The nice people at the University of Sheffield produced this video of the project that I undertook with the fabulously talented Rita Marcalo at Instant Dissidence for 2016’s Festival of the Mind.
BBC Radio 3 Free Thinking: Man and Animals
Back on Tues, 15 November, I took part in a discussion hosted by Free Thinking on BBC Radio 3. Entitled ‘Man and Animals‘, it was part of the 2016 Being Human Festival, recorded at FACT in Liverpool.
The programme can be heard here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b082kwsl
The full description is below:
French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss famously said that ‘animals are good to think with’. Rana Mitter with Sarah Peverley, Charles Forsdick, Alasdair Cochrane, Eveline de Wolf, Michael Szollosy and an audience at FACT, Liverpool debate robots, humans and animals.
The broadcast will preview upcoming events organised by the University of Liverpool as part of their Being Human festival programme and is part of a week of programmes on Radio 3 focusing on new research and the UK wide festival supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
From a best friend to a tasty snack or something we must carefully husband to a threat we must eradicate, we humans think about animals in lots of ways. But how has our thinking about animals changed over time, and what does that tell us about our shifting attitudes toward the natural world and our place in it? Hear the views of a medievalist who studies bestiaries and mermaids, a French scholar who explores the history of the ‘human zoo’, and a political theorist who argues that we should extend human rights to animals, a zookeeper, and an expert on human-robot relations.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Westworld blog on mad scientists and corporate villains
I’ve published another blog on Westworld, addressing larger themes in science fiction more generally:
The Ford Factor: mad scientists and corporate villains
Also available on Robohub.