The Animal Turn

We explore how Stranger Things signals a new monstrous moment, moving from unknowable creatures to human-made villains, and what that shift says about power, identity, and culture. Along the way, we ask how animals get coded as monsters and when their agency is reclaimed or removed in film and TV.

Date Recorded: 22 April 2025
 
Featured: 
Tolerance Discourse and Young Adult Holocaust Literatureby Rachel Dean-Ruzicka 
Paranormal Maturation: Uncanny Teenagers and Canny Killers by Rachel Dean-Ruzicka 
Of Scrivens and Sparks: Girl Geniuses in Young Adult Dystopian Fiction by Rachel Dean-Ruzicka 
Monster Culture (Seven Theses) by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen
The Monster Theory Reader by  Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock
The Angel of Indian Lake by  Stephen Graham Jones
Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer
Stranger Things
Cocaine Bear
Mickey 17
Okja
Random Number Generator Horror Podcast No. 9
Nature Trail to Hell
Monsters, Heroes, and Others: Unpacking Power in Media and Politics through Race or Species
A.P.P.L.E
Animals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.

iROAR Network
iROAR brings together podcasts that aim is to make the world a better place for animals.

Georgia Institute of Technology
School of Modern Language, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, School of Literature, Media, & Commun

Pollination Project
The Pollination Project empowers volunteers across by providing the funding they need.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the show
The Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. Learn more on our website.
Leave a Review on Podchaser
Check out The Animal Turn Merch.
Support us on Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee, and Buzzsprout.

Gina Song Lopez, researching vegan movements in Taiwan and China through the lens of local culture and social media, and Taylor Jobling, a law lecturer unpacking how Australia’s legislation categorises animals, come on to the show to discuss the main themes and tensions to emerge in Season 8, Animals and Media 
 
Date Recorded: 8 December 2025

Featured:
 What Comes After Entanglement by Eva Giraud
The Birth of Korean Cool by Euny Hong
The Omnivore’s Deception by John Sanbonmatsu
Animals and the Rights to Politics by Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka
An analytical framework to understand the problematization of urban (historical) animals by Claudia Hirtenfelder
Black Fish 
Finding Nemo 
Flow
The Cove
Cowspiracy
Earthlings
A.P.P.L.E
Animals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.

iROAR Network
iROAR brings together podcasts that aim is to make the world a better place for animals.

Georgia Institute of Technology
School of Modern Language, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, School of Literature, Media, & Commun

Pollination Project
The Pollination Project empowers volunteers across by providing the funding they need.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the show
The Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. Learn more on our website.
Leave a Review on Podchaser
Check out The Animal Turn Merch.
Support us on Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee, and Buzzsprout.

In this episode we bring together a photojournalist from India, a Canadian columnist, and a political scientist/reporter to discuss animals and the news. We discuss different types of news as well as some of the challenges that come with creating news content that focuses on animals.   
 
Date Recorded: 4 June 2025
 
Featured: 
How to Spot Misinformation and Bias About Climate and Food in the News by Jessica Scott-Reid
Meatsplaining by Jason Hannan
Feed the People by Jan Dutkiewicz and Gabriel N. Rosenberg
Mother Cow, Mother India by Yamini Narayanan 
Netflix’s Liver King  Doc skips the meat of the story by Jessica Scott-Reid
An animal rights activist was in court on criminal charges. Why was the case suddenly dismissed? On The Guardian
Sentient Media
Free Willy
We Animals
Future Perfect on Vox
Animal Rights on The New Republic
Animals on The Guardian  
Animals Rights Activism on The Intercept
Animals on Wired
Animals on New York Times
Animal Justice

A.P.P.L.E
Animals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.

iROAR Network
iROAR brings together podcasts that aim is to make the world a better place for animals.

Georgia Institute of Technology
School of Modern Language, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, School of Literature, Media, & Commun

Pollination Project
The Pollination Project empowers volunteers across by providing the funding they need.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the show
The Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. Learn more on our website.
Leave a Review on Podchaser
Check out The Animal Turn Merch.
Support us on Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee, and Buzzsprout.

