Dr. Miranda Niittynen
Sessional or Contract
PhD Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies, University of Western Ontario 2018
MA Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies, University of Western Ontario 2011
HBA Philosophy and History (Minor in Women's Studies), Lakehead University 2010
Teaching Areas: Decolonial art and arts-based activism; Feminist theory and qualitative research methods; Sexuality studies and queer theory; Histories of sexual and gender minority activism; Museum studies; Human-animal studies and rights; Critical disability studies; Posthumanism
Current Courses (Undergraduate/Graduate):
Winter 2023
Gender and Women's Studies: Gender, Bodies and Technology
Gender and Women's Studies: Madonna to Madonna: Introduction to Gender and Women's Studies
Visual Arts: Introduction to Art History: Issues in Contemporary Art
Fall 2022
Gender and Women's Studies: Gender, Science Fiction and Social Change
Gender and Women's Studies: Madonna to Madonna: Introduction to Gender and Women's Studies
Visual Arts: Introduction to Art History: Renaissance to Contemporary
Spring 2022
Gender and Women's Studies: Representing Disability
Winter 2022
Gender and Women's Studies: Queer Activisms
Visual Arts: Renaissance to Contemporary
Visual Arts: History of 20th and 21st Century Canadian Art
Fall 2021
Gender and Women's Studies: Human Rights and the Museum
Visual Arts: Prehistory to the Middle Ages
Social Justice Studies: Disability, Illness, Art
Previous Courses Taught (Undergraduate):
Gender and Women's Studies: Gender, Bodies and Sexuality
Gender and Women's Studies: Extraordinary Bodies: Disability, Race, and Gender
Gender and Women's Studies / Media, Film, and Communications: Gender, Popular Culture and Counter-Culture
Gender and Women's Studies: Queer Visual Culture
Gender and Women's Studies: Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies
Gender and Women's Studies: Queer Ecologies
Gender and Women's Studies: Guerrillas and Craftivists: Feminist Art and the Body
Gender and Women's Studies: Queer Play: Unconventional Activism and Experimental Art
Gender and Women's Studies / Anthropology: Feminist Perspective in Ethnography
Philosophy: Film and Contemporary Philosophy
Visual Arts / Gender and Women's Studies: Critical Studies in Feminist Visual Culture
Visual Arts: Theories and Methods of Art Therapy
Visual Arts: Prehistory to the Middle Ages
Visual Arts: Renaissance to Contemporary
Visual Arts: History of 20th and 21st Century Canadian Art
Previous Courses Taught (Graduate):
Social Justice Studies: Social Justice and Creative Therapies
Social Justice Studies: Extraordinary Bodies: Disability, Race, and Gender
Social Justice Studies: Theories and Practices of Art and Social Justice
The museumification and exploitation of postmortem racialized, sexualized, and disabled bodies on display; history of 'freak' shows and human zoos; creative and anti-conventional feminist ethnographies; feminist eco-art and queer ecologies; queer theory in performance art, drag performance, and dance; the critical and playful portrayal of sexuality and disability in avant-garde film; and other unconventional styles of art and activism that can be used as a tool for social transformation and political action.
Her research focuses primarily on the ways that taxonomies of species difference were historically, and are currently, used to dehumanize human groups in museum displays and ethnographic exhibits. Looking to the contemporary art gallery, she analyzes how taxidermy sculpture operates as a medium to convey critiques of ontology, colonialism, racism, ableism, and postmortem human and animal bodily rights violations.
Niittynen, M. "Lions Attacking a Dromedary: The Verreaux Brothers, Imperial Taxidermy, and Postmortem Bodily Rights." Curator: The Museum Journal (forthcoming June 2023).
Niittynen, M. "Apocalyptic Time: Vegan Taxidermy, the Remains of Dolly the Sheep, and Bio-Engineered Art(ificiality) in the Time of Mass Species Extinction." Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism (2022): 1-16.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14688417.2022.2034514
Niittynen, M. “Interspecies Blendings and Resurrections: Material Histories of Disability and Race in Taxidermy Art.” Canadian Journal of Disability Studies 9.2 (2020): 103-138.
https://cjds.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/cjds/article/view/627
Niittynen, M. “Animal Magic: Sculpting Queer Encounters through Rogue Taxidermy Art.” Gender Forum 55 (2015): 10-25.
http://genderforum.org/gender-animals-animality-issue-55-2015/
Niittynen, M. “Giving Ethnographic Accounts: A Critical Feminist Window.” Word Hoard 4 (2015): 9-20.
Niittynen, M. “Queering Animal Acts.” Reviews in Cultural Theory 6.2 (2016): n.p.
Niittynen, M. “Capitulate to Swine, An Argument for Animal Rights.” Elizabeth Buset: Swine. Thunder Bay Art Gallery, 2017.
Niittynen, M. “The Head that Sticks: Racial Erasure, Gender Roles and Taxidermy Mounts.” Society & Animals: Journal of Human-Animal Studies (forthcoming, 2022).
Niittynen, M. and Stevens, V. “Introduction: Sensing through Affect Theory and Animal Studies.” Special Edition: Perceptual Encounters: ‘Sensing’ the Field of Human-Animal Studies (Eds. Miranda Niittynen and Valerie Stevens). Society & Animals: Journal of Human-Animal Studies (forthcoming, 2022).
Niittynen, M. "Preserving the Dead: Nonhuman Animals, AIDS Activism, and the Queer Archive." Gender and Sexuality in Critical Animal Studies. Ed. Amber George. Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press (forthcoming, 2022).
More Information: