Eye-To-Eye Animal Encounters

Eye-To-Eye Animal Encounters

Author: Wisconsin Public Radio June 26, 2021 Duration: 51:51
There's a certain a kind of visual encounter that can be life changing: A cross-species gaze. The experience of looking directly into the eyes of an animal in the wild, and seeing it look back. It happens more often than you’d think and it can be so profound, there’s a name for it: eye-to-eye epiphany. So what happens when someone with feathers or fur and claws looks back? How does it change people, and what can it teach us? Human identity cannot be separated from our nonhuman kin. From forest ecology to the human microbiome, emerging research suggests that being human is a complicated journey made possible only by the good graces of our many companions. In partnership with the Center for Humans and Nature and with support from the Kalliopeia Foundation, To The Best Of Our Knowledge is exploring this theme of "kinship" in a special radio series. Original Air Date: February 08, 2020 Guests: Gavin Van Horn — Jenny Kendler — Ivan Schwab — Jane Goodall — Alan Lightman Interviews In This Hour: In The Eye Of The Osprey: A Physicist's Wild Epiphany — 100 Bird Eyes Are Watching You — The Look That Changed Primatology — Watching the Fierce Green Fire Die: Animal Gazes That Shaped Conservation Movements — The 600 Million Year History Of The Eye — 'We Are The Feast' — A Feminist Philosopher's Life-Changing Encounter With A Crocodile — How Do You Practice Kinship? A Brief Meditation — Sharing Eye-To-Eye Epiphanies With The Animal World Further Reading: "The Disruptive Eye" by Gavin Van Horn—"6 a.m. on LaSalle Street" by Katherine Cummings—"Salmon Speak ~ Why Not Earth?" by Bron Taylor—"The Eyes of an Owl" by Greg Ripley—"From Bestiary" by Elise Paschen

There’s a certain kind of conversation that doesn’t just skim the surface of a topic but wades into its complexities and contradictions. That’s the space where you’ll find To The Best Of Our Knowledge, a Peabody award-winning production from Wisconsin Public Radio. This isn’t a lecture or a simple interview series; it’s a curated exploration of the ideas shaping our world, hosted through thoughtful dialogue. Each episode brings you voices you might not otherwise encounter in the same room: a poet might illuminate a scientific concept, while a historian’s perspective could reframe a current event. You’ll hear from novelists, software engineers, activists, and philosophers-people united not by their field, but by the depth and passion they bring to their work. Listening to this podcast feels like being part of a nuanced, ongoing discussion that challenges assumptions and invites curiosity. It’s for anyone who believes that understanding culture, society, and the human condition requires looking at them from multiple, sometimes surprising, angles. The result is a consistently engaging audio experience that treats ideas as living, evolving things to be examined with care and genuine interest.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

To The Best Of Our Knowledge
Podcast Episodes
What Afghan Women Want You to Know [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:56
The women of Afghanistan are elected officials, school teachers, actors, TV contest winners, ancient rug weavers, and whisperers of forbidden poetry. The Taliban are starting to put down their thumb. But these women want…
Finding Meaning in Desperate Times [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:47
We’ve all been changed by the experience of living through a pandemic. We figured out how to sanitize groceries, mute ourselves on Zoom and keep from killing our roommates. But we’re also tackling bigger, existential que…
The Secret Language of Trees [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 52:05
Using a complex network of chemical signals, trees talk to each other and form alliances with fellow trees, even other species. In fact, whole forests exist as a kind of superorganism. And some trees are incredibly old.…
Is War Ever Worth It? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 52:11
For all the commentary, the sorrow and rage, all the second-guessing about everything that followed, it’s still hard to fathom what happened on 9/11. Photographer James Nachtwey was in New York that day, and he took some…
Traveling By Book [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:43
Before the time of commercial flights and road trips, we traveled to far off places without taking a single step. All you had to do was open a book. From Africa to England, to a kamikaze cockpit, and to realms of fantasy…
Our Virtual Reality [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:46
Not everyone has a nice, big yard to stretch out in while sheltering in place from COVID-19. But maybe you don't need one. People are using virtual spaces to live out the real experiences they miss — like coffee shops, r…
Plants As Persons [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:48
Over the past decade, plant scientists have quietly transformed the way we think of trees, forests and plants. They discovered that trees communicate through vast underground networks, that plants learn and remember. If…
Writing the Climate Change Story [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:41
One of the toughest things about trying to understand climate change – arguably the most important story of our time - is wrapping our minds around it. To even imagine something so enormous, so life-changing, we need a s…
Living In Skin [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:54
We all miss touching things — groceries, door knobs, hands, faces. And most of all, skin. The living tissue that simultaneously protects us from the world, and lets us feel it. In this episode, the politics, biology, and…
Sprinting for the Finish Line [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:34
What does it take to win Olympic gold? To become "the world's fastest human"? This hour, Olympic fame, the politics of sports, and the science of running. Original Air Date: July 31, 2021 Guests: John Carlos — Gretchen R…