Masterclass: Looking into Wildness with Professor Harriet Ritvo

Looking into Wildness: Human Desire and the Creation of Nature

HRAE is pleased to announce a Masterclass with Professor Harriet Ritvo, on July 10 from 3.30-5.00pm, at The University of Melbourne.

Harriet Ritvo is the Arthur J. Conner Professor of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and internationally recognised as a major scholar in animal studies. Her seminal research is foundational to the history of animal/ human relations, the history of natural history, environmental history and British history.

She has authored a number of important books: The Dawn of Green: Manchester, Thirlmere, and Modern Environmentalism (Chicago UP, 2009), The Platypus and the Mermaid, and Other Figments of the Classifying Imagination (Harvard UP, 1997), The Animal Estate: The English and Other Creatures in the Victorian Age (Harvard UP, 1987), and Noble Cows and Hybrid Zebras: Essays on Animals and History (Virginia, 2010).

For this masterclass, Professor Ritvo will use her article "Edging into the Wild," in Beardsley, John (ed.,). Designing Wildlife Habitats. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2013 as the starting point for the discussion, drawing on the main themes of her current reasearch project. Articles will distributed to registrants by email.

Harriet Ritvo is a keynote speaker at the Animal Publics: Emotions, Empathy, Activism conference convened by the Human Rights Animal Ethics Research Network (HRAE) and the Australian Centre.

This masterclass has been supported by the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions.