top of page

Season 2: Animals and Experience

In Season 2 of the Animal Turn, Claudia speaks to scholars from philosophy, sociology, ecology, and geography about useful concepts for understanding animals and their experiences.

​

Some of the key themes to emerge from the discussions are  the tensions between individuals and groups, how experience can be used to understand social relations and animal culture, as well as the usefulness and challenges of thinking with animals' sensory experiences. This season is theoretically dense and provides a useful baseline for contemplating, thoughtfully, about the ways in which animals experience the world and what the implications are of that. 

 

The concepts include: Phenomenology, cognitive ethology, culture, art and aesthetics, intimate geography, interspecies subjectivity, political multispecies communities, shoalmates, and survivors. As always the season ends with a grad review discussing the key themes of the season. 

Zipporah Weisberg kicks off Season 2 of the Animal Turn with a conversation on Phenomenology
Jeffrey Bussolini explains how the concepts of art and aesthetics provide interesting avenues into understanding how animals experience the world
Sue Donalson explains how the concept of political multispecies communities enables an understanding of not only animal experiences but what those experiences compel us to do politically too
Siobhan Speiran, Pablo Perez Castello and Joshua Jones help to sum up Season 2 of The Animal Turn and the threads tying together the theme of animals and experience
Marc Bekoff explains the concept and practice of cognitive ethology in understanding animal experiences
Kathryn Gillespie unravels why geography is important in understanding animals' experiences and how intimate geographies as a concept could provide numerous interesting avenues to start unpacking them
Jonathan Balcombe uses the word shoalmates to highlight the social and complex lives that many fishes live
Carl Safina explains why culture is an essential concept in understanding the experiences of many animals
Lauren Corman explains how interspecies subjectivity and its theoretical density is a key area of consideration in exploring animal experiences
pattrice jones brings our focus to the lives and experiences of factory farmed animals and highlights how they experience such conditions as well as their drive to survive
bottom of page