Dr James Dunk
Dr James Dunk is a historian and interdisciplinary researcher based in the School of Social and Political Sciences, where he leads the planetary mental health theme on the ARC Discovery Project Planetary Health Humanities led by Professor Warwick Anderson. He also co-directs the Ecological Emotion Research Lab with Associate Professor Paul Rhodes in the School of Psychology and convenes the At a loss for words of loss research collective and the Climate Distress, Art and Open Dialogue Community of Practice. From 2021–23 he was President of the Australia and New Zealand Society of the History of Medicine. He has published his research in prominent medical and psychological journals, including The New England Journal of Medicine, environmental journals (Sustainability), and a range of historical journals, including Rethinking History and History of Psychology. He also writes regularly for literary magazines and journals and with various colleagues and collaborators organises regular public events which intersperse historical and environmental research with soundscape music, poetry, and art.
Environmental history
Planetary health
History of psychology
Environmental humanities
Mental health
Ecological emotion and climate distress
Dr James Dunk is available to supervise interdisciplinary honours and masters projects in planetary health, mental health, and the environmental humanities, as well as historical research in environmental history, the history of psychology, psychiatry and public health, planetary history and Australian history.
Contemporary Histories of Australian Ecological Emotion
Climate Distress, Art and Open Dialogue: A Community of Practice
At a Loss for Words of Loss: Historical and Philosophical Perspectives on New Earth Lexicons
Association for the Study of Literature, Environment and Culture–Australia and New Zealand
Australasian Health & Medical Humanities Network
Australian Historical Association
Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand Environmental History Network
Australian and New Zealand Society of the History of Medicine
Future of Madness Network
History Council of New South Wales
Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies
Sydney Environment Institute
Australian History Prize, New South Wales Premier’s History Awards 2020 (Bedlam at Botany Bay) [$15,000]
2020 - Shortlisted for the Ernest Scott Prize: Bedlam at Botany Bay
2020 - Shortlisted for the Kay Daniels Award: Bedlam at Botany Bay
2019 - Charles Perkins Centre Award for Politics, Governance and Ethics Research Excellence
2018 - Early Career Mentorship, AHA-Copyright Agency
2016 - Jill Roe Prize, Australian Historical Association
| Project title | Research student |
|---|---|
| Farming for Resilience: Promoting Sustainable Farming and Mental Wellbeing in the Face of Climate Change | Brittany DOOLAN |
| MIXED METHODS STUDY: CLIMATE CHANGE AND SOLASTALGIA IN THE ASIA PACIFIC, FOCUSING ON INDIGENOUS PEOPLES AND ETHNIC MINORITIES. | Caillin DUNSFORD |
| Integrating ecopsychology, systems thinking and community-based practices for working with ecological emotions in communities prone to successive disasters | Catherine FALCO |
Selected publications
(NewSouth Publishing, 2019)
Publications
Books
- Dunk, J. (2019). Bedlam at Botany Bay. Sydney: NewSouth Publishing.
Edited Books
- Brookes, B., Dunk, J. (2020). Knowledge Making: Historians, Archives and Bureaucracy. UK: Routledge.
Book Chapters
- Anderson, W., Dunk, J. (2020). Assembling Planetary Health: Histories of the Future. In Samuel Myers, Howard Frumkin (Eds.), Planetary health : protecting nature to protect ourselves, (pp. 17-35). Washington: Island Press. [More Information]
Journals
- Rhodes, P., Dunk, J. (2023). Eco-psychology: a critical paradigm in the climate emergency. Australian Psychologist. [More Information]
- Coleborne, C., Dunk, J. (2022). From the margins: madness and history in Australia. History Australia, 19(1), 3-12. [More Information]
- Anderson, W., Dunk, J. (2022). Planetary Health Histories: Toward New Ecologies of Epi demiology? ISIS, 113(4), 767-788. [More Information]
Other
- Bosca, H., Chao, S., Dunk, J. (2021), Writing the Environment: Reflections and Fragments, Sydney Environment Institute.
2023
- Rhodes, P., Dunk, J. (2023). Eco-psychology: a critical paradigm in the climate emergency. Australian Psychologist. [More Information]
2022
- Coleborne, C., Dunk, J. (2022). From the margins: madness and history in Australia. History Australia, 19(1), 3-12. [More Information]
- Anderson, W., Dunk, J. (2022). Planetary Health Histories: Toward New Ecologies of Epi demiology? ISIS, 113(4), 767-788. [More Information]
- Dunk, J. (2022). Wrongful confinement and the spectre of colonial despotism: a political history of madness in New South Wales, 1843. History Australia, 19(1), 34-53. [More Information]
2021
- Dunk, J. (2021). Psychology as if the Whole Earth Mattered: Nuclear Threat, Environmental Crisis, and the Emergence of Planetary Psychology. History of Psychology, 25(2), 97-120. [More Information]
- Bosca, H., Chao, S., Dunk, J. (2021), Writing the Environment: Reflections and Fragments, Sydney Environment Institute.
2020
- Anderson, W., Dunk, J. (2020). Assembling Planetary Health: Histories of the Future. In Samuel Myers, Howard Frumkin (Eds.), Planetary health : protecting nature to protect ourselves, (pp. 17-35). Washington: Island Press. [More Information]
- Brookes, B., Dunk, J. (2020). Knowledge Making: Historians, Archives and Bureaucracy. UK: Routledge.
- Dunk, J., Jones, D. (2020). Sounding the Alarm on Climate Change, 1989 and 2019. New England Journal of Medicine, 382(3), 205-207. [More Information]
2019
- Dunk, J. (2019). Bedlam at Botany Bay. Sydney: NewSouth Publishing.
- Dunk, J., Capon, A., Anderson, W., Jones, D. (2019). Human Health on an Ailing Planet - Historical Perspectives on Our Future. New England Journal of Medicine, 381(8), 778-782. [More Information]
2018
- Brookes, B., Dunk, J. (2018). Bureaucracy, archive files, and the making of knowledge. Rethinking History, 22(3), 281-288. [More Information]
- Dunk, J. (2018). The liability of madness and the commission of lunacy in New South Wales, 1805-12. History Australia, 15(1), 130-150. [More Information]
- Dunk, J. (2018). Work, paperwork and the imaginary Tarban Creek Lunatic Asylum, 1846. Rethinking History, 22(3), 326-355. [More Information]
2017
- Dunk, J. (2017). Authority and the Treatment of the Insane at Castle Hill Asylum, 1811-25. Health and History, 19(2), 17-40.
- Dunk, J. (2017). Caring for the Incarcerated. History Australia, 14(4), 662-665. [More Information]
- Brasier, A., Dunk, J. (2017). Incarceration, Migration, Dispossession, and Discovery: Medicine in Colonial Australia. Health and History, 19(2), 1-16.
Selected Grants
2024
- Critical Social Science Approaches to Epidemic Intelligence workshop, Dunk J, Charles Perkins Centre/CPC Research Program Award
- Climate Distress and Open Dialogue: A Community of Practice, Dunk J, Rhodes P, Quakers (Religious Society of Friends) in Australia/Jan de Voogd Peace Fund
Public engagement
- Stories of the City, History Week 2021 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSYHLp__87U)
- Memories of the Future, History Week 2019, Shenkin Café, Glebe
