What to read, watch, and listen to if you lovedSocial Lives with Other Animals
E. Cudworth · Book · 2011
If you loved Social Lives with Other Animals, start with All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (Adam Curtis, 2011) — a series on the same thread. Below: 4 films, 4 series and 2 podcasts, each matched to Social Lives with Other Animals across media.
You appreciate how Social Lives with Other Animals exposes the complex, systemic power dynamics shaping our interactions with other species.
Films on the same thread
The Lives of Others
Film · 2006
Explores: Surveillance, Censorship, Humanity.
Like the systemic domination explored in Social Lives with Other Animals, this film examines how institutional surveillance forces individuals to navigate power structures and redefine their moral existence.
Animal Farm
Film · 1954
Explores: Totalitarianism, Corruption of power, Class struggle.
This allegory mirrors the critical inquiry of Social Lives with Other Animals by depicting how revolutionary structures can devolve into the very systems of oppression they once challenged.
Zootopia
Byron Howard · Film · 2016
Explores: Prejudice and Discrimination, Overcoming Stereotypes, Underdog Story.
This narrative extends the sociological concerns of Social Lives with Other Animals by presenting a world where species-based prejudice functions as a proxy for systemic social discrimination.
Animal House
John Landis · Film · 1978
Explores: Rebellion, Anti-establishment, Underdog Story.
While more comedic, this film resonates with the anti-authoritarian spirit of Social Lives with Other Animals by highlighting how marginalized groups resist the rigid control of institutional powers.
Series on the same thread
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
Adam Curtis · Series · 2011
Explores: Technology and Society, Artificial Intelligence, Social Control.
This series shares the critical perspective of Social Lives with Other Animals by questioning how the systems we build, whether technological or social, ultimately colonize our human experiences.
All Creatures Great and Small
Bill Sellars · Series · 1978
Explores: Coming-of-age, Small-town life, Animal Care.
This show offers a practical, grounded look at interspecies relations, complementing the theoretical framework of Social Lives with Other Animals by focusing on the daily labor of care.
Life on Earth
Series · 1979
Explores: Evolution, Biodiversity, Natural Selection.
This documentary provides the scientific context for the evolutionary history that Social Lives with Other Animals suggests, framing our current human-animal relations within a vast biological timeline.
Human Planet
Dale Templar · Series · 2011
Explores: Human-Animal Interaction, Adaptation, Survival.
This series explores the co-dependency between humans and wildlife in extreme environments, echoing the focus in Social Lives with Other Animals on how non-human lives constitute human reality.
Podcasts on the same thread
Sitting with Dogs by Rocky Kanaka
Podcast
Explores: animal rescue, dog adoption, shelter dogs.
This podcast translates the scholarly advocacy of Social Lives with Other Animals into an intimate practice, focusing on the welfare and emotional experiences of individual companion animals.
Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks
Wes Larson, Jeff Larson, Mike Smith | Daylight Media · Podcast · 2026
Explores: Human-wildlife conflict, Apex predators, Biological survival.
This show examines the friction of human-wildlife conflict, providing a narrative counterpart to the systemic analysis of species relations found throughout Social Lives with Other Animals.
Keep exploring
Common questions
Is Social Lives with Other Animals a book about animal rights?
Social Lives with Other Animals is a sociological account that theorizes human relations with non-human animals. It examines systemic relations of domination and explores how other species are constitutive of human social lives, specifically regarding their roles as livestock, companions, and components of our dietary habits.
What does Social Lives with Other Animals examine regarding human behavior?
Social Lives with Other Animals provides an innovative theorization of species relations. It looks at the ways humans interact with other animals in domestic spaces, such as in our homes as companions, and at the dinner table, where animals are consumed as part of human social life.
Does Social Lives with Other Animals cover how humans view livestock?
Yes, Social Lives with Other Animals includes livestock in its analysis of systemic domination. The book investigates how humans categorize and utilize other animals, examining the complex social relations that occur between species in various settings, including the agricultural systems that define our modern social world.
Who wrote Social Lives with Other Animals?
Social Lives with Other Animals was written by E. Cudworth and published in 2011. The text serves as a provocative sociological study that challenges traditional understandings of the relationships between humans and non-human animals by framing them through the lens of complex, systemic social structures.