Biography
I grew up in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia. My degrees in history
(B.A. - 1989; M.A. - 1994) are from the University of British Columbia
where I became fascinated with the relations between stories and places.
A Commonwealth Scholarship allowed me to follow my interests in environmental
history over to historical geography at the University of Cambridge in
England. I received my Ph.D.. from the Cambridge Department of Geography
in 2001. I was Junior Research Fellow in Historical Geography at Churchill
College, Cambridge (1999-2002) and arrived in Kingston with my partner
and son to experience my first Ontario winter, January 2003. Since then,
we have enjoyed the lakes in every season and the creative communities
which enliven the University and our neck of the woods, Skeleton Park.
Teaching Interests
Research and teaching are complementary activities. At Churchill College
I acted as Director of Studies for Geography and really enjoyed the opportunity
to work with and mentor new, enthusiastic and questioning geographers.
Since arriving at Queen's, I have developed an undergraduate course which
reflects and continues to highlight my interests in the histories and
geographies of 'nature' as well as a graduate course which explores cultures
and histories of fieldwork. For course descriptions, please visit the
departmental website. I also currently teach the compulsory Ph.D. course
on the conceptual and methodological bases of geography as well as the
first year introductory course to Human Geography.
Graduate Students:
Matthew Cavers (MA Candidate) Completed 2008
Drew Bednasek (Ph.D.
Candidate, Co-supervised with Anne Godlewska )
Emilie Cameron (Ph.D.
Candidate, Co-supervised with Audrey Kobayashi )
Kirsten Greer (Ph.D.
Candidate, Co-supervised with Joan Schwartz)
Alana Ramsay (MA Candidate)
Research
Where is 'nature' and for whom?
This question is key in my current position as Canada Research Chair in
Historical Geographies of Nature and involves the study of cultural encounters
between people and places in four interrelated projects:
• Arthur George Tansley, Ecologist and Psychoanalyst: Geographies
of a Life
Funded by a SSHRCC Standard Research Grant (April 2005-March 2008)
• Science, Nature and Psychoanalytic Networks
Collaborative (in part) project with Professor John Forrester, Department
of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge.
Funded in part by the Queen's University Advisory Research Committee,
SSHRC Aid to Conferences (for the 2nd International and Interdisciplinary
Conference on Emotional Geographies 2006 co-organized with Dr. Joyce Davidson)
and the Canada Research Chair Program
• Unorthodox Ecologies: The Life and Works of Marietta Pallis
Collaborative project with Professor David Matless, Department of Geography,
University of Nottingham.
Funded in part by the British Academy and the Canada Research Chair Program
• Oral/Aural Geographies of Nature: Transnational Ecologies
Funded in part by the Canada Research Chair Program, Queen's University
Faculty of Arts and Science, SSHRC Strategic Knowledge Clusters (NiCHE)
Publications
Books and Attachments
Smith, Mick, Davidson, Joyce, Cameron, Laura and Bondi, Liz (Eds.) Emotion,
Place and Culture. Burlington VT and Aldershot: Ashgate Press, 2009.
Cameron, Laura. Openings: A Meditation on History, Method and Sumas Lake.
Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1997, book, pp. 135.
Cameron, Laura. “Disappearing A Lake” an independent hypermedia
essay published with Openings, located at http://www.mcgill.ca/mqupress
Refereed Journal Articles
Matless, David and Laura Cameron, “Geographies of Local Life: Marietta
Pallis and friends, Long Gores, Hickling, Norfolk,” Environment
and Planning D: Society and Space, 25 (2007) 75-103.
Cameron, Laura, “Science, Nature and Hatred: ‘finding out’
at the Malting House Garden School, 1924-9,” Environment and Planning
D, Society and Space, 24:6 (2006) 851-872.
Matless, David and Laura Cameron, “Experiment in Landscape: The
Norfolk Excavations of Marietta Pallis,” Journal of Historical Geography,
32:1 (2006) 96-126.
Cameron, Laura and Matt Rogalsky, “Conserving Rainforest: Aural
Geographies and Ephemerality,” Social and Cultural Geography 7:6
(2006) 909-926.
Greer, Kirsten and Laura Cameron, “‘Swee-ee-et Cán-a-da,
Cán-a-da, Cán-a-da’: Sensuous Landscapes of Bird-watching
in the Eastern Provinces, 1900-39,” Material History Review, 62
(Autumn 2006) 35-43.
Cameron, Laura and David Matless, “Benign Ecology: Marietta Pallis
and the floating fen of the delta of the Danube, 1912-16,” Cultural
Geographies 10: 3 (2003) 253-277.
Cameron, Laura, “Oral History in the Freud Archives: Incidents,
Ethics and Relations,” Historical Geography, 29 (Spring 2001) 38-44.
Cameron, Laura and John Forrester, “Tansley’s Psychoanalytic
Network: An Episode out of the Early History of Psychoanalysis in England,”
Psychoanalysis and History 2, no. 2 (2000) 189-256.