In this episode Ankita Rathour and Lynda Korimboccus join Claudia to discuss the interconnections of film, tv, and animals. Together they touch on everything from the Peppa Pig paradox in children’s media to the shifting role of animals in Hindi cinema, nationalism and caste politics. 

Date Recorded: 2 May 2025 
 
Featured: 
The Subaltern Gazes: Commentary on Amit Masurkar's Sherni by Ankita Rathour.
Pig-ignorant: The Peppa Pig Paradox. Investigating Contradictory Childhood Consumption by Lynda M Korimboccus
Animal representation on UK children’s television by Lynda M Korimboccus
Can the Subaltern Speak by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
From Symbolic to Agential: The Evolution of Natural Representation in Indian Eco-Sensitive Filmsby Rakesh Kumar Pankaj and Dibyakusum Ray
The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slaveryby Spiegel, Marjorie
Human supremacism: why are animal rights activists still the “orphans of the left”?by Will Kymlicka
When different is ambivalence: Strategic ignorance about meat consumptionby Marleen C. Onwezen and Cor N. van der Weele
Humane Jobs: A Political Economic Vision for Interspecies Solidarity and Human–Animal Wellbeing by Kendra Coulter 
Advertising oppression: the reproduction of anthroparchy in UK children's and" family" television by Kate F. Stewart and Matthew Cole
Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell.
Animal Farm by George Orwell.
Mother Cow, Mother India by Yamini Narayanan
The Sexual Politics of Meat by Carol J Adams
The Desi Gaze, a podcast by Ankita Rathour.
Tribe Animal Sanctuary 
Peppa Pig
RRR (Rise, Roar, Revolt)
Tigress Sherni 
Alvin and the Chimpmunks
Haathi Mere Saathi
The Elephant Whisperers
 Matilda and the Brace Escape
Earthlings
Blackfish
Wicked
Azaad
Article 15
War Horse
Babe
The Last Pig
Deliverance (
A.P.P.L.E
Animals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.

Georgia Institute of Technology
School of Modern Language, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, School of Literature, Media, & Commun

iROAR Network
iROAR brings together podcasts that aim is to make the world a better place for animals.

Pollination Project
The Pollination Project empowers volunteers across by providing the funding they need.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the show
The Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. Learn more on our website.
Leave a Review on Podchaser
Check out The Animal Turn Merch.
Support us on Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee, and Buzzsprout.

Guests Laura Fernández, Amanda Weiss, and Siobhan Speiran join Claudia to discuss case studies as wide ranging as Japanese animal cafes, Spanish bull fighting, and Costa Rican sanctuaries to unfurl the complex relations of social media and animals. Together they probe how social media packages animals as content, why that changes real lives, and where activism, policy, and platform design can push back. 
Date Recorded: 11 April 2025 

Featured: 
Han Heroes and Yamato Warriors: Competing Masculinities in Chinese and Japanese War Cinema by Amanda Weiss
Critical Animal and Media Studies by Núria Almiron, Matthew Cole, Carrie P. Freeman
Media Theories and the Crossroads of Critical Animal and Media Studies by Debra Merskin
Wounded men of feminism: Exploring regimes of male victimhood in the Spanish manosphere by Elisa García Mingo and Silvia Díaz Fernández
A field-based Conservation Welfare Assessment Framework for Costa Rican primate sanctuaries by Siobhan Sperian
The Emotional politics of images: moral shock, explicit violence and strategic visual communication in the animal liberation movement by Laura Fernández
Animal Traffic: Lively Capital in the Global Exotic Pet Trade by Rosemary-Claire Collard
Big Cat Reporting Tool by Four Paws
About Looking by John Berger
The Philosopher and the Wolf by Mark Rowlands.
Social Media Cruelty Coalition
Seoul Zebra Escape
Stop Animals Selfie Campaign 
The Civet Project
Global Federation of Sanctuar
A.P.P.L.E
Animals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.

iROAR Network
iROAR brings together podcasts that aim is to make the world a better place for animals.

Georgia Institute of Technology
School of Modern Language, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, School of Literature, Media, & Commun

Pollination Project
The Pollination Project empowers volunteers across by providing the funding they need.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the show
The Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. Learn more on our website.
Leave a Review on Podchaser
Check out The Animal Turn Merch.
Support us on Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee, and Buzzsprout.