Metamorphosis is constantly taking place in the worlds of people and other animals. A freewheeling discussion featuring shape-shifting leopard men in Nigeria, gut microbes that shape the human condition, and circus freakshows. This episode references Kafka’s 'Report for An Academy'. Filmed and edited by Danny MacGregor (https://www.dannymacgregor.com).

All of our bodies are gradually undergoing metamorphosis. Yet, many people with extraordinary bodies and minds experience discrimination in everyday life. Our speakers imagine metamorphosis and transformations on a grand societal scale. Filmed and edited by Danny MacGregor (https://www.dannymacgregor.com).

Professors Rosemarie Garland-Thomson and Eben Kirksey use Gregor's transformation in 'Metamorphosis' to muse on the everyday changes we all experience and their relations to disability, design justice and ableism. The parable of Gregor Samsa’s sudden transformation from an average man to a monstrous vermin is a larger-than-life, grim version of the everyday changes we all experience moving through life. This lecture muses about other possible lives navigated, futures imagined, communities entered, environments created, and flourishing cultivated. Rosemarie Garland-Thomson is professor emerita of English and bioethics at Emory University. RGT is a senior advisor and fellow at the Hastings Center, where she is also chief project advisor for “The Art of Flourishing: Conversations on Disability and Technology,” a project supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities. She is also a 2020 National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar and a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar for 2021-22. Professor Eben Kirksey (Anthropology, University of Oxford) is a cultural anthropologist who is perhaps best known for his work in multispecies ethnography—a field that situates contemporary scholarship on animals, microbes, plants, and fungi within deeply rooted traditions of environmental anthropology, continental philosophy, and the sociology of science. Questions related to science and social justice animate his most recent book, 'The Mutant Project' (2020), which offers an insiders account of the laboratory in China that created the world’s first children whose genes were edited with CRISPR-Cas9. Filmed and edited by Zoe Broughton (https://www.zoebroughton.com/).

Biotechnology is transforming the human condition. A molecular tool called CRISPR-Cas9 is being used to edit human DNA. Scientists will join influential disabled thinkers to discuss ethical issues hovering around gene editing. Filmed and edited by Zoe Broughton (https://www.zoebroughton.com/).

Kafka’s provocative story “The Hunger Artist” explores starvation, art, and the nature of human existence. Experts discuss the story and its reception. Kafka’s “The Hunger Artist” takes its cue from the real fasting performers who until the early years of the twentieth century would starve themselves for the entertainment of paying audiences. The story has been translated into theatre, comic form, animation and a new ballet has been commissioned as part of the Oxford Kafka celebrations. It has also inspired writers, artists and academics to explore the politics and art of starvation in the twentieth century and beyond. This discussion explores the story and its reception from the present day ,in the context of eating disorders hunger strikes and starvation used as a weapon of war.

