
Dr. Peter Hobbs
Instructor, Faculty of Art
OCAD University
100 McCaul Street
Toronto, ON
Canada, M5T 1W1
Email: phobbs@faculty.ocadu.ca
Education:
2017: Ph.D. in the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University
Dissertation: Chemical Intimacies and Toxic Publics
Supervisor: Dr. Catriona Sandilands
2006: M.A. in Visual and Cultural Studies, University of Rochester
Thesis: A Cultural History of the Gay Bathhouse
Supervisor: Dr. Douglas Crimp
2000: M.F.A. in Sculpture-Installation, Concordia University. Graduated with Honours
Fellowships and Honours:
2017: Nominated for a York University Dissertation Prize
2012: Awarded SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship 2012-14
2011: Awarded an Ontario Graduate Scholarship
2009: Jointly awarded a Canada Council Grant with AA Bronson for our Queer Spirits Project
Teaching and Research Areas:
Environmental Studies Visual and Culture Studies Animal Studies
Science and Techno Studies Studio Art Practices Queer and Gender Studies
Teaching Experience:
2018 – Currently: Instructor, OCADU, Toronto
GART 1040: Drawing Across Disciplines/Writing Across Disciplines
A drawing-concept development course; required for first-year students in the Faculty of Art
2019: O’Donnell Visiting Professor, Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington
2019: Vermont College of Fine Art. Artist Mentor.
2017: Instructor, Brock University, St. Catharines
Critical Practice in the Fine and Performing Arts: Art and Everyday Life.
2012-16: Instructor and TA at York University, Toronto
Writing the Environment.
Responsibilities included giving weekly lectures and organizing weekly tutorials, marking, grading and advising.
2010-2012: Instructor and TA York University, Toronto
The Earth in Our Hands: Introduction to Environmental Studies
Responsibilities included giving weekly lectures and organizing weekly tutorials, marking, grading, and advising.
2006: Instructor at Saint John Fisher College, Rochester.
Suburban Nation: Land Use and Development in America 1945-2005
American Studies course designed to explore the history of housing and land development in the United States following WWII.
2004-05: Instructor at the University of Rochester, Rochester
SPORTS BODIES: Performing the Athlete. An introduction to Visual and Cultural Studies.
2003-04: Instructor at the University of Rochester, Rochester
STAR BODIES: Fandom, Gender, and Popular Culture. An intro to Visual and Cultural Studies.
2000-01: Instructor at Concordia University, Montreal
Extended Studio Practices (ARTX 270), Studio Arts Program, Department of Fine Art,
In this studio course students are introduced to a range of contemporary art practices.
Publications:
2019: To the Post Office & Back: A Snapshot of Chemical Intimacy. Included in Rising Tides: Writing for Climate Changing Times. Edited by Catriona Sandilands. Vancouver: Caitlin Press.
2017: This is Not Therapy, This is Group Work. Edited by Andrew Zealley. Toronto: Disco Hospital Books and Records.
2017: The Tale of the Sarnia Nose. Toronto: Art Gallery of York University.
2017: Excerpt from The Tale of the Sarnia Nose. Undercurrents, Issue 20.
http://currents.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/currents/article/view/40317/36088
2017: Excerpt from The Tale of the Sarnia Nose. Centre for Imaginative Ethnography.
http://imaginativeethnography.org/imaginings/comics/the-tale-of-the-sarnia-nose/
2016: Canine Cartographies: On the Queer and Curious Pleasures of Being a Dog. Included in Animal Subjects 2.0, ed. Jodey Castricano and Lauren Corman. Wilfred Laurier UniversityPress.
https://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/Books/A/Animal-Subjects-2.0
2016: Epistemology of the Bunkhouse: Lusty Lumberjacks and the Sexual Pedagogy of the Woods. Included in Queering the Countryside: New Directions in Rural Queer Studies, ed. Mary L. Gray, Colin R. Johnson, and Brian Gilley. New York University Press. http://nyupress.org/books/9781479880584/
2015: Queer Ecologies Roundtable Discussion: Gordon Brett Brochu-Ingram, Peter Hobbs, and Cate Sandilands. Undercurrents, Issue 19.