Cameron, Laura and John Forrester, “A Nice Type of the English Scientist:
Tansley and Freud,” History Workshop Journal 48 (Autumn 1999) 64-100.
Forrester, John and Laura Cameron “‘Cure With A Defect’:
A Previously Unpublished Letter by Freud Concerning ‘Anna O’,”
International Journal of Psychoanalysis 80, Part 5 (1999) 929-942.
Cameron, Laura, “Listening for pleasure,” Native Studies Review.
11: 1 (1997) 109-129.
Cameron, Laura, “Histories of Disturbance,” Radical History
Review 74 (1999) 2-24.
Cameron, Laura, “Old/New/Maps/Territories,” Histoire sociale/
Social History 28: 55 (May 1995) 241-252.
Cameron, Laura, “Dynamic Tradition and the Guru-Shishya Parampara,”
BC Asian Review 3/4 (1990) 74-87.
Book Chapters / Articles in Edited Collections
Cameron, Laura, “Sir Arthur George Tansley,” 5000 word essay
plus annotated bibliography, in Noretta Koertge (ed) New Dictionary of
Scientific Biography, Detroit: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2008: Volume
7, pp. 3-10.
Matless, David and Laura Cameron, “Devotional Landscape: Ecology
and Orthodoxy in the Work of Marietta Pallis,” in Sacred Gardens
and Landscapes: Ritual and Agency, edited by Michel Conan, Dumbarton Oaks
Colloquium Series in the History of Landscape Architecture (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 2006, available May 2007).
Cameron, Laura and David Matless, “Marietta Pallis,” New Dictionary
of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) 1270 words,
online.
Cameron, Laura, “Lakes” in Stephan Harrison, Steve Pile and
Nigel Thrift, (eds), Patterned Ground: ecologies of nature and culture
(London: Reaktion Press, 2004), 105-107.
Cameron, Laura, “Ecosystems” in Stephan Harrison, Steve Pile
and Nigel Thrift, (eds), Patterned Ground: ecologies of nature and culture
(London: Reaktion Press, 2004), 55-57.
Cameron, Laura and John Forrester, “A Nice Type of the English Scientist:
Tansley, Freud and a Psychoanalytic Dream,” in Daniel Pick and Lyndal
Roper, (eds), Dreams and History: The Interpretation of Dreams from Ancient
Greece to Modern Psychoanalysis. London: Routledge, 2004, 199-236; reprinted
with modifications and corrections from Cameron, Laura and John Forrester,
“A Nice Type of the English Scientist: Tansley and Freud,”
History Workshop Journal 48 (Autumn 1999) 64-100.
Cameron, Laura, “The Aboriginal Right To Fish,” in Keith Thor
Carlson, ed. You Are Asked To Witness: The Sto:lo in Canada’s Pacific
Coast History. Chilliwack, B.C.: Sto:lo Heritage Trust, 1997, 139-152.
Cameron, Laura and Brian Thom, “Changing Land Use in Solh Temexw
(Our Land): Population, Transportation, Ecology and Heritage,” in
Carlson, ed. You Are Asked to Witness, 163-180.
Editorial Introductions
Smith, Mick, Davidson, Joyce, Cameron, Laura and Bondi, Liz (2009) 'Introduction:
Geography and Emotion - Emerging Constellations', in Mick Smith, Joyce
Davidson, Laura Cameron and Liz Bondi. Emotion, Place and Culture. Burlington
VT and Aldershot: Ashgate Press, 2009
Cameron, Laura and Caroline Desbiens, “Historical geographies of
colonialism: introduction,” Canadian Geographer 51, no. 3 (2007)
337-338.
Reports and Public Dissemination
Cameron, Laura, “Arthur Tansley and Psychoanalysis”, article
for The Tansley Trust of the New Phytologist, new website: (2009)
Cameron, Laura and Caroline Desbiens, “Historical Geography: Emerging
Trends and Continuities,” Past Place, Newsletter of the Historical
Geography Specialty Group Association of American Geographers, 14:1 (Fall/Winter
2006) 6-8.
Cameron, Laura, “Review of John Harris and Vivien Lougheed’s
Diary of a Lake” Canadian Historical Review. 85:4 (December 2004)
827-828.
Cameron, Laura, “Canada Research Chair in Historical Geographies
of Nature,” CAG Newsletter, 10:5 (Sept-Oct 2003) 10.
Cameron, Laura and Hayden Lorimer, “Historical Geography at the
Annual Conference of the Royal Geographical Society/Institute of British
Geographers, University of Kingston, 5-8 January 1998,” Journal
of Historical Geography 24, no. 3 (July 1998) 357-359.
Cameron, Laura, “A Lake Vanishes,” Pacific Current (June
1995) 14-18.
In Preparation
Cameron, Laura and John Forrester, Freud in Cambridge, book manuscript.
Contract with Cambridge University Press.
Baldwin, Andrew, Laura Cameron and Audrey Kobayashi, Rethinking the Great
White North: Race, Nature and the Historical Geographies of Whiteness,
edited book manuscript. Contract with UBC Press.
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Dr.
Laura Cameron
Biography