Northern Exposures:
Science, Indigenous Peoples, and Northern Contaminants
I am a co-applicant with colleagues from MUN, Wilfrid Laurier University, Trent, and the University of Toronto, on this SSHRC-funded project led by Dr. Arn Keeling (Geography, MUN). This project investigates the environmental history and cultural politics of pollution and toxicity in Canada's northern regions, offering an opportunity to examine the historic and ongoing impacts of contaminants on northern Indigenous communities.
My research for this project has examined historical constructions of food hazards and anxieties. See for example:
- Piper, L. “From Subsistence to Nutrition: The Canadian State’s involvement in food and diet in the North, 1900-1970.” In Ice Blink: Canada’s Northern Environmental History, ed. S. Bocking and B. Martin. University of Calgary Press, 2017.
Woman and children cooking bannock in frying pan over kerosene lamp fire near Igluligaarjuk (Chesterfield Inlet), Nunavut, August 1946.
Credit: G. Hunter / National Film Board of Canada. Photothèque / Library and Archives Canada / PA-141906
- Courses in the history of disease and health
Since 2017, I have taught an introductory course HIST 123 ~ Plague: Disease and Epidemics in History, a one-semester course that examines how diseases arose historically from the interactions of humans with other organisms and their environments, and how changing ecologies have shaped human experiences with disease. A current syllabus for this lecture-based course is available as a pdf here.
I have previously taught a senior and graduate seminar on health and environments in Canadian history. A previous syllabus from that course is available as a pdf here.
