S9E9: Meat, Flesh and Edibility with Erica Fudge
In this episode, Erica Fudge joins Claudia to think about how a focus on meat, flesh, and edibility can provide insights into human and animal histories. They focus on early modern England and discuss everything from bear baiting to cows named in wills and the fact that humans are edible too.
Erica Fudge is Professor of English Studies in the Department of Humanities at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. Her research is focused on the early modern English culture and history. Her books on this period include Brutal Reasoning: Animals, Rationality and Humanity in Early Modern England (Cornell, 2006) and Quick Cattle and Dying Wishes: People and their Animals in Early Modern England(Cornell, 2018). Her current research is focused on questions about meat, flesh and edibility in the period. From 2007 to 2023 Erica was the director of the British Animal Studies Network.
Mentioned:
Brutal Reasoning by Erica Fudge
Quick Cattle and Dying Wishes by Erica Fudge
A Left-Handed Blow: Writing the History of Animals by Erica Fudge
Early Modern Flesh by Erica Fudge
Aesop's Vomit: Or, Stomach Problems in Early Modern England by Erica Fudge
A Discourse on Method by René Descartes
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
The Eye of the Crocodile by Val Plumwood
The Animal That Therefore I Am by Jacques Derrida
Fowl Politics on Stones
"I asked myself, with that sinking sense of serious stupidity that mars many a final moment. Was it a philosophical mistake about identity, the self as disembodied consciousness dissociated from the food-providing self as material body? Or the idea that humans are special, above and apart from other animals? I had no real opportunity to ponder the cultural genesis of my false consciousness, for at that moment the crocodile made its move …” (Plumwood, Meeting the Predator, 2012, 11).
Thank you to Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics (A.P.P.L.E) for sponsoring this podcast; the Sonic Arts Studio and the Sonic Arts of Place Laboratory (SAPLab) for sponsoring this season; Gordon Clarke (Instagram: @_con_sol_) for the bed music, Jeremy John (Website) for the logo. This show is produced and hosted by Claudia Hirtenfelder.