Tag Archives: animals

What are the lessons of wolves? I talk with cultural theorist and natural philosopher ERICA BERRY about what wolves have to teach us about being human on AEWCH 262!

30 Apr

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Give a one-time annual or monthly pledge to Patreon.com/connerhabib to connect to and give economic life to something you find value in. Thank you.

Also, please do subscribe to the show, give it a 5 star rating and warm review on Apple Podcasts.

You can also buy my novel Hawk Mountain (and give it 5 star rating and a positive review on Goodreads!)

Friends,
This is the third episode in a series of episodes on science and how science intersects with our lives in surprising ways. Across these episodes, we’ll be considering the healing and connective powers of the void of space, terrifying encounters with predators, the development of the concept of nature, reflections on our own animalistic violence, the truth and complications of the scientific method itself, and the ways in which we connect at the tiniest layers of existence. These episodes are not “scientific” episodes per se, but they aren’t scientistic either. Each one is an exploration of what science can bring into our lives. 
The series started with AEWCH 260, on which I talked with Marjolijn van Heemstra about connecting with the expansiveness of space to understand the challenges we face today. And then on AEWCH 261, I talked with bear biologist and the Tooth & Claw podcast co-host Wes Larson about our fascination with animal attacks.

On this episode, we stay close to predators. But one in particular: The wolf.

The wolf is both living myth and skulking shadow in our imagination. It’s also a flesh and blood animal that uniquely relates to both space — in their range, and encroachment and disappearance from territories — and also time — in reintroduction strategies and old fears that we hold onto but don’t make sense today.

We can learn a lot from wolves if we allow ourselves to sit with what they rouse in us. One of our great wolf-contemplators is my guest on this episode: cultural theorist and nature writer ERICA BERRY  author of the excellent meditation on wolves and humans:
Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell about Fear.

This conversation reveals that focusing on one beast leads us into a whole ecology of thought. Erica and I discuss desire, violence, communication (with people and animals), the experience of non-humans, nonfiction, and more.

I’m so happy to offer this episode, and I hope you love it!

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The Tooth & Claw podcast meets Against Everyone with Conner Habib! I talk with Wes Larson about why people are fascinated by animal attacks on AEWCH 261!

23 Apr

LISTEN VIA SOUNDCLOUD ABOVE OR:  Apple Podcasts • Spotify • Breaker

Dear friends: Does this podcast offer you inspiration?
If so, do support the show on patreon.

Give a one-time annual or monthly pledge to Patreon.com/connerhabib to connect to and give economic life to something you find value in. Thank you.

Also, please do subscribe to the show, give it a 5 star rating and warm review on Apple Podcasts.

You can also buy my novel Hawk Mountain (and give it 5 star rating and a positive review on Goodreads!)

Friends,
This is the second episode in a series of episodes on science and how science intersects with our lives in surprising ways. Across these episodes, we’ll be considering the healing and connective powers of the void of space, terrifying encounters with predators, the development of the concept of nature, reflections on our own animalistic violence, the truth and complications of the scientific method itself, and the ways in which we connect at the tiniest layers of existence. These episodes are not “scientific” episodes per se, but they aren’t scientistic either. Each one is an exploration of what science can bring into our lives. 
The first episode in the series was AEWCH 260, on which I talked with Marjolijn van Heemstra about connecting with the expansiveness of space to understand the challenges we face today.

This is a very different episode… and it’s about animal attacks!

It’s an exciting and interesting for me on many levels – not the least of which is that it’s with WES LARSON, wildlife biologist and co-host of one of the only podcasts I listen to on a regular basis, THE TOOTH AND CLAW PODCAST,  which he hosts with his brother Jeff Larson and their friend Mike Smith!
Every week is just a different horror show, where the guys tell a true story about animals attacking people. As a longtime listener,  I did have to ask myself, as any reasonable person would: Why am I so interested in animal attacks? Why is anyone, for that matter?

It stirred up, well, quite a bit actually! So Wes and I talk about all that and more at length.

I’ve got to say, I don’t often get a chance to talk with my favorite podcasters, so I’m so excited to share this episode with you.

Also: Be sure to support the The Tooth & Claw Podcast patreon. I’m a longtime patron myself!

BOOK LIST
Since Wes doesn’t have a book out yet, a few good books that tie into this episode are:

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On whales, water, and transformation with writer Philip Hoare on AEWCH 164!

22 Sep

LISTEN HERE VIA SOUNDCLOUD OR ON Apple Podcasts • Spotify • Breaker • Anchor

FRIENDS: Do you find this podcast meaningful? Support it! This podcast is only possible because listeners like you support it. Do contribute to my mission by supporting Against Everyone With Conner Habib on Patreon! Thank you so, so much.

Buy the books mentioned on/related to this episode via my booklist for AEWCH 164 on bookshop.org! Bookshop.org sources from independent bookstores in the US, not a big corporate shipping warehouse where the workers are treated like machines. Plus when you click through here to order, the show gets a small affiliate kickback!

