Three Ottawa historians launch Animal Metropolis: Histories of Human-Animal Relations in Urban Canada on March 3. A collection of playful and thought provoking historical essays about how animals shape the urban experience, ranging from orcas in Vancouver to rabid dogs in Banff to carthorses in Montreal, the book pushes the reader to think differently about our shared human-animal past.
Edited by Joanna Dean (Carleton University), Darcy Ingram (University of Ottawa) and Christabelle Sethna (University of Ottawa) the collection puts animals at center stage. Essays consider beavers in Stanley Park, orca captivity in Vancouver, polar bear tourism in Churchill, Manitoba, and the racialized memory of Jumbo the elephant in St. Thomas, Ontario. Others examine the bodily intimacies of shared urban spaces –the regulation of rabid dogs in Banff, the maternal politics of pure milk in Hamilton, the carthorses who shaped the city of Montreal, and the circulation of tetanus bacilli from horse to human in Toronto.
Two essays focus on Ottawa: William Knight, Carleton alumnus and curator of the Museum of Science and Technology, considers Ottawa’s short lived Dominion Fisheries Museum. Darcy Ingram explores the reasons for the marginalization of women in Canada’s animal welfare movement.
Contributors include: Kristoffer Archibald, Jason Colby, George Colpitts, Joanna Dean, Carla Hustak, Darcy Ingram, Sean Kheraj, William Knight, Sherry Olson, Rachel Poliquin, and Christabelle Sethna.
The book launch will be held at Life of Pie Café, 1134 Bank Street, at 5:30 PM on Friday March 3 with Octopus Books.
See the related blog series at NiCHE, Networks in Canadian History and Environment, at http://niche-canada.org/category/the-otter/.
Media Contacts
Joanna Dean, Associate Professor, Department of History, Carleton University
Joanna.Dean@carleton.ca (819) 923-3407
Christabelle Sethna, Associate Professor, Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies, University of Ottawa
Christabelle.Sethna@uottawa.ca
For more information see University of Calgary Press at http://press.ucalgary.ca/books/9781552388648.