Max Ritts
Assistant Professor, Geography
Scholarly Interests
Sensory studies; Nature-Society Relations; Critical Theory; Indigenous Studies; Creative Methods
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Max Ritts is an environmental geographer whose research explores intersections of social power, sensory practice, and ecological transformation – with a particular focus on Indigenous community contexts. His in-process book, A Resonant Ecology (under contract with Duke UP), examines the material, affective, and conceptual force of industrial development through situated enactments of sonic culture (encompassing eco-acoustics, whalesong, industrial noise, and Indigenous heavy metal). The book is rooted in collaborations with communities on the North Coast of British Columbia, where Max has been working since 2013. Here, Max is developing a new collaborative partnership with the Gitga’at First Nation that will assess capacities for data sovereignty and socio-cultural wellbeing in relation to the expansive uptake of digital environmental assessment tools within and surrounding Gitga’at Territory. Max is also working as co-editor on a second book, The Raven Stories, an anthology that aims to centre the voices of young Indigenous scholars and critical Indigenous perspectives in the Academy. Prior to joining Clark, Max was a College Research Associate (CRA) at King’s College, University of Cambridge. He received his PhD in Geography from the University of British Columbia in 2018.
COURSES TAUGHT
GEOG 017: Environment & Society
GEOG 327: The Politics of Sensing
GEOG 099: Native Americans, Natural ResourcesDegrees
- Ph.D., University of British Columbia, 2018
- M.A., University of Toronto, 2010
- B.A., McGill University, 2005
Affiliated Department(s)
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Scholarly and Creative Works
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The RAVEN Essays: Indigenous Environmental Justice, Education and Self Determination
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2025
University of Toronto Press
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Introduction: Sensing and Elementality
Published in Journal of Environmental Media
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2024
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SmartBook
Chapter: Smart Environments: Implications for environmental governancePublished by Springer
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2024
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2024
Duke University Press
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The Environmentality of Digital Acoustic Monitoring: Emerging Formations of Spatial Power in Forests
Published in Political Geography
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2024
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The Routledge Handbook on Water and Development
Chapter: Digital WaterPublished by Routledge
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2023
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Hunters and Technologists?
AAG (American Association of Geographers)
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Denver
March
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2023
Sponsored by AAG
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Evil, Evil, Music Platforms
AAG (American Association of Geographers)
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Denver
March
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2023
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Growing Up Sustainable? Politics of Youth and Race in Urbanplan
Published in Urban Geography
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2023
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Unsettling Participation by Foregrounding More-than-Human Relations in Digital Forests
Published in Environmental Humanities
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2023
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Inaudible: Labor and Science in Ocean Noise Politics
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2023
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Vol. 98-99
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New Directions in Conservation Acoustics
Beyond Human Ears – Socio-material Approaches to Sound
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Tampere, Finland
October
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2022
Sponsored by Tampere University, Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences
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Reworking the political in digital forests: the cosmopolitics of socio-technical worlds
Published in Progress in Environmental Geography
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2022
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Vol. 1
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Issue #4
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Smart oceans governance: Reconfiguring capitalist, colonial, and environmental relations
Published in Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers
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2022
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