2015: Querying Eco-Logics: A collective experiment in affective ecologies and the politics of form and function. Coauthored with Astrid Schrader, Roberta Buiani, Jessica Caporusso, Lisa Cockburn, Kelly Ladd, and Darren Patrick. https://technoscienceunit.org/2015/07/24/querying-eco-logics/
2013: Queen’s Park and Other Stories: Toronto’s Queer Ecologies. Coauthored with Cate Sandilands. Included in Urban Explorations: Environmental Histories of the Toronto Region, ed. L. Anders Sandberg, Stephen Bocking, Ken Cruikshank. L. R. Wilson Institute for Canadian History.
http://environmental-history- science.blogspot.ca/2013/03/environmental-history-of-toronto-see.html
2011: Queer Spirits. Coauthored with AA Bronson. Joint North American and European publication: Creative Time, Plug In, JPR Publications.
2005: Co-editor of Invisible Culture: An Electronic Journal of Visual Culture, Issue 8: Nature Loving http://ivc.lib.rochester.edu/category/issues/archives/issue-9/
2004: The Image Before: The Lacanian Mirror Machine. Invisible Culture: An Electronic Journal of Visual Culture, Issue 7: Casting Doubt: http://ivc.lib.rochester.edu/the-image-before-me/
2001: Der Poncho und die nomadische Wunsch-Maschine / The Poncho and the Nomadic Desire Machine. Included in Szuper Gallery: Gallery Talks (bilingual catalogue). München, Germany: Galerie der Künstler.
2001: The Sewing Desire Machine. Included in Textile Transitions: Gender, Body, Identity, ed. Janis Jefferies. London: Telos Press.
1999: Say Nothing, Be Silent: The Work of Jo-Anne Balcaen, Nathalie de Briey, Naomi Potter, & Ana Rewakowicz (exhibition catalogue). Glasgow: Book Lab.
1994: Arnaud Maggs at the Susan Hobbs Galley. (review) C Magazine. Fall 1994.
1994: Roland Brenner at the Olga Korper Gallery (review) Parachute. 74, 1994.
1994: Kim Adams (review) Parachute. 73, 1994.
1991: Brian Scott at the Toronto Sculpture Garden. (review) C Magazine. Fall 1991.
Conference Presentations and Guest Speaking:
2019: The Tale of the Sarnia Nose, Public Lecture, Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington.
2018: To the Post Office and Back. A Story of Chemical Intimacy, SLSA Conference, Toronto
2018: Guest Lecture-Panelists, Waste Imaginaries. University of Toronto,
2017: Guest Lecture, Graduate Seminar, Culture and Environment. York University
2017: Writing Workshop: Writing Polluted Selves: Chemical Intimacies and Memoir. York University
2017: Guest Speaker at the Toronto Technoscience Salon. Ethnographies of Toxicity.
2016: Guest Lecturer: Environmental Disasters, Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University.
Lectured on local forms of environmental justice and community activism.
2016: Guest Lecturer: Qualitative Research Methods, Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University. Introduced the class to my comic/montage methodology and how it can be used to trace the messy, contradictory politics of toxins.
2015: Guest Speaker at the Toronto Technoscience Salon. Intro to the Air Bucket Brigades in Chemical Valley in southwestern Ontario and in Cancer Alley in Louisiana.
2015: How Does Petrocapitalism Make You Feel? In Pursuit of a Regional Sensorium. Society for the Social Studies of Science, Denver.
2015: Chemical Intimacies and Toxic Publics. Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment, University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho.
2014: Hazmat Suits and Lemonade: The Ambient Politics of Lead. Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA), York University.
2013: On the Political Sorcery of Lead, the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts (SLSA), University of Notre Dame.
2013: Touring Toxicity: The Entangled Understories of Toronto’s Portlands. MATTERING: Feminism, Science & Materialism, City University of New York.
2012: Canine Cartography: On the Biopolitics of Poodles, Society for the Social Studies of Science, Copenhagen, Denmark.
2012: On the Queer and Curious Pleasures of Being a Dog, SLAS Conference, Milwaukee.
