Irina Podgorny

Irina Podgorny of the Argentine Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas (CONICET) works on the history of natural history collections in Argentina and Europe, contributing to making visible the Latin American production of knowledge and its transnational entanglements with the wider world. In addition to her academic research, she collaborates with Argentine cultural weeklies and Latin American artists. Current work includes the History of Paleontology, historic extinctions and animal remedies.

Irina Pogorny is currently working on “The cultures of artificial history”, an exploration of the human configurations of what is perceived as the natural world. The book wants to confront the idea of pristine nature in places such as Oceania, South America, and the Mediterranean regions, including chapters on cacti and agaves in the Riviera; on singing mermaids in the Andes; on llamas, alpacas, and camels in Australia; on Eucalyptus in the Argentine Pampas; and reindeers on South Georgia.