Free Thinking - Being Human Debate at FACT, Liverpool: Man and Animals

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2 • 599 Ratings

🗓️ 15 November 2016

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?
0:23.3	It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream.
0:28.8	Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds.
0:32.0	Welcome to the Arts and Ideas podcast from the free thinking team at the BBC.
0:36.8	Hello and welcome to fact, the foundation for Art and Creative Technology in Liverpool.
0:42.3	With us today, we have a ghost, a ghost of the great anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss,
0:47.4	who once declared animals are good to think with, although of course he did it in a French accent.
0:52.9	For some, an animal is a lifelong companion. For others did it in a French accent. For some an animal is a lifelong
0:55.0	companion. For others, it's a tasty snack. How do we reconcile these two roles? And even more than
1:01.5	that, how can we bridge the gap between our treatment of humans and animals, if indeed that gap
1:07.3	should exist at all? Do we believe the old Chinese philosophical statement,
1:12.1	that which makes men nobler than beasts, is ritual? Well, we'll be answering those questions
1:17.3	today, appropriately enough, as part of being human, a festival which takes place across
1:23.2	university campuses around Britain, focusing on new research. And with me to discuss the speculation
1:29.3	made immortal by Rex Harrison as Dr. Doolittle, if I could talk to the animals, just imagine it.
1:34.8	I have with me a group of highly evolved animals. Top of the phylum in every way is Sarah Pevely,
1:40.8	Professor of English Literature at the University of Liverpool. Supercharged
1:44.4	vertebrate is Alastair Cochran, Senior Lecturer in Political Theory at the University of Sheffield.
1:49.5	And we've also gone wild and carnivorous with, wait for it, Evelyn DeWolf, or DeVolf, as I think
1:56.1	it's more correctly pronounced, head of animal collection at Noseley Safari. And strolling through the Safari Park of the Mind is Charles Forswick,
2:04.2	who's James Barrow Professor of French, also here at the University of Liverpool,
2:08.0	and Michael Solosi, research fellow at Sheffield Robotics,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.