and gave a heartfelt thank you to AASA, Siobhan O'Sullivan, her supervisors (Laura Cameron and Carolyn Prouse) as well as her mentors at Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics (Will Kymlicka and Sue Donaldson). She is also thankful for the support of her husband, Oliver Hirtenfelder, and dog, Linus. Claudia said she was honoured to receive the award and proud that she was part of a group of people trying to improve the world for animals.
An award was also given to Brodie Evans for the best journal article by an early career researcher. The judges felt Brodie's paper was not only an example of excellent scholarship but was well in line with the goals and objectives of AASA. The paper, titled Contesting and reinforcing the future of ‘meat’ through problematization: Analyzing the discourses in regulatory debates around animal cell-cultured meat” can be accessed here.
Awards such as these create significant infrastructure for animal studies scholars and are important to the development of the field. We look forward to following the development of these awards in future and hope more researchers, scholars and organizations will follow in the footsteps of Siobhan O'Sullivan and AASA in establishing such opportunities.
The Animal Turn is proud of Claudia Hirtenfelder and is impressed with the wonderful certificate featuring 'Gracie' and painted by Yvette Watt who is an animal artist and activist.
