Grunts and Squeaks and Squawks: Humans and Other Animals

This Research & Knowledge Exchange Doctoral Project brief summarises our priority areas of research interest under the heading of: Grunts and Squeaks and Squawks: Humans and Other Animals.

We welcome all research degree applications aligned with and in response to this brief.

“When I play with my cat who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me?” 

Michel de Montaigne, 1580

Though many animals are now acknowledged to be sentient beings, sharing with us emotions such as love, pain, fear and sadness, still the majority of our engagement with other animals relies on dominance, subjugation and on the value placed on our perception of their ‘intelligence’. In this proposal we would like this perspective to be explored and challenged. 

Recent critical work in the sciences and humanities has explored our relationships with other animals, with key researchers including Donna Haraway, Melanie Challenger, Denise Herzing and Eva Meijer. The subject has also increasingly become a mainstay of movies, documentaries, TV series and podcasts, such as My Octopus Teacher (2020), Wild Isles (2023), and The Psychosphere (2021-present). But where film and documentary can use imagery, literature must rely on words, using the language of the human to communicate the nonhuman.  

This project will be a creative and/or critical exploration of the relationships between humans and other animals. We welcome innovative ideas and approaches, especially in the fields of non-fiction, poetry, fiction and critical theory. 

A candidate might like (but does not need) to consider questions such as, How are inter-special relationships reflected in literature and the arts? Where do the borders of empathy and understanding between species begin and end? What are the complexities embedded in writing about the nonhuman?  

Projects deriving from this brief are expected to sit within the Research & Knowledge Exchange strategy and the following department.

All successful research degree project proposals must emphasise a clear alignment between the project idea and our Research & Knowledge Exchange strategy.