Watch the replay. A conversation featuring two sisters, Astrida Neimanis and Aleksija Neimanis, whose respective careers as a feminist cultural theorist and a wildlife pathologist have found a strange confluence at sea. Albeit from very different perspectives, both dedicate themselves to trying to understand the conjoined fate of human and ocean life in the context of anthropogenic climate change and degradation of marine habitats. Aleksija will discuss her career as a marine biologist turned veterinary pathologist with a focus on marine mammals and One Health, while Astrida will showcase her critical-creative approach to the so-called “blue humanities.” This will be followed by a discussion of their current project – a collaboration that explores the scientific practice of necropsy as a practice of care that can help us think about human-marine relationships in a time of endings and leavings. Biographies Astrida Neimanis is Associate Professor of Feminist Environmental Humanities at the UBC Okanagan, on unceded Syilx territory in Kelowna, BC. Her most recent book, Bodies of Water: Posthuman Feminist Phenomenology, explores the shared watery constitution of human bodies and all other planetary life, as a starting point for rethinking environmental ethics, aesthetics, and justice. Often in dialogue with artists and artworks, her work has recently been featured at the 2021 Shanghai Biennale, the 2020 Riga Biennale, and the 2019 Lofoten Biennale. Aleksija Neimanis, Head of section for Research and Development, Department of Pathology and Wildlife Diseases, National Veterinary Institute, Sweden is a veterinary pathologist who works with wildlife health surveillance. She studies wildlife health issues and frames them within a One Health context, in which human, animal and ecosystem health are all connected. She worked with marine mammals for over 10 years in Canada at the Grand Manan Whale and Seabird Research Station, NB and she currently is developing a national disease surveillance program for marine mammals in Sweden. May 26, 2021 • 12:00 - 1:00 PM
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