Friends,

I’m so happy I got to talk about animals at length on the show, given their importance in my life. And one of the best people to have a conversation about animals with is undoubtably Philip Hoare , an interdisciplinary writer and artist, whose books include his moving and almost unclassifiable memoir/nature writing/philosophy book, Risingtidefallingstar: In Search of the Soul of the Sea, his recent book about the evolution of art and how we think of animal, Albert and the Whale: Albrecht Dürer and How Art Imagines Our World, and what is probably his most famous book, The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea , which weaves together beautiful passages on cetaceans and images of whales in popular culture, particularly in the work of Herman Melville.

This was a beautiful and moving discussion for me, I hope it will be for you, too.

X
C

SHOW NOTES

• For more on Phil, visit his website. Here’s a short video of director John Waters praising Phil’s book, The Sea Inside. He curated (along with artist Angela Cockayne) The Moby Dick Big Read – where actors (including Tilda Swinton!) and other artists read Moby Dick chapter by chapter. And here’s Philip’s short film about poet Wilfred Owen, I Was A Dark Star Always.

• I wrote about the new rhythms of lockdown – including the new rhythms that the animals are experiencing – for the Irish Times.

• And AEWCH 155 is all about extinction, from an occult perspective.

• The Natural History Museum in Dublin (AKA “the dead zoo”) is a great and morbid and wonderful place.

• Here’s a short article with a nice little video about Dublin’s Forty Foot – where you jump off the rocks into the green-blue water. And below is a photo of Irish writer Brendan Behan getting out of that same water.

• Here’s a bit on selkies – seal fairies that shed their skin to walk around in human form.

• I’ve been working on utopia with my friend Una Mullally, who appeared on AEWCH 151 and AEWCH 87.

• I’m still so taken by Phil’s statement in this interview: “I could list all those things (that hurt me most about the way we treat the ocean) here but I’d rather anyone reading this went out to their nearest water and prayed.”

Until next time, friends,
CH

PS: Here’s Phil looking through a whale’s eye.

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The problem with environmentalism & conservationism on AEWCH 156 with science writer Michelle Nijhuis!

13 Jul

LISTEN HERE VIA SOUNDCLOUD OR ON Apple Podcasts • Spotify • Breaker • Anchor

FRIENDS: Do you find this podcast meaningful? Support it! This podcast is only possible because listeners like you support it. Do contribute to my mission by supporting Against Everyone With Conner Habib on Patreon!  Thank you so, so much.

Buy Michelle’s book, Beloved Beasts, and all the books mentioned on/related to this episode via my booklist for AEWCH 156 on bookshop.org. Bookshop.org sources from independent bookstores in the US, not a big corporate shipping warehouse where the workers are treated like machines. Plus when you click through here to order, the show gets a small affiliate kickback!

Friends,

I’m very excited to share this episode with journalist and author of Beloved Beasts: Fighting For Life In An Age of Extinction, Michelle Nijhuis.

ON THIS EPISODE

  • The tensions between environmentalism and conservationism (and why I’m more pro-conservationism)
  • Conservationism as globalization and/or a transformation of space
  • The need to erode the centralization of environmentalism
  • The need for science to be met with the social sciences and humanities
  • The death of the Earth
  • Conservation as a protection of possibility
  • The problem with “deadline mentality”
  • How Michelle talks about climate change with her daughter
  • What a non-materialist climate change would look like
  • The reason why “religion versus science” is almost a straw man argument
  • How the core of cryptozoology has become a mainstream conservationist message

SHOW NOTES

• For more on Michelle, go to her website, which has an extensive listing of her (many!) article. And here’s Michelle’s discussion with Judith Lewis Mernit (about Jonathan Franzen’s essay, “Carbon Capture”) which captures the tensions between environmentalism and biodiversity quite well. Here’s her essay on the book about color that influenced Darwin.

Some episodes of AEWCH on science and the environment:

  • AEWCH 34 on how sex confronts materialism
  • AEWCH 82 on why we need to destroy the concept of nature
  • AEWCH 91 with microbiologist and geoscientist Lynn Margulis
  • AEWCH 113 with Duncan Laurie on the un-science of radionics
  • AEWCH 155 on Occult extinction

• When Michelle was talking about how we are bound to consume the environment, I kept thinking about the Friends theme-esque song “Someone Has To Die” by a band I love, The Maritime.

• The Quagga Project is one of many initiatives to re-engineer species back from extinction. Sort of.

• John Dupré‘s excellent essay, “Are Whales Fish?” appears in the anthology Folkbiology.

• Here are some notes on how Rachel Carson was deeply influenced by the work of Rudolf Steiner.

• “If we want to attain a living understanding of nature, we must become as living and flexible as nature herself.” -Goethe

Until next time, friends!
CH

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