Join VCU’s Humanities Research Center for a public lecture with Bathsheba Demuth, Ph.D., writer, environmental historian and assistant professor at Brown University. The lecture will take place at the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU from 4:00-5:15 PM on Monday, May 1, 2023. Reception to follow.
Bowhead whales have been known to three groups along the Bering Strait over the past two centuries: Indigenous Yupik and Inupiaq whalers, capitalist commercial whalers, and communist industrial whalers. Each imagined different normative relationships with whales, tied to visions of time, history, and the future. This talk explores how those ideas shaped interactions between human hunters and whales, and what we can discern of whales’ own adaptations and— perhaps—ethical responses to their pursuers.
