S9E7: Fieldwork and Affect with Michael Glover

Historian Michael Glover talks about what it takes to write animal history that treats cows as sentient subjects while still meeting the standards of rigorous scholarship. He unpacks how fieldwork with cows in the Karoo affected his writing.

Topics Covered:

•  Michael’s path into animal history through South African landscapes 
•  The methodological gap in writing historical animals as subjects
•  Historical ethnography as a way of rebuilding past worlds from documents and artefacts
•  Spending 30 days with free-roaming Nguni cattle as an “amateur observer”
•  Using field experience to write more feelingly without forcing direct anachronistic comparisons
•  Why “cattle” is a compromised word and how language can erase individuality
•  Accountability in writing, values in scholarship, and avoiding ad hominem dismissal
•  Animal highlight on beavers, the fur trade, and shifting colonial valuations

Date Recorded: 13 April 2026

Michael Glover is a postdoctoral fellow at the International Studies Group, University of the Free State. He is an associate fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics and a member of the Australisian Animal Studies Association. He has co-edited an anthology, Animals as Experiencing Entities: Theories and Historical Narratives (2024), and published a monograph, Cattle's Experiences of Colonialism: An Animal History of Southern Africa (2026).

Featured: 

• Animals as Experiencing Entities: Theories and Historical Narratives by Michael Glover
• Cattle's Experiences of Colonialism: An Animal History of Southern Africa by Michael Glover
• What Would Animals Say If We Asked the Right Questions? by Vinciane Despret
• Animal Oppression and Human Violence by David Nibert
• Elephants on the Edge by G.A Bradshaw
• News with Shatabdi Chakrabarti, Jessica Scott-Reid, and Jan Dutkiewicz on The Animal Turn
• Bovine Scholarship Network
• Valued Beavers on Stones 
• Signal Group

Quote: 

"At moments when stuck or struggling over a passage or concept, I would stop and ask: 'What would you say if an elephant were standing right in front of you listening? What would you say that is honest and would not make you feel ashamed?'" – G.A Bradshaw, Elephants on the Edge

Credits:

• Sponsor: Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics (A.P.P.L.E)
• Guests: Michael Glover
• Host: Claudia Hirtenfelder
• Editing and Production: Claudia Hirtenfelder
• Episode Artwork: Rebecca Shen
• Content Creation and Support: Herre de Bondt and Carlo Salzani
• Animal Highlight: Stones Walking Tour
• Sound Effects: Epidemic Sound, BBC Sound Effects<