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New Books in Animal Studies

New Books in Animal Studies

By: New Books Network
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 Interviews with scholars and activists on animals and animal-human relations. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/animal-studiesNew Books Network Art Literary History & Criticism Philosophy Science Social Sciences
Episodes
  • Ludovic Orlando, "Horses: A 4,000-Year Genetic Journey Across the World" (Princeton UP, 2025)

    Ludovic Orlando, "Horses: A 4,000-Year Genetic Journey Across the World" (Princeton UP, 2025)
    Nov 20 2025
    In 2016, Ludovic Orlando, a genetics researcher, embarked on the Pegasus Project, an ambitious endeavor to use genetics to discover the origin of the modern horse. There were plenty of theories as to who domesticated horses first–but Ludovic’s team came up with their answer: They emerged on the western Eurasian steppe around 4200 years ago. But that revelation was only the beginning of Ludovic’s work, as he dug into the genetic origins of different kinds of horses, like the Arabian horse, as well as charted how the horse’s genetic diversity changed over time. His research is collected in his new book Horses: A 4,000-Year Genetic Journey Across the World (Princeton UP, 2025) Ludovic Orlando is a CNRS Silver Medal–winning research director and founding director of the Centre for Anthropobiology and Genomics of Toulouse at the University of Toulouse in France. His work has appeared in leading publications such as Nature, Science, and Cell. He is a recipient of the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Newcomb Cleveland Prize. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Horses. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at@nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/animal-studies
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    53 mins
  • Eduardo Mercado III, "Why Whales Sing" (JHU Press, 2025)

    Eduardo Mercado III, "Why Whales Sing" (JHU Press, 2025)
    Nov 11 2025
    With breathtaking complexity and haunting beauty, the songs of whales have long fascinated scientists. Whales are the only mammals that can sing continuously for ten hours or more, changing the unique songs they sing every year. In Why Whales Sing (JHU Press, 2025), bioacoustician and cognitive scientist Eduardo Mercado transforms our understanding of these enigmatic sounds and proposes a groundbreaking theory that challenges decades of established science. Fifty years of field research have led most scientists to conclude that humpback whales sing for the same reason that birds do: to advertise their sexual fitness. But if whale songs are nothing more than tools of attraction, why do whales sing even when they're alone and there are no listeners nearby? In light of modern advances in neuroscience and ocean acoustics, Mercado reaches the surprising conclusion that whales may not actually be "singing," but rather engaging in an activity more commonly associated with dolphins and bats--echolocating--which enables them to see their world with sound. By incessantly streaming sounds while listening closely to the returning echoes, whales may be actively tuning their brains in ways that allow them to monitor the movements of silent whales located miles away. Sophisticated, long-range sonar can enable whales to perceive their vast underwater worlds in unimaginable ways. From the military origins of whale song recordings to the persistent mysteries of cetacean communication, this book displays the wonder of whales and reshapes how we view their intelligence, behavior, and acoustic mastery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/animal-studies
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    1 hr and 6 mins
  • Karine Gagné, "Caring for Glaciers: Land, Animals, and Humanity in the Himalayas" (U Washington Press, 2019)

    Karine Gagné, "Caring for Glaciers: Land, Animals, and Humanity in the Himalayas" (U Washington Press, 2019)
    Nov 9 2025
    In her new book, Caring for Glaciers: Land, Animals, and Humanity in the Himalayas (University of Washington Press, 2019), Karine Gagné explores how relations of reciprocity between land, humans, animals, and glaciers foster an ethics of care in the Himalayan communities of Ladakh. She explores the way these relations are changing due to climate change, the growth of the wage economy at the expense of traditional agricultural and pastoral lifestyles, and increased military presence resulting from Ladakh's status as a border area. This book will be of interest to those who are interested in the anthropology of ethics, ethics in Buddhist communities, and the anthropology of climate change. Kate Hartmann is a PhD candidate in Buddhist Studies at Harvard University. Her work explores issues of perception and materiality in Tibetan pilgrimage literature, and she can be reached at chartmann@fas.harvard.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/animal-studies
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    1 hr and 42 mins
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