Otto Latva

History; Cultural History; Human-Animal Studies; Sea Animals; Cephalopods; Mollusks; Insects; Oceans; Baltic Sea; 16th Century; 17th Century; 18th Century; 19th Century; 20th Century; Environmental History; History of Science; History of Zoology; History of Knowledge; Maritime History; Climate Change; Digital Humanities; Big Data; History of Animal Farming; Posthumanism; History of Monsters; Oral History; Maritime Literature; Marine Fiction; History of Seafarers; History of Whaling 

I am a historian, specialized in human-animal studies and the ways in which people of the past perceived the sea environment. I am also interested in many other matters related to the shared past between humans and non-human nature. I have for instance written a lot about the ways in which humans have monsterized non-human nature and how they have exploited it. At the moment, I am working in the Finnish Academy project, "Living with the Baltic Sea in a Changing Climate", in Åbo Akademi. In this project, I will explore the changes in the shared past between humans and the Baltic fauna and flora. My primary objective is to explore how people have understood the disappearance of marine species and the arrival of new species in the Baltic Sea.