Thursday, October 12, 2023
7:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. EDT
Online via Vimeo
This presentation will be available on-demand for one month following the premiere.
Free and open to the public
Join us for the 2023 Snider Lecture featuring a free screening of the award-winning documentary, The Woman Who Loves Giraffes. The film will be followed by an exclusive pre-recorded Q&A with zoologist, alumna and honorary doctorate recipient, Anne Innis Dagg, and her daughter, Mary Dagg.
The Woman Who Loves Giraffes re-traces the steps of Anne Innis Dagg's groundbreaking 1956 journey to South Africa to study giraffes in the wild – and discovers a startling contrast between the world of giraffes she once knew and the one it has become. Weaving through the past and present, her harrowing journey gives us an intimate look into the factors that destroyed her career and the forces that brought her back.
- Best of Festival Selection - Seattle International Film Festival
- Winner, Best Documentary - Sonoma International Film Festival
- Audience Award, Best Documentary - Sonoma International Film Festival
- Audience Award, Best Feature Documentary - Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival
- Winner, Best Feature Film - Global Science Film Festival
Biography:
Anne Innis Dagg
2023 Snider Lecturer
Anne Innis Dagg is a pioneering zoologist, groundbreaking biologist, animal rights activist, feminist, teacher and mother of three. The youngest child of renowned academics Harold Innis and Mary Quayle Innis, Anne earned her BA with Honours in Biology (1955) and her MA in Genetics (1956) at the University of Toronto as well as her PhD in Animal Behaviour (1967) at the University of Waterloo.
Anne has received worldwide recognition as the first Western scientist to study giraffes in the wild in 1956. Her book Giraffe: Biology, Behaviour and Conservation (1976) is known as the bible of giraffes and is still used by scientists to this day. Anne is the author of over 60 scientific papers and 26 books including, Pursuing Giraffe: A 1950’s Adventure and The Fifty Per Cent Solution: Why Should Women Pay for Men's Culture? Anne’s academic interests include giraffes and Africa; gaits of mammals; sexual bias in behavioural biology; feminism (especially in academia); a historical study on Canadian women non-fiction authors; sociobiology; animal behaviours; aggression; and human evolution.
Her honours include being named one of the top eight women biologists in Canada (1975); she received the Batke Human Rights Award by the K-W Status of Women (1984); the Pioneer Award from the Association of Giraffe Care Professionals (2010); the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Giraffid Conference (2016); named the 2018 Canadian Eco-Hero at Planet in Focus (2018) and received the Women of Influence Award from the Zonta Club (2018).
In 2019, she was appointed to the Order of Canada and has received honorary doctorates from the University of Toronto, University of Waterloo, Mount Saint Vincent University and McMaster University. In 2020, Anne fulfilled her lifelong wish and established the Anne Innis Dagg Foundation to protect giraffes and their habitat. In 2022, she received an Honorary Membership to the Canadian Federation of University Women, the Courage Award from WXN’s Canada's Most Powerful Women: Top 100 Award and the Umvikeli Wildlife Protector Award 2022 from the Wild Tomorrow Fund.
The Snider Lecture Series is made possible thanks to the generosity of the Snider family and their endowment that allows UTM to host public lectures that enrich the intellectual and cultural life of members within and outside the UTM community.
Please contact Ben Jones, Event Coordinator if you require information in an alternate format, or if any other arrangements can make this event accessible to you.