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Air Dates: May 19-25, 2025

Humanity is capable of great dualities. Elizabeth MeLampy explores that in the way we both venerate animals, even while we exploit them.

MeLampy is an attorney with experience in animal law and environmental law.  She worked on issues related to farmed animals, wild animals, and captive animals with Harvard’s Animal Law & Policy Clinic while she was in law school.  She served in the inaugural cohort of Emerging Scholar Fellows with the Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law and Policy, where I worked on animal law scholarship.  After two clerkships with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and the Federal District Court in Arizona, MeLampy litigated with one of the top environmental nonprofits in the country.  

On this episode of “Story in the Public Square,” MeLampy discusses her new book, “Forget the Camel: The Madcap World of Animal Festivals and What They Say about Being Human.”  She takes a closer look at various animal-centered cultural events, from the Iditarod to the Kentucky Derby, saying “my book tries to engage with those from a place of compassion, both for the humans and the animals involved. Because I think a lot of these festivals are really rooted in local identity and local culture.”  She adds, “this is, it’s real people who are involved and who get a lot of benefit out of this. But at the same time these industries and these sports have evolved to be really hurtful to animals. That’s one of the core tensions.”

“Story in the Public Square” broadcasts each week on public television stations across the United States. In Rhode Island and southeastern New England, the show is broadcast on Rhode Island PBS on Sundays at 11:00 a.m. and is rebroadcast Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. Check your local public television listings for air times near you! An audio version of the program airs Saturdays at 8:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. ET, Sundays at 2:30 a.m. and 9:30 p.m. and Mondays at 4:30 a.m. ET on SiriusXM’s popular P.O.T.U.S. (Politics of the United States), channel 124. “Story in the Public Square” is a project of the Pell Center at ������. The initiative aims to study, celebrate and tell stories that matter.