Middlesex Community College is excited to welcome author and anthropologist Dr. Darcie DeAngelo for a discussion of her book “How to Love a Rat: Detecting Bombs in Postwar Cambodia.” The event will take place at 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday, October 8, in the college’s Richard and Nancy Donahue and Family Academic Arts Center (AAC) in Lowell.
“DeAngelo's work stood out to me because it looks at ways that the Cambodian people are demining their own land, so demilitarization without the military or the state,” says Asian Studies Development Program (ASDP) regional coordinator and English faculty member Kerri Gamache. “People who were on both sides of the conflict are now working together to repair the land for future generations.”
Based in a Cambodian minefield, “How to Love a Rat: Detecting Bombs in Postwar Cambodia” tells the story of former war combatants who use explosive-sniffing rats to help find and remove mines from the land. In the book, DeAngelo highlights the difficulties of how adversaries become coworkers. Featuring humans working with rats, as well as how combatants from both sides of the war working together, the book serves as an exploration of human-animal relationships during a tense post-war era.
“Dr. DeAngelo's work stood out to me because it's based on interspecies relationships in a postwar environment, but also repair, a theme in many of my writing classes this term,” says Gamache. “Like many professors at MCC, I thread Cambodia's complex 20th century history, rich culture, and Lowell's vibrant Cambodian American community into each of my classes here in Lowell.”
An author, medical anthropologist and filmmaker, DeAngelo explores the unexpected relationships between humans and nonhumans during war and environmental disasters in her work. Writing about a variety of topics, she focuses on public mental health, international policy and militarism.
Hosted as part of the ASDP, all members of the MCC and greater community are welcome.