Tara Rider

Research Topics

Maritime and Environmental History, Sustainability

My research builds upon the debates in environmental studies regarding the role of nature and society.  My first line of research focuses on the geopolitics of Ireland.  This research explores how the search for identity and power is indelibly inked onto the both the people and the landscape of Ireland.  I have studied how gender intersected with landscape and the bodies of the Irish during the Tudor era.  At once substantive and symbolic, the linkage of gender and race with landscape raises questions of power, culture, and identity.

My second research line highlights on American whaling.  I am writing a manuscript, with the working title of Hunting to Hash Tagging: A Critical Analysis of the Progression of America’s Whaling Culture, which explores four hundred years of American whaling traditions through the lens of cultural history.  The book links transnational politics and economics to the experiences of Americans—rural and urban, poor and rich—by focusing on their shifting cultural attitudes towards whales over the centuries.

I am also the Director for Stony Brook University’s International Academic Programs to Ireland England where students study not only the history of Ireland, but also use their travel experiences to better understand global environmental issues including climate change, renewable energy, and ocean resources.