2011: Crittercams and Animal Technologies of Infolding, Society for the Social Studies of Science, Cleveland.
2011: Tracking the Posthuman, SLAS Conference, Kitchener-Waterloo.
2010: Epistemology of the Bunkhouse, Queering the Countryside: New Directions in Rural Queer Studies, Indiana University.
Solo and Group Exhibitions:
2017: Visual Sociology, Ryerson University, Toronto.
2012: Young Curators: New Ideas, New York (video installation).
2009: Invocation of Queer Spirits: New York (A performance with AA Bronson, sponsored by Creative Time as part of a public art installation show, This World and Nearer Ones http://creativetime.org/projects/invocation-of-the-queer-spirits/
2008: Invocation of Queer Spirits: Winnipeg (A performance with AA Bronson, sponsored by Plug In).
2008: Invocation of Queer Spirits: New Orleans (A performance with AA Bronson, sponsored by Creative Time).
2005: Pleasures of Being a Dog, Hartnett Gallery, University of Rochester (solo show: latest installation of my imaginary queer circus).
2004: 39 Artists That I Love, Fads Art Space, Tokyo (group show organized by Yoshiaki Kaihatsu) – Video.
2003: Sexmutant, the Nunnery Gallery, London, England (group show organized by Lee Adams).
2002: Art-Throb: The Culture of Obsession, articule, Montréal (co-curated show with Jo-Anne Balcaen, featuring the work of Daniel Barrow, Cecilia Berkovic, Evergon, Shari Hatt, Keith Orkusz and Shelley Ouellet.
2001: Circus of Tears, Latitude 53, Edmonton, Alberta – Video installation.
2001: Museopathy, Kingston, Ontario (group show organized by Jim Drobnick and Jennifer Fisher) – Performance.
Artist and Academic Residencies:
2017: PWA Toronto: The People with AIDS Foundation. Toronto, Canada.
2008: Making Artistic Inquiry Visible. Banff Centre of the Arts, Banff, Canada.
2003: School of Theory and Criticism. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
2000: Big City. Banff Centre of the Arts, Banff, Canada.
Instructor, Faculty of Art
OCAD University
100 McCaul Street
Toronto, ON
Canada, M5T 1W1
Email: phobbs@faculty.ocadu.ca
Education:
2017: Ph.D. in the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University
Dissertation: Chemical Intimacies and Toxic Publics
Supervisor: Dr. Catriona Sandilands
2006: M.A. in Visual and Cultural Studies, University of Rochester
Thesis: A Cultural History of the Gay Bathhouse
Supervisor: Dr. Douglas Crimp
2000: M.F.A. in Sculpture-Installation, Concordia University. Graduated with Honours
Fellowships and Honours:
2017: Nominated for a York University Dissertation Prize
2012: Awarded SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship 2012-14
2011: Awarded an Ontario Graduate Scholarship
2009: Jointly awarded a Canada Council Grant with AA Bronson for our Queer Spirits Project
Teaching and Research Areas:
Environmental Studies Visual and Culture Studies Animal Studies
Science and Techno Studies Studio Art Practices Queer and Gender Studies
Teaching Experience:
2018 – Currently: Instructor, OCADU, Toronto
GART 1040: Drawing Across Disciplines/Writing Across Disciplines
A drawing-concept development course; required for first-year students in the Faculty of Art
2019: O’Donnell Visiting Professor, Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington
2019: Vermont College of Fine Art. Artist Mentor.
2017: Instructor, Brock University, St. Catharines
Critical Practice in the Fine and Performing Arts: Art and Everyday Life.
2012-16: Instructor and TA at York University, Toronto
Writing the Environment.
Responsibilities included giving weekly lectures and organizing weekly tutorials, marking, grading and advising.
2010-2012: Instructor and TA York University, Toronto
The Earth in Our Hands: Introduction to Environmental Studies
Responsibilities included giving weekly lectures and organizing weekly tutorials, marking, grading, and advising.
2006: Instructor at Saint John Fisher College, Rochester.
Suburban Nation: Land Use and Development in America 1945-2005
American Studies course designed to explore the history of housing and land development in the United States following WWII.
