About this episode

Dr. Natalie Khazaal discusses the intersection of racism and speciesism in media and her research on the MARS test.

Dr. Natalie Khazaal is Associate Professor in the School of Modern Languages at Georgia Tech, where she directs the Arabic and Middle East & North Africa programs. Her work spans teaching Arabic, exploring the lives of atheists and apostates in Arab and Muslim communities, nonhuman animal ethics, and the media's role in normalizing speciesism and racism. Natalie is the co-creator of the MARS test (Media Analysis of Racism and Speciesism), an evaluative framework—similar to the Bechdel and DuVernay tests—that measures racism and speciesism in media.She joins Sentientism episode 248 to talk about growing up in a secular household in Bulgaria, the "pretty lies" media tell to avoid uncomfortable truths (the subject of her book on Lebanese television during the civil war), and how her research on the MARS Test reveals overlapping patterns of racism and speciesism in mainstream media, including Oscar-winning animations.We explore her naturalistic approach to reality and happiness, her path to veganism as a purely ethical decision, and her argument that racism and speciesism are structurally linked through slaughterhouse labour, environmental racism, dehumanising rhetoric about…

People in this episode

Host: Jamie Woodhouse

Guest: Natalie Khazaal

Topics covered

• media analysis
• racism
• speciesism
• veganism
• storytelling
• ethics

Keywords

• MARS test
• racism
• speciesism
• veganism
• media analysis
• ethics
• storytelling

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Georgia Tech

Books & works: MARS test, Lebanese television during the civil war

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