5 September 2024 | Dr Clara Dawson | University of Manchester | 'Avian Poetics: Birds in Natural History and Poetry in the Nineteenth Century'
Date: Thursday, 5th September 2024 
Time: 3.30-5.30pm
Venue: Humanities Institute, H204
Abstract: The paper proposes the idea of a shadow migration in the global bird trade that escalated during the nineteenth century. Examining natural history texts alongside nineteenth-century poetry, the paper excavates correlations between poetry and natural history in their relations with birds. It argues that natural history contributed to the popular public consumption of birds as objects without agency, dissecting their bodies and presenting them as fixed and available for the human gaze, shifting from a more Romantic mode of experiencing birds as fleeting glimpses of colour or sound in the wild.
See 'Extractivist Landscapes' for further details about the project, or contact:
(opens in a new window)Megan Kuster and (opens in a new window)Sarah Comyn