2004-05: Instructor at the University of Rochester, Rochester
SPORTS BODIES: Performing the Athlete. An introduction to Visual and Cultural Studies.
2003-04: Instructor at the University of Rochester, Rochester
STAR BODIES: Fandom, Gender, and Popular Culture. An intro to Visual and Cultural Studies.
2000-01: Instructor at Concordia University, Montreal
Extended Studio Practices (ARTX 270), Studio Arts Program, Department of Fine Art,
In this studio course students are introduced to a range of contemporary art practices.
Publications:
2019: To the Post Office & Back: A Snapshot of Chemical Intimacy. Included in Rising Tides: Writing for Climate Changing Times. Edited by Catriona Sandilands. Vancouver: Caitlin Press.
2017: This is Not Therapy, This is Group Work. Edited by Andrew Zealley. Toronto: Disco Hospital Books and Records.
2017: The Tale of the Sarnia Nose. Toronto: Art Gallery of York University.
2017: Excerpt from The Tale of the Sarnia Nose. Undercurrents, Issue 20.
http://currents.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/currents/article/view/40317/36088
2017: Excerpt from The Tale of the Sarnia Nose. Centre for Imaginative Ethnography.
http://imaginativeethnography.org/imaginings/comics/the-tale-of-the-sarnia-nose/
2016: Canine Cartographies: On the Queer and Curious Pleasures of Being a Dog. Included in Animal Subjects 2.0, ed. Jodey Castricano and Lauren Corman. Wilfred Laurier UniversityPress.
https://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/Books/A/Animal-Subjects-2.0
2016: Epistemology of the Bunkhouse: Lusty Lumberjacks and the Sexual Pedagogy of the Woods. Included in Queering the Countryside: New Directions in Rural Queer Studies, ed. Mary L. Gray, Colin R. Johnson, and Brian Gilley. New York University Press. http://nyupress.org/books/9781479880584/
2015: Queer Ecologies Roundtable Discussion: Gordon Brett Brochu-Ingram, Peter Hobbs, and Cate Sandilands. Undercurrents, Issue 19.
2015: Querying Eco-Logics: A collective experiment in affective ecologies and the politics of form and function. Coauthored with Astrid Schrader, Roberta Buiani, Jessica Caporusso, Lisa Cockburn, Kelly Ladd, and Darren Patrick. https://technoscienceunit.org/2015/07/24/querying-eco-logics/
2013: Queen’s Park and Other Stories: Toronto’s Queer Ecologies. Coauthored with Cate Sandilands. Included in Urban Explorations: Environmental Histories of the Toronto Region, ed. L. Anders Sandberg, Stephen Bocking, Ken Cruikshank. L. R. Wilson Institute for Canadian History.
http://environmental-history- science.blogspot.ca/2013/03/environmental-history-of-toronto-see.html
2011: Queer Spirits. Coauthored with AA Bronson. Joint North American and European publication: Creative Time, Plug In, JPR Publications.
2005: Co-editor of Invisible Culture: An Electronic Journal of Visual Culture, Issue 8: Nature Loving http://ivc.lib.rochester.edu/category/issues/archives/issue-9/
2004: The Image Before: The Lacanian Mirror Machine. Invisible Culture: An Electronic Journal of Visual Culture, Issue 7: Casting Doubt: http://ivc.lib.rochester.edu/the-image-before-me/
2001: Der Poncho und die nomadische Wunsch-Maschine / The Poncho and the Nomadic Desire Machine. Included in Szuper Gallery: Gallery Talks (bilingual catalogue). München, Germany: Galerie der Künstler.
2001: The Sewing Desire Machine. Included in Textile Transitions: Gender, Body, Identity, ed. Janis Jefferies. London: Telos Press.
1999: Say Nothing, Be Silent: The Work of Jo-Anne Balcaen, Nathalie de Briey, Naomi Potter, & Ana Rewakowicz (exhibition catalogue). Glasgow: Book Lab.
1994: Arnaud Maggs at the Susan Hobbs Galley. (review) C Magazine. Fall 1994.
1994: Roland Brenner at the Olga Korper Gallery (review) Parachute. 74, 1994.
