Dolly Jørgensen
LightNews LightNews
banner
dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
Dolly Jørgensen
@dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
5.5K followers 1K following 2K posts
Environmental historian. Professor Univ of Stavanger. Co-director Greenhouse Center for #envhum. Co-editor Environmental Humanities journal. Extinction; animal history.
New book: The Medieval Pig (Boydell 2024) https://boydellandbrewer.com/9781837651689/th
Posts Replies Media Videos
dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
Nice extinction history article.

Steller’s sea cows are one of my favorite extinction encounters in museums. I discuss them in chapter 8 on playful figures (examples from @mnhn.fr & Smithsonian NatHist) and chapter 1 on forms (example from @nathist.bsky.social )

press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...
A book page with image of a room with skeletons. Finnish Natural History Museum. A book page with image of Steller’s sea cow skull. France’s National Natural History Museum. Book page with image of a person holding up a phone showing a sea cow and in background in skeleton. Smithsonian Natural History Museum.
November 24, 2025 at 6:59 PM
dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
New Masters in Public Environmental Humanities starts Fall 2026 in Stavanger.

Registration for students from outside of EU is open now, with deadline Nov 30. So jump on it!

Need more info? We have an online session coming up Friday, Nov 21. See 👇

www.uis.no/en/studies/t...

#envhum #environment
Poster for MASTERS IN PUBLIC ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES Our 2-year masters program in beautiful Stavanger, Norway, invites you to study today's environmental challenges as deeply rooted in culture and history. Key aspects: • Combine critical thinking with hands-on engagement • Work across humanities fields • Put learning into action through an internship • Taught entirely in English • Free tuition for students from EU/EEA/Switzerland and affordable for others If you believe community-engaged humanities can help build a more sustainable future, this is the place to start.
November 19, 2025 at 10:26 PM
dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
My newest monograph Ghosts Behind Glass: Encountering Extinction in Museums is published with @uchicagopress.bsky.social

press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...
Book cover with colorful parakeet in bell jar
November 14, 2025 at 2:54 PM
dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
My first monograph Recovering Lost Species in the Modern Age: Histories of Longing and Belonging was published with @mitpress.bsky.social

mitpress.mit.edu/978026253781...
Cover of book with a muskox in landscape
November 14, 2025 at 2:54 PM
dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
My edited volume Northscapes: History, Technology, and the Making of Northern Environments, co-edited with Sverker Sörlin was published with @ubcpress.bsky.social

www.ubcpress.ca/northscapes
Book cover with image of green aurora
November 14, 2025 at 2:54 PM
dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
The second with @upittpress.bsky.social is Sharing Spaces: Technology, Mediation, and Human-Animal Relationships, co-edited with @finnarne.me

upittpress.org/books/978082...
Cover of book with a bear from trail camera
November 14, 2025 at 2:54 PM
dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
I have two edited volumes with @upittpress.bsky.social

The first is
New Natures: Joining Environmental History with Science and Technology Studies, co-edited w @finnarne.me & @sarabpritchard.bsky.social

upittpress.org/books/978082...
Cover of book with abstract image of nature
November 14, 2025 at 2:54 PM
dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
We want you to study with us!
Our masters program in Public Environmental Humanities starts Fall 2026. This is a very special program that brings together research with taking research into public sphere.

Next online info session: Thurs 21 Nov 14.00 CET

www.uis.no/en/studies/t...
#envhum
Poster about the Masters in Environmental Humanities at Univ of Stavanger Our 2-year masters program in beautiful Stavanger, Norway, invites you to study today's environmental challenges as deeply rooted in culture and history. Key aspects: • Combine critical thinking with hands-on engagement • Work across humanities fields • Put learning into action through an internship • Taught entirely in English • Free tuition for students from EU/EEA/Switzerland and affordable for others If you believe community-engaged humanities can help build a more sustainable future, this is the place to start. GET MORE INFO & APPLY FOR FALL 2026 Questions? Email PEH@uis.no
November 12, 2025 at 4:30 PM
dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
Marek Jancovic will be talking in the @greenhouseuis.net research seminar today on Cinema's Atmospheric Apriori:
Weather and Environment in the History of Celluloid Film
Manufacturing
Man in front of screen
November 12, 2025 at 1:21 PM
dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
Tomorrow (Monday, Nov 10) the tables are turned: I’m the guest on the Greenhouse #envhum book talk to discuss Ghosts Behind Glass with @finnarne.me & guest host @medievalpenguin.bsky.social

Join us online for the discussion! 4pm CET/3pm GMT/10am EST

newnatures.org/greenhouse/e...
Book cover with colorful parakeet in a bell jar
November 9, 2025 at 2:30 PM
dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
Sigtuna has some really nice medieval monuments including standing rune stones and church ruins.

According to this rune stone, one guy named Anund was pretty full of himself: “Anund had the stone erected in memory of himself in his lifetime.”
Rune stone with red writing and lines A church tower stone ruin at night
November 7, 2025 at 4:12 PM
dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
Had a great day in Stockholm.
In morning met with folks at the natural history museum who I will be collaborating with on a new project called HEART. Saw my extinct friends.
Then afternoon with Stockholm Univ EnvHum group and giving a talk on Ghosts Behind Glass. Packed room & fantastic questions.
Two display cases with animals
November 6, 2025 at 7:38 PM
dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
Huge show of Northern lights over Stavanger!

Including green bands behind the telecom tower that is lit up in pink lights for breast cancer awareness.
Northern lights in green Northern lights in green and tower in pink lights
October 30, 2025 at 9:48 PM
dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
I just saw that there are some lovely reviews of Ghosts Behind Glass based on the NetGalley pdf over on Goodreads. www.goodreads.com/en/book/show...

