S8E4: Popular Media and Pests with Lu Liu, Debra Merskin, and Emily Major

Emily Major is an academic activist who recently graduated with her PhD in Human-Animal Studies from the University of Canterbury in Aotearoa New Zealand. Her research focuses on how speciesism and the framing of nonhuman animals may prevent the healthy development of empathy through the desensitization and normalization of cruelty to animals, with a particular focus on the (mis)treatment of 'pest' species in conservation. Her interdisciplinary background in critical animal studies, intersectional feminism, and animal/human geography informs her work. She is a long-term committee member of the Australasian Animal Studies Association, a Research Fellow with PAN Works, and a dedicated Board member of the New Zealand Anti-Vivisection Society. In addition, she contributes to her blog, Framing Speciesism, which was funded by the Culture & Animals Foundation, and is working on a discourse analysis that examines children's literature, conservation narratives, and speciesism in New Zealand.

Debra Merskin is Professor Emerit (not a typo) from the University of Oregon School of Journalism & Communication. Her research and teaching focus on marginalized groups’ representation (or re-presentation) in media and popular culture. In particular, her work focuses on the impact of media portrayals on the lives of animals other than humans. She is the author of four books, multiple book chapters, and numerous journal articles. She and Dr. Carrie Freeman co-created the media style guide animalsandmedia.org to assist those who photograph, film, and write about animals to do so respectfully and responsibly. She lives in Central Oregon in the US, where she also volunteers in the Central Oregon Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation nonprofit (Thinkwildco.org) and serves on their board. Learn more here.

Lu Liu is an Assistant Professor of Chinese at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research explores the intersections of environmental history, animal history, and science and technology studies in modern China. She is completing a book manuscript, Trans-species Revolution: Pests and the Unwanted Nature in Modern China, 1900s–1970s, which examines the critical role of pests (haichong) as material and symbolic agents in shaping political struggles, enlightenment movements, socialist construction, and ecological engineering in Chinese history. Her publications also engage with medical humanities, media studies, space history, and Chinese science fiction.