1994: Kim Adams (review) Parachute. 73, 1994.
1991: Brian Scott at the Toronto Sculpture Garden. (review) C Magazine. Fall 1991.
Conference Presentations and Guest Speaking:
2019: The Tale of the Sarnia Nose, Public Lecture, Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington.
2018: To the Post Office and Back. A Story of Chemical Intimacy, SLSA Conference, Toronto
2018: Guest Lecture-Panelists, Waste Imaginaries. University of Toronto,
2017: Guest Lecture, Graduate Seminar, Culture and Environment. York University
2017: Writing Workshop: Writing Polluted Selves: Chemical Intimacies and Memoir. York University
2017: Guest Speaker at the Toronto Technoscience Salon. Ethnographies of Toxicity.
2016: Guest Lecturer: Environmental Disasters, Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University.
Lectured on local forms of environmental justice and community activism.
2016: Guest Lecturer: Qualitative Research Methods, Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University. Introduced the class to my comic/montage methodology and how it can be used to trace the messy, contradictory politics of toxins.
2015: Guest Speaker at the Toronto Technoscience Salon. Intro to the Air Bucket Brigades in Chemical Valley in southwestern Ontario and in Cancer Alley in Louisiana.
2015: How Does Petrocapitalism Make You Feel? In Pursuit of a Regional Sensorium. Society for the Social Studies of Science, Denver.
2015: Chemical Intimacies and Toxic Publics. Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment, University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho.
2014: Hazmat Suits and Lemonade: The Ambient Politics of Lead. Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA), York University.
2013: On the Political Sorcery of Lead, the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts (SLSA), University of Notre Dame.
2013: Touring Toxicity: The Entangled Understories of Toronto’s Portlands. MATTERING: Feminism, Science & Materialism, City University of New York.
2012: Canine Cartography: On the Biopolitics of Poodles, Society for the Social Studies of Science, Copenhagen, Denmark.
2012: On the Queer and Curious Pleasures of Being a Dog, SLAS Conference, Milwaukee.
2011: Crittercams and Animal Technologies of Infolding, Society for the Social Studies of Science, Cleveland.
2011: Tracking the Posthuman, SLAS Conference, Kitchener-Waterloo.
2010: Epistemology of the Bunkhouse, Queering the Countryside: New Directions in Rural Queer Studies, Indiana University.
Solo and Group Exhibitions:
2017: Visual Sociology, Ryerson University, Toronto.
2012: Young Curators: New Ideas, New York (video installation).
2009: Invocation of Queer Spirits: New York (A performance with AA Bronson, sponsored by Creative Time as part of a public art installation show, This World and Nearer Ones http://creativetime.org/projects/invocation-of-the-queer-spirits/
2008: Invocation of Queer Spirits: Winnipeg (A performance with AA Bronson, sponsored by Plug In).
2008: Invocation of Queer Spirits: New Orleans (A performance with AA Bronson, sponsored by Creative Time).
2005: Pleasures of Being a Dog, Hartnett Gallery, University of Rochester (solo show: latest installation of my imaginary queer circus).
2004: 39 Artists That I Love, Fads Art Space, Tokyo (group show organized by Yoshiaki Kaihatsu) – Video.
2003: Sexmutant, the Nunnery Gallery, London, England (group show organized by Lee Adams).
2002: Art-Throb: The Culture of Obsession, articule, Montréal (co-curated show with Jo-Anne Balcaen, featuring the work of Daniel Barrow, Cecilia Berkovic, Evergon, Shari Hatt, Keith Orkusz and Shelley Ouellet.
2001: Circus of Tears, Latitude 53, Edmonton, Alberta – Video installation.
2001: Museopathy, Kingston, Ontario (group show organized by Jim Drobnick and Jennifer Fisher) – Performance.
Artist and Academic Residencies:
2017: PWA Toronto: The People with AIDS Foundation. Toronto, Canada.
2008: Making Artistic Inquiry Visible. Banff Centre of the Arts, Banff, Canada.
2003: School of Theory and Criticism. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
2000: Big City. Banff Centre of the Arts, Banff, Canada.