Dr. Ainsley Hawthorn

Cultural Historian & Non-Fiction Author, Writers' Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador

Cultural History • Past Pandemics • Human Senses • Religion in Society • Social Justice

Media

Documentary Interview - St. John's Water Dogs

The Dogs of Petty Harbour, Episode 2
2023

Talk Show Interview - Land of Many Shores

Out of the Fog
October 27, 2021

Public Talk - Agnosticism and Reimagining Church

St. Mark's Anglican Church, St. John's
April 10, 2019

Quadrangle works towards medical course around gender-affirming care in N.L.

Should You Buy Gender-Neutral Clothing for Your Kids?

Local Historian Redefining Belly Dance, Literally

Come From Away in a can, period art, and being a better ally

Weekend AM with Heather Barrett, CBC, March 16, 2019Radio/Podcast

URL: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/shows/weekend-am/episode/15679171

Segment begins at 22:00.

VOCM Vital Signs Roundtable

Economic confidence low, community pride high: Vital Signs report

Celebrate Christmas the old-fashioned way: with drunken mayhem

Church attendance is diminishing as multiculturalism is rising, and that's no coincidence

From Dildo to Witless Bay: Where did N.L. get its unusual place names?

All the lovely Juanitas: How did a Spanish name find such popularity in Newfoundland?

Gender neutrality doesn’t hurt children – it’s part of our history

Oxford English Dictionary Contacts Local Historian To Help Redefine ‘Belly Dance’

Why do we call Middle Eastern dance “belly dance”?

Let's hear it for the nans: Here's why we all need a (grand) Mother's Day

There's value in preserving religious structures — even for the religiously unaffiliated

Chilling with Brent Beshara

Newfoundland Quarterly, April 18, 2019Online

URL: http://nqonline.ca/article/chilling-with-brent-beshara/

The college admissions scandal is shocking, but the rich have always bought their way into elite universities

Out of the bathroom, into the gallery for an artist working with menstrual pads

In the shadow of Mount Cashel: The tipping point of disillusionment with the Catholic Church

Priests and pastors shoulder a huge emotional burden, but they're burning out ... alone

Chill out, folks; there's no need to be so defensive about Christmas

Provincial Snapshot: Fourth annual report on quality of life in NL released

NL Crime Exceeding National Average: Vital Signs Report

Vortrag von Ainsley Hawthorn – The Shifting Gaze: Vision in the Neo-Assyrian Royal Inscriptions

Early Concepts of Man and Nature Blog, February 15, 2017Online

URL: http://grk1876.blogspot.com/2017/02/vortrag-von-ainsley-hawthorn-shifting.html

Vital Signs report highlights differences between urban and rural NL

Provincial Pulse: Latest issue of Vital Signs focuses on rural and urban differences

Land of Many Shores: Perspectives from a Diverse Newfoundland and Labrador
by Ainsley Hawthorn
Breakwater Books
September 30, 2021
1550818961

Seeing through the eyes of others brings new perspective on the place we call home.

In Land of Many Shores, writers share their perspectives about life in Newfoundland and Labrador from often-neglected viewpoints. In this collection, Indigenous people, cultural minorities, 2SLGBTQ+ people, people living with mental or physical disabilities, workers in the sex industry, people from a variety of faiths, people who have experienced incarceration, and other marginalized and under-represented voices are brought to the forefront, with personal, poignant, celebratory, and critical visions of the land we live on.

Land of Many Shores is a collection of pieces that paint a vibrant picture of a province most of us don’t know as well as we think we do. The variety of experience against the backdrop of Newfoundland and Labrador broadens readers’ perspectives on Canada’s youngest province, helping us reimagine both who we are today and who we have the potential to become.

Distant Impressions: The Senses in the Ancient Near East
by Ainsley Hawthorn and Anne-Caroline Rendu Loisel
Eisenbrauns
June 24, 2019
978-1-57506-967-8

Nihil est in intellectu quod non sit prius in sensu – “There is nothing in the intellect that is not first in the senses.”

Although we often treat the senses as though they are immutable, fundamental properties of our physiology, the way we parse our sensory experiences is dictated by our cultural context. Accordingly, the essays in Distant Impressionsexplore the social aspects of sensation in the ancient Near East, inviting the reader to move beyond the physiological study of sensation to an examination of its cultural meanings.

The essays in this book approach the question of sensory experience in ancient Near Eastern societies from philological, literary, art historical, and archaeological perspectives. They address the means of sense perception (such as vision, hearing, and smell) and the objects of perception (such as light, noise, and odor), examining the senses within religious, political, and social frameworks. The first part looks at the monumental architecture, bas-reliefs, and tablets of the Neo-Assyrian period, while the second explores sensory dimensions of the built environment and textual representations of sensation in other times and places, such as Neolithic northern Mesopotamia and Hittite Anatolia. Building on recent scholarship that focuses on the social aspects of sensation in history, Distant Impressions brings this approach to bear on ancient Near Eastern studies for the first time.

In addition to the editors, the contributors include Elke Friedrich, Sara Manasterska, Alice Mouton, Kiersten Neumann, Ludovico Portuese, and Diana Stein.

Biography

Ainsley Hawthorn, PhD (Yale), is a cultural historian, sensory scholar, and author who writes about forgotten events, curious folklore, and the surprising connections between past and present.

She is a columnist with CBC, a blogger for Psychology Today, and has contributed to The Washington Post, The Globe and Mail, the National Post, and more. In 2020, she co-created Apocalypse Then, a CBC radio series that looked at past pandemics to help shed light on the COVID experience.

Her nonfiction anthology Land of Many Shores: Perspectives from a Diverse Newfoundland and Labrador was named one of The Telegram's Top Ten Books of 2021, and in 2022 she received a Radio Television Digital News Award for Best Digital Opinion (East Region).

Expertise

  • Pandemic History
  • Cultural History
  • Word Origins
  • Gender in History
  • Religion and Society
  • Public Engagement
  • Sensory Studies
  • The Human Senses
  • Middle Eastern Dance
  • Ancient Middle East
  • Mesopotamia
  • History of Writing
  • Ancient Literature
  • Akkadian and Sumerian Language
  • Ancient Religion and Mythology

Education/Éducation

  • Yale University
    Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
    Ph.D., 2012
  • Yale Graduate Teaching Center
    Certificate in College Teaching Preparation, 2011
  • Yale University
    Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
    M.Phil., 2008
  • Queen's University
    Philosophy and Greek
    B.A. (Honours) with Distinction, 2004
  • Pearson United World College
    International Baccalaureate, 2000