Biographies
Dr Shae Frydenlund
Dr Shae Frydenlund is a human geographer concerned with labor. Funded by the National Science Foundation, her research examines the changing world of work among migrants in Myanmar, Nepal and the United States. Her research in the Solukhumbu region of Nepal focuses on dispossession, exploitation, and the emergence of racialized ethnic labor categories in the mountaineering industry. She has authored papers published in Political Geography, Cultural Geography, Geoforum, and the Journal of the Association of Nepal and Himalayan Studies. Shae earned her PhD and MA in Geography from the University of Colorado Boulder, and a BA from Colgate University.
Dr Shae Frydenlund is a human geographer concerned with labor. Funded by the National Science Foundation, her research examines the changing world of work among migrants in Myanmar, Nepal and the United States. Her research in the Solukhumbu region of Nepal focuses on dispossession, exploitation, and the emergence of racialized ethnic labor categories in the mountaineering industry. She has authored papers published in Political Geography, Cultural Geography, Geoforum, and the Journal of the Association of Nepal and Himalayan Studies. Shae earned her PhD and MA in Geography from the University of Colorado Boulder, and a BA from Colgate University.
Dr Abbie Garrington
Dr Abbie Garrington is Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Literature and Director of Research in the Department of English Studies at Durham University, UK. Primarily a modernist, she explores bodily and sensory cultures in the early twentieth century, alongside the history of mountain writing. She is currently completing a new monograph, High Modernism: A Literary History of Mountaineering, 1890-1945, which has been funded by a Leverhulme Research Fellowship. She co-curated, with the Mountain Heritage Trust, the exhibition 'Savage Arena' about the life of British mountaineer Joe Tasker; collaborated with artist Stephen Livingstone on the 'Scaling the Heights' touring exhibition about the UK's mountain archives; and convened the AHRC-funded The Hero Project with the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) and National Galleries Scotland in 2015-16. Her most recent mountain-related publication considers supplementary oxygen and the politics of breath in the poetry of the 'Everest era,' and is available here: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-74443-4_19. A long article on the significance of mountain landscapes in British and US rock and roll cultures will appear in the Alpine Journal 2022.
Profile: https://www.dur.ac.uk/directory/profile/?id=13568
Dr Abbie Garrington is Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Literature and Director of Research in the Department of English Studies at Durham University, UK. Primarily a modernist, she explores bodily and sensory cultures in the early twentieth century, alongside the history of mountain writing. She is currently completing a new monograph, High Modernism: A Literary History of Mountaineering, 1890-1945, which has been funded by a Leverhulme Research Fellowship. She co-curated, with the Mountain Heritage Trust, the exhibition 'Savage Arena' about the life of British mountaineer Joe Tasker; collaborated with artist Stephen Livingstone on the 'Scaling the Heights' touring exhibition about the UK's mountain archives; and convened the AHRC-funded The Hero Project with the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) and National Galleries Scotland in 2015-16. Her most recent mountain-related publication considers supplementary oxygen and the politics of breath in the poetry of the 'Everest era,' and is available here: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-74443-4_19. A long article on the significance of mountain landscapes in British and US rock and roll cultures will appear in the Alpine Journal 2022.
Profile: https://www.dur.ac.uk/directory/profile/?id=13568
Dr Jenny Hall
Dr Jenny Hall, is an academic at York St John University, UK. She is a cultural geographer specialising in tourism and adventure in the context of gender, policy and social justice. Jenny’s interdisciplinary work currently explores the gendered nature of adventure tourism and is researching the affective and intersectional experiences of contemporary and historical women mountaineers, such as Japanese mountaineer Junko Tabei. She is co-editing two volumes concerning gender and mountaineering in cultural politics and popular culture. In addition, she works in the field of heritage tourism and currently researching spatial justice in the city of York to explore post-pandemic policymaking and how this creates inequalities. Jenny has professional experience managing cultural regeneration projects in the public sector establishing and leading major venues, festivals, and cultural development programmes. She is a passionate mountaineer and a member of her local mountain rescue team.
