When We Talk About Animals is a series of in-depth conversations with leading thinkers about the big questions animals raise about what it means to be human. Supported by the Law, Ethics & Animals Program at Yale Law School, Yale University’s Human Nature Lab, and the Yale Broadcast Studio.
http://www.whenwetalkaboutanimals.org/
Ep. 9 – Being Charles Foster being a beast
What is it like to be another creature? What is it like to see, smell, hear, taste and feel the world as a different animal? Our guest today, the spectacularly imaginative writer and explorer Dr. Charles Foster wanted to find out. So, he got down on all fours and tried his best to do just that, living for weeks at a time as a badger, an otter, an urban fox, a deer and a swift. In this episode, Dr. Foster speaks about his adventures in non-humanness, how inhabiting the sensory world of other animals expanded his empathy, the shamanic quality of good nature writing, and his ambition to use language to subvert language itself. His explorations of mind and body are chronicled in his daring, hilarious and award-winning book, “Being a Beast: Adventures Across the Species Divide.”