‘Franz Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’: Insects and Disgust and Repulsion’

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.