[email protected]
University Profile
@laughinggrouse
www.jennyhallgeographer.com
Dr Jenny Hall, is an academic at York St John University, UK. She is a cultural geographer specialising in tourism and adventure in the context of gender, policy and social justice. Jenny’s interdisciplinary work currently explores the gendered nature of adventure tourism and is researching the affective and intersectional experiences of contemporary and historical women mountaineers, such as Japanese mountaineer Junko Tabei. She is co-editing two volumes concerning gender and mountaineering in cultural politics and popular culture. In addition, she works in the field of heritage tourism and currently researching spatial justice in the city of York to explore post-pandemic policymaking and how this creates inequalities. Jenny has professional experience managing cultural regeneration projects in the public sector establishing and leading major venues, festivals, and cultural development programmes. She is a passionate mountaineer and a member of her local mountain rescue team.
[email protected]
University Profile
@laughinggrouse
www.jennyhallgeographer.com
Sarah Pickman
Sarah Pickman is a Ph.D. candidate at Yale University in the Department of History, Program in History of Science and Medicine. Her dissertation, entitled "The Right Stuff: Material Culture, Comfort, and the Making of Explorers, 1820-1940," examines the gear used by British and American explorers during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the ways that various companies used explorers and exploration in advertisements to sell products to wide audiences. She is especially interested in the mundane supplies - from clothing to preserved food to first aid kits - expeditioners used to recreate the comforts of home while traveling. Her work has been supported by grants from the American Geographical Society Library, Huntington Library, the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the Smithsonian, and the Hagley Museum and Library, among others. Her writing has been featured in a variety of academic and popular publications, including Alpinist, Environmental History Now, Isis, Material Intelligence, and the edited volume "Expedition: Fashion from the Extreme." She has also been a featured guest on exploration and outdoor gear-themed podcasts such as "Time to Eat the Dogs" and "Highlander." www.sarahmpickman.com
Sarah Pickman is a Ph.D. candidate at Yale University in the Department of History, Program in History of Science and Medicine. Her dissertation, entitled "The Right Stuff: Material Culture, Comfort, and the Making of Explorers, 1820-1940," examines the gear used by British and American explorers during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the ways that various companies used explorers and exploration in advertisements to sell products to wide audiences. She is especially interested in the mundane supplies - from clothing to preserved food to first aid kits - expeditioners used to recreate the comforts of home while traveling. Her work has been supported by grants from the American Geographical Society Library, Huntington Library, the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the Smithsonian, and the Hagley Museum and Library, among others. Her writing has been featured in a variety of academic and popular publications, including Alpinist, Environmental History Now, Isis, Material Intelligence, and the edited volume "Expedition: Fashion from the Extreme." She has also been a featured guest on exploration and outdoor gear-themed podcasts such as "Time to Eat the Dogs" and "Highlander." www.sarahmpickman.com
Prof Jonathan Pitches
Jonathan Pitches is Professor of Theatre and Performance and Head of the School of Performance and Cultural Industries at the University of Leeds. He has research interests in environmental performance, acting, directing, and in blended learning. He co-edits the Journal of Theatre, Dance and Performance Training (with Libby Worth). Recent larger publications projects include: Stanislavsky in the World (with Stefan Aquilina, Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2017) and Great Stage Directors - Copeau, Komisarjevsky and Guthrie (Bloomsbury Methuen Drama 2018). In addition, he has an all-consuming interest in the relationship between theatre, performance and mountains and led a 24 month AHRC-funded fellowship to investigate this concluding in 2018. His formal partner on this project was Kendal Mountain Festival. One of the major outputs for this project was the monograph Performing Mountains, published in May 2020.
Jonathan Pitches is Professor of Theatre and Performance and Head of the School of Performance and Cultural Industries at the University of Leeds. He has research interests in environmental performance, acting, directing, and in blended learning. He co-edits the Journal of Theatre, Dance and Performance Training (with Libby Worth). Recent larger publications projects include: Stanislavsky in the World (with Stefan Aquilina, Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2017) and Great Stage Directors - Copeau, Komisarjevsky and Guthrie (Bloomsbury Methuen Drama 2018). In addition, he has an all-consuming interest in the relationship between theatre, performance and mountains and led a 24 month AHRC-funded fellowship to investigate this concluding in 2018. His formal partner on this project was Kendal Mountain Festival. One of the major outputs for this project was the monograph Performing Mountains, published in May 2020.
