Academic interests
I’m a field philosopher and storyteller. My current research and writing focuses on some of the many philosophical, ethical, cultural, and political issues that arise in the context of species extinctions and human entanglements with threatened species and places.
These themes are explored in depth in three recent books: Flight Ways: Life and Loss at the Edge of Extinction (2014), The Wake of Crows: Living and Dying in Shared Worlds (2019), and the co-edited collection Extinction Studies: Stories of Time, Death, and Generations (2017), all published by Columbia University Press.
From 2012-2019, I was co-editor of the international, open-access journal Environmental Humanities (Duke University Press). I founded this journal with the late Deborah Bird Rose as the first space dedicated explicitly to this emerging field. In 2014, Deborah retired and I co-edited the journal with Elizabeth DeLoughrey (UCLA).
For further information on me and my research please visit www.thomvandooren.org.
Background
My research works across the disciplines of philosophy, cultural studies, human geography, science and technology studies, anthropology, and related fields. I completed my BA (honours) at the Australian National University (2003), and my PhD in the Fenner School of Environment and Society, also at the ANU (2007). From 2011-2017 I helped to establish and then worked with the Environmental Humanities group at the University of New South Wales, where we set up Australia’s (and one of the world’s) first undergraduate qualifications in the Environmental Humanities and the world’s first MOOC in this emerging area. I have held visiting positions at the University of California at Santa Cruz (2005, 2010), the Environmental Humanities Laboratory at the Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden (2014), the Department of Anthropology at MIT (2018), the Centre for Pacific Islands Studies at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa (2018), and been a Humboldt Research Fellow (Experienced Researchers) at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (2014, 2015, 2016).
Awards
- Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (2017-2021): Extinction Stories: Inhabiting Landscapes of Loss in the Anthropocene (FT160100098)
- ARC Discovery Project (2015-2017), Encountering Crows: Living with wildlife in a changing world (DP150103232)
- Humboldt Foundation, Fellowship for Experienced Researchers (Germany), Encountering crows: world-making with hunters and scientists in Germany
Appointments
- I’m currently an Associate Professor (continuing) and Australian Research Council Future Fellow (2017-2021) in the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies and the Sydney Environment Institute at the University of Sydney, Australia.
- I am also a Professor II in the Oslo School of Environmental Humanities at the University of Oslo, Norway (2020-2022).