Our fascination with whales and dolphins stretches a long way back in history. The oldest rock art depicting dolphins has been dated to around 43,000 years ago, and whales and dolphins have figured prominently in the myths, folktales and legends of many different cultures. This Zoom talk will explore stories from ancient Greece to modern-day Brazil, via the Old Testament, the Qu’ran, the mediaeval bestiary, Scottish folklore, and the First Nations tribes of the Pacific Northwest. It will demonstrate that in many instances, myth actually meets science: our understanding today of the intelligence and creativity of whales and dolphins, and their rich social lives, often reveals important truths at the heart of these legends.
Professor Joanna Page is based at the University of Cambridge, where she directs CRASSH, one of the largest interdisciplinary research centres in the world. Her interests are broadly located within the environmental humanities, and many of the books she has published explore the relationship between science and culture. She also works for the marine conservation charity ORCA, giving talks on marine biology and ecology, and surveying whales and dolphins in the North Atlantic and beyond.
Your curator and host for this event will be the writer Edward Parnell, author of Ghostland: In Search of a Haunted Country. Ghostland (William Collins, 2019), a work of narrative non-fiction, is a moving exploration of what has haunted our writers and artists – as well as the author’s own haunted past; it was shortlisted for the PEN Ackerley 2020 prize, an award given to a literary autobiography of excellence. Edward’s first novel The Listeners (2014), won the Rethink New Novels Prize. His latest book is Eerie East Anglia (pub. Aug 2024) for the British Library’s Tales of the Weird series. For further info see: https://edwardparnell.com
Don’t worry if you can’t make the live event on the night – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day.
[Image: A narwhal and large sperm whale. Engraving. Wellcome Collection. Source: Wellcome Collection.]
