The Jack Eason Podcast - Episode 021 - Ainsley Hawthorn

Jack Eason speaks with Ainsley Hawthorn, PhD about an article she wrote about what she recognized in her friends living through the global pandemic. The shocking realization was that social isolation was already entrenched in our society long before the coronavirus broke out.

Ainsley Hawthorn, PhD, is an author, cultural historian, and multidisciplinary artist based in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador.

She earned her doctorate in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Yale University, and her academic expertise includes sensory studies, Mesopotamian literature and religion, Middle Eastern dance, word origins, and the history of writing. Hawthorn is a past fellow of Distant Worlds (Munich) and the Advanced Seminar in the Humanities (Venice), and she has been invited to lecture on her research at universities in Germany, Austria, Italy, Canada, and the United States. Distant Impressions, which she co-edited with Anne-Caroline Rendu Loisel, is the first academic volume on sensory studies in the ancient Near East,

Hawthorn uses her academic knowledge to bring groundbreaking new ideas about the senses, history, and religion out of the ivory tower and to the general public. She blogs for Psychology Today, writes columns for the CBC, has contributed to The Globe and Mail, the National Post, The Dance Current, TheIndependent.ca, and the Newfoundland Quarterly, and is currently finishing her first non-fiction book, The Other Five Senses (represented by The Margret McBride Literary Agency).

Hawthorn is also a Middle Eastern and international folk dancer with extensive teaching and performance experience. Her latest performance project is the short film Calamus by Kenneth J. Harvey, in which she is co-starring alongside Darren Ivany.

In her spare time, she creates textile art. Her first solo exhibition of fine embroidery was held at the gallery of the Craft Council of Newfoundland and Labrador in March 2019.

Visit her website to read her blog, other publications, and hear her podcast https://www.ainsleyhawthorn.com