Mridu Rai
Mridu Rai is a PhD candidate in anthropology at University College London, UK. Her research aims to foreground how ecological issues in Northeast India intertwine with larger ethico-political concerns including neo-colonial violence, racism and the devaluation of indigenous cosmologies in the visual field. She is the co-founder of the Confluence Collective and curator of Zubaan-Sasakawa Peace Foundation’s Through Her Lens program. She is the recipient of the Critical Collective - PhotoSouthAsia Young Writers Award (2021) for lens-based practices and the India Foundation for the Arts’ Art Research Grant 2021. The Royal Anthropological Institute, London has hosted her exhibition titled How Do I Bring You Home? which engages with the L.A Waddell photographic collection.
Mridu Rai is a PhD candidate in anthropology at University College London, UK. Her research aims to foreground how ecological issues in Northeast India intertwine with larger ethico-political concerns including neo-colonial violence, racism and the devaluation of indigenous cosmologies in the visual field. She is the co-founder of the Confluence Collective and curator of Zubaan-Sasakawa Peace Foundation’s Through Her Lens program. She is the recipient of the Critical Collective - PhotoSouthAsia Young Writers Award (2021) for lens-based practices and the India Foundation for the Arts’ Art Research Grant 2021. The Royal Anthropological Institute, London has hosted her exhibition titled How Do I Bring You Home? which engages with the L.A Waddell photographic collection.
Dr Jo Sharma
Dr Jo Sharma is based at the University of Toronto Scarborough, Canada. She is a historian of mountains, foodways, environment, and families whose research takes her both into archives, and into local-global & transnational community spaces –from Darjeeling to Scarborough to the Po Valley. She is the author of Empire’s Garden (Duke 2011), and many writings on Himalayan histories; as well as on food, empire, & migration. Born in Assam, Jo was educated at Cotton College; Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University; and the University of Cambridge, assisted by Nehruvian India’s public education system, a UGC Junior Research Fellowship, and a Commonwealth Scholarship. Her teaching and research career has taken her from the University of Delhi, to Carnegie Mellon University, Western University, and finally, into the University of Toronto tri-campus. She is currently an Associate Professor of Food Studies and History at the University of Toronto Scarborough, core faculty at the Culinaria Research Centre, and a graduate member of the Departments of History, and of the Study of Religion. Jo directs a new Sustainable Food and Farming Futures Cluster of Scholarly Prominence and is the founder-director of the Feeding City research lab (https://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/projects/feedingcity/). She co-edits the Culinaria food book series (UTP) and is editor of the Empires in Perspective book series (Routledge).
Dr Jo Sharma is based at the University of Toronto Scarborough, Canada. She is a historian of mountains, foodways, environment, and families whose research takes her both into archives, and into local-global & transnational community spaces –from Darjeeling to Scarborough to the Po Valley. She is the author of Empire’s Garden (Duke 2011), and many writings on Himalayan histories; as well as on food, empire, & migration. Born in Assam, Jo was educated at Cotton College; Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University; and the University of Cambridge, assisted by Nehruvian India’s public education system, a UGC Junior Research Fellowship, and a Commonwealth Scholarship. Her teaching and research career has taken her from the University of Delhi, to Carnegie Mellon University, Western University, and finally, into the University of Toronto tri-campus. She is currently an Associate Professor of Food Studies and History at the University of Toronto Scarborough, core faculty at the Culinaria Research Centre, and a graduate member of the Departments of History, and of the Study of Religion. Jo directs a new Sustainable Food and Farming Futures Cluster of Scholarly Prominence and is the founder-director of the Feeding City research lab (https://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/projects/feedingcity/). She co-edits the Culinaria food book series (UTP) and is editor of the Empires in Perspective book series (Routledge).
