Executive members
CELESTE M BLACK
Sydney Law School
Celeste Black initiated and now convenes Sydney Law School’s first animal law unit, which is offered annually as an undergraduate elective. She has made numerous presentations on a variety of animal law issues and currently serves as a member of the Animal Research Review Panel for NSW on nomination by the NSW Animal Societies’ Federation. Her research has recently focussed on the historical development of the legal concept of charity in relation to activities directed towards animal protection. Celeste Black is currently undertaking a project that seeks to examine the extent to which ethical perspectives regarding human responsibilities to animals in the wild are reflected in the circumstances under which property status is extended to such animals and legal protections provided for their welfare via anti-cruelty legislation and environmental conservation legislation.
Staff profile
Professsor PAUL MCGREEVY
Faculty of Vet Science
- Equitation science
Ethopathies in companion and exotic species
Learning theory as applied to animal training and behaviour modification
Urban animal management
Use of IT in teaching and epidemiological research
Contribution to the Profession and the Community
Member of RSPCA (Australia) Scientific Advisory Panel
Member of Scientific Advisory Panel for World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA)
Co-founder and Junior Vice-President: International Equitation Science Society (ISES)
Member of Scientific Advisory Panel: International Fund for Animal Welfare.
Staff profile
Assoc Prof. PHIL MCMANUS
Faculty of Science
My current research focuses on sustainable cities, urban forestry and representations of nature in the construction of a range of environmental issues. Within the area of sustainable cities I am researching the potential to develop Industrial Ecology, the use of metrics such as Ecological Footprints and migration issues such as the tree-change phenomenon in Australia. My research on nature includes thoroughbred breeding and the uses of nature. My work combines urban environmental history with policy and planning research that is future-oriented.
Staff profile
ATILLA T. OREL
Atilla Orel is the current postgraduate representative member of the HARN executive. Atilla is a postgraduate teaching fellow in SLAM (English) currently completing a PhD focusing on intersections between early nineteenth-century vegetarian thought and poetics with emphasis on the work of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Atilla’s broader research interests include the history of animal representation in philosophy, religion and literature, animal domestication and changes in meat-consumption in nineteenth-century English, discourses of diet past and present, animal studies and gender, contemporary vegetarian and vegan critical thought, and theories of objectification.
Dr FIONA PROBYN-RAPSEY
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Fiona is based in the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies and teaches an undergraduate unit called GCST2603: Animal Human Cultures. She is currently working on two projects in the field of Human Animal Studies. The first is a collaborative project with Dr Jay Johnston (Studies in Religion) on animal/human subcultures and transpecies subjectivities. The second involves the cultural politics of denial, empathy and the role of affect in human animal interactions. Fiona is Coordinator of HARN for a 2 year period, 2011-2012.
Staff profile
Professor BARRY SPURR
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Barry Spurr is Professor of Poetry and Poetics (Personal Chair) in the University of Sydney and a Fellow of the Australian College of Educators. Educated at the Universities of Sydney and Oxford, he is a long-serving member of the Department of English and has published and taught extensively in the fields of Renaissance and Modernist poetry. He is a leading authority on the life and work of T.S. Eliot. In joining the Human Animal Research Network, Professor Spurr is particularly interested in exploring representations of animals in literature (especially poetry in English), through the centuries and in the works of particular authors, in relation to their socio-cultural and ideological contexts; in investigating religious and theological attitudes to animals as a source and justification of their (mis)treatment; and in researching ways in which educators, at all levels, and especially in ethics and philosophy programmes, are integrating contemporary ideas about animals and debates about their status and welfare into their teaching and research.
Staff profile