Franz Kafka exploited people’s disgust at insects as his protagonist, Greger Samsa, was transformed into a giant insect. Is this disgust innate, widely shared or justified and what are the consequences for our treatment of insects? In this podcast hear our expert panel of ethicists and entomologists explore what Franz Kafka so successfully exploited in his book ‘Metamorphosis’; our widely held mutual disgust for insects. But is this disgust innate or even universal? Are there good evolutionary reasons for it or is it just abhorrent learnt behaviour? And if we really do abhor insects, what are the consequences for our values and our treatment of insects. The discussion takes place in the University Museum of Natural History’s highly decorated and newly refurbished Westwood room, originally Mr. Hope’s Museum of Entomology. Dr Clair Linzey is the Deputy Director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. She is a Research Fellow in Animal Ethics at Wycliffe Hall in the University of Oxford. She is also the Frances Power Cobbe Professor of Animal Theology at the Graduate Theological Foundation, USA. Her doctorate is in theology from the University of St Andrews, Scotland. Before that, she gained her masters in theology at the same University, and then did a second masters at Harvard Divinity School. Dr Linzey is Director of the Annual Oxford Animal Ethics Summer School. She is co-editor of the Journal of Animal Ethics published by the University of Illinois Press, and co-editor of the Palgrave Macmillan Book Series on Animals Ethics. Her co-edited volumes on animal ethics and theology, include Animal Ethics for Veterinarians (University of Illinois Press, 2017), The Ethical Case Against Animal Experiments (University of Illinois Press, 2018), The Palgrave Macmillan Handbook of Practical Animal Ethics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Animal Ethics (Routledge, 2018), and Ethical Vegetarianism and Veganism (Routledge, 2018). Professor Rosemary Gillespie. Rosemary Gillespie is the William M. and Esther G. Schlinger Chair in Systematic Entomology and a professor of Environmental Science, Policy & Management at Berkley University and Visiting Senior Research Fellow in Evolutionary Biology and Biodiversity at Jesus College, Oxford University. Her research focuses on insects and spiders that comprise much of life's diversity and are critical for functioning ecosystems. Her focus is on the elucidation and conservation of this biodiversity in order to maintain the life-support system provided by nature's variety, and the living resources necessary for ecologically sustainable development. Professor Geraldine Wright. Geraldine Wright was a Rhodes Scholar who studied insect behaviour and plant insect interactions in the Department of Zoology in the 1990’s. She was a researcher in the Rothenbuhler Honeybee Laboratory and a fellow in the Mathematical Biosciences Institute at Ohio State University. Her first academic appointment was in Biology at Newcastle University and later the Institute of Neuroscience at NU. She returned to Oxford in 2018 as a tutorial fellow at Hertford College prior to being elected the Hope Professor of Entomology. Her research lab is dedicated to understanding how bees detect nutrients, regulate their nutrition, and learn to identify sources of food. Studying how key nutrients affect their behaviour, she also researches how potential toxins in food, including pesticides, alter their valuation of food rewards. Chair- Dr Liam Crowley Liam Crowley is an entomologist interested in insect diversity, taxonomy and ecology. He is currently working on the Wytham Genome Project, part of the Darwin Tree of Life project, which seeks to sequence the full genomes of +70,000 UK species. His work involves the collection, identification and preservation of arthropod species from Wytham Woods for full genome sequencing, with a particular focus on species of ecological and evolutionary interest. The unprecedented quality and large number of genomes generated across a wide range of taxa will allow us to address evolutionary questions within the ecological context of Wytham Woods.

Kafka died in 1924 of tuberculosis, which remains one of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases. This talk looks at the various aspects of tuberculosis from candidate vaccines, the role of genetics in TB treatments and the perspective of a patient. Tuberculosis remains one of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases, not least because of the prevalence of drug-resistant strains of TB. Researchers at the University of Oxford, supported by the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre (BRC), are tackling TB in a variety of ways, from vaccines to more targeted treatments. Speakers: Professor Helen McShane: Director of the Oxford NIHR Biomedical Research Centre; Professor of Vaccinology at Oxford University; Deputy Head (Translation and Personnel), Medical Sciences Division; and an Honorary Consultant Physician in Infectious Diseases. Dr Philip Fowler: Associate Professor in the Modernising Medical Microbiology consortium in the Nuffield Department of Medicine; Cellular Life, Nuffield Department of Medicine Produced by the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre.

A collective public reading of 'Metamorphosis' to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of Franz Kafka’s death. Bringing together literary figures, civic leaders and University academics and students, this event celebrates the power of Kafka’s voice today. Readers include: Lemn Sissay (author and broadcaster), Ben Okri (author), Lisa Appignanesi (author), Professor Helen McShane (Professor of Vaccinology, Oxford University), Danial Hussain (President of Oxford Student Union), Marie Chatardova (Ambassador of the Czech Republic to the UK), Miguel Berger (Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to the UK). Produced by the Bodleian Libraries.

Interview with the creatives behind two shows inspired by Kafka's story 'A Report for an Academy' which explore race, migration, ageing and "humanimal" agency. These award-winning shows translate Kafka's dark parable of un-belonging for the modern day: 'Kafka's Ape' by Tony Miyambo, and 'Words and Music' by Ed Gaughan and Wes Williams. Kafka's story has found its way into blistering explorations of race and migration, and grown-up reflections on ageing and "humanimal" agency, at the same time morphing Kafka's prose into drama and hilarious stand-up comedy. Kafka as you've never seen or heard him before. This podcast explores the origins and evolution of the shows with the creatives who made them.   Produced by the Faculty of Medieval & Modern Languages.