Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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Historian and Carleton professor Rod Phillips joins us to talk about the history of cats!

TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 Cold Open
0:24 Are You a Cat Person or Dog Person?
2:03 How a Historian Ended Up Studying Cats
3:39 Did Cats Domesticate Themselves?
5:53 Why the Medieval Church Feared Cats
9:37 The History of Black Cat Superstitions
11:04 Cats, Outsiders, and Political Othering
13:00 Cats vs. Dogs
15:38 Cats, Gender, and the “Cat Lady” Trope
21:19 The Future of Feral Cats
25:40 12,000 Years of Cat History in One Sentence
26:14 Why Pet Cats Are Surprisingly Recent
27:00 Closing

Learn more by visiting this link: carleton.ca/news/story/cats-a-history-rod-phillips