Some samples :
I am a fan of both natural history and niche topics so this book about endangered species museum exhibits hit me just the right way. It felt like visiting each museum as I was reading. I will absolutely be on the look out for the authors next book, and am putting this on my “books that would make good gifts” list. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC of this book! I do not typically pick up books about endangered species and museum, however the title left me curious about the contents. I thoroughly enjoyed exploring the museums through the lens of their thesis of understanding the dead. We learn so much from these ghosts in the museums and how our environment has changed without them. There was a lot to learn from the author with the authors pictures they had taken throughout their visits. The pictures were well paced with the appropriate text to compliment the picture. It felt like a lively discussion you would hear on a museum tour. We are haunted by the history we choose to ignore, and I feel like this is the sentiment the author was getting at by teaching us about these museum collections. A well researched read that makes you think about just how work is put into museum curations. Thank you, Net Galley and University of Chicago Press! I requested an eARC of this book on a whim, only going into it with two facts: 1) I love museums and learning how/why they display their items a certain way, and 2) I’ve always been deeply moved and affected by the occasional story of an animal gone extinct. (That picture of the last Barbary lion gets me every time.) This book is a fascinating exploration of how museums choose to preserve not just the remains of animals themselves, but the stories that illustrate the resounding impact of extinction. The author examines why museums leave certain histories out, why they display certain specimens in specific ways, and even how sometimes a bit of playful energy can make a greater impact than a simple skeleton. It’s clear that Dolly Jørgensen put so much time, effort, work, and love into this, and it’s a treat to explore the museums she sought out — even if it is only through a book’s page and pictures. Read October 13, 2025 I really enjoyed this book - as a paleontologist studying diversity shifts in the Quaternary, this was right in my wheelhouse. I think it could've benefitted from discussing Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions and the debate over how much impact humans had, since this could be our earliest example of human-driven extinction and there is a ton of variations in how museums discuss it. I loved the idea of the photographs not being professionally taken as a way to show how visitors actually interact with the specimens, but I think it could've gone farther. It would've been really cool (but probably way too expensive) to have different artists show how they see different displays. I also thought the chapter about specimens not on display missed the mark. This would've been a great place to talk about the value of collections in conserving natural and cultural heritage, and tie it back to repatriation (which I really liked the discussion of). Overall, I definitely recommend this for anyone interested in museum studies or the consequences of climate change.
October 29, 2025 at 8:56 PM
dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
Thanks for the hospitality of the Norwegian Petroleum Museum this morning as we visited with our PITCH project (pitch-horizon.eu) collaborators from Finnish Forest Museum LUSTO.
three women oil equipment outside that is re-used as playground and spray painted a red light inside of a globe as part of exhibit Climate for Change
October 29, 2025 at 1:23 PM
dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
Petrocultures & cultural heritage!
(My view of Stonehenge this summer)
October 27, 2025 at 6:54 PM
dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
Join me & @mmuscolino.bsky.social discussing his book Remaking the Earth, Exhausting the People: The Burden of Conservation in Modern China tomorrow (Monday, 27 October 2025) at 4pm Central European / 11am Eastern / 8am Pacific
Live talk details:
newnatures.org/greenhouse/e...
#envhum #envhist
Book cover with people working in fields
October 26, 2025 at 8:19 PM
dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
Very happy to hear @carlzimring.bsky.social’s talk to The Greenhouse today on his new project:
Ecodesigning Sustainable Products?
Voluntary and Regulatory Measures Shaping Design Strategies in the Scandinavian Furniture Industry
1987-present
Man on right. Slide of truck with image of wooden furniture on it with pine forest behind.
October 22, 2025 at 2:08 PM
dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
I looked through my “extinction in museums” files and discovered that I have encountered a slender-billed curlew at the Museum of Natural History, University of Wrocław, Poland.
Now gets added to the list of extinct animals.
A bird laying down
October 10, 2025 at 11:49 AM
dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
Quite the honor to give “More-than-human histories: Changing whose histories matter” as my Gad Rausing prize lecture at the Vitterhetsakademien meeting this evening in Stockholm.
Woman in front of doorway with arch which says Vitterhetsakademien
October 7, 2025 at 7:47 PM
dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
It’s real!!
I just got my first copy of Ghosts Behind Glass and it is beautiful. You all really need to order your copies. You will not regret it. press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...
Author holding copy of book Page with birds on left, text on right Double page spread with a photo of diorama Chapter 3 Cursed treasures on left, lion on right
October 6, 2025 at 1:34 PM
dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
Tomorrow Monday Oct 6, we’ll be talking to @royscranton.bsky.social about Impasse: Climate Change & the Limits of Progress on the @greenhouseuis.net book talk.

Join us for the live discussion at 4pm Central European time / 10am Eastern
newnatures.org/greenhouse/e...
Book cover of Impasse by Roy Scranton with swirls of color like a wave or dragon
October 5, 2025 at 8:04 PM
dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
Below the pig feeding labor for October, November shows pig slaughter.
It’s a very interesting image with the butcher putting one carcass into a barrel and another hanging nearby.
A butcher holding a pig by the tail. The pig’s hind feet are visible on the edge of a barrel. Another pig carcass is hanging head down on a tree.
October 2, 2025 at 5:17 PM
dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
It is now October, which means it is medieval pig feeding in woodlands time!

I had the chance to visit the Basilica of St Denis in Paris today, which shows pig feeding in a stone carving on the jamb of the right portal of the west façade.

I write about the practice in my book The Medieval Pig.
Man stands on left holding a stick and knocking down acorns for two pigs who stand under the tree
October 2, 2025 at 5:12 PM
dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
Interesting read!
I encountered lots of free-range / street dogs in Cairo and surroundings. Many are tagged because they have been vaccinated.
October 2, 2025 at 6:46 AM