You are here: University of Sydney / Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences / Our people / Associate Professor Thom Van Dooren 

Associate Professor Thom Van Dooren

PhD ANU
ARC Future Fellow (2017-2021)

Member of Sydney Environment Institute

A14 - The Quadrangle
The University of Sydney

Telephone +61 2 9114 0633
Fax +61 2 9351 3918

Website Personal website
Phone Book Entry

Biographical details

Thom van Dooren is Associate Professor and Australian Research Council Future Fellow (2017-2021) in the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies, and founding co-editor of the journal Environmental Humanities (Duke University Press). His research is based in the broad interdisciplinary field of the environmental humanities, with particular grounding in environmental philosophy, cultural studies, and science and technology studies. His 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. He is the author of Flight Ways: Life and Loss at the Edge of Extinction (2014), Making Worlds With Crows: A Multispecies Ethics (2018), and co-editor of Extinction Studies: Stories of Time, Death, and Generations (2017), all published by Columbia University Press.

He completed his BA (honours) at the Australian National University (2003), and his PhD in the Fenner School of Environment and Society, also at the ANU (2007).He then held a Research Councils of the UK Academic Fellowship at the University of Hull (UK) and a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the University of Technology Sydney. From 2011-2017 he helped to establish and then worked with the Environmental Humanities group at the University of New South Wales. He took up his current position at the University of Sydney in 2018.

He has 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), MIT (2018), the University of Hawai`i (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).

Back to Top

Research interests

Thom’s research is situated in the broad interdisciplinary field of the environmental humanities. Particular topics of interest include: extinction studies; cultures and politics of biodiversity (esp. in Hawai`i and the Pacific); multispecies/animal/plant studies; feminist science studies; field philosophy; natureculture writing; storytelling; public humanities; extra-terrestrial ethics.

For further information see: www.thomvandooren.org

Back to Top

Teaching and supervision

From 2018-2021, Thom will be an ARC Future Fellow. As such, his teaching will be limited. Thom is available to supervise research students in any of the above listed areas.

Back to Top

Current research students

Project title Research student
More-than-human participatory water governance Hélène AHLBERGER LE DEUNFF
Imagining the Invisible City: remaking sustainability Jamie WANG
Back to Top

Current projects

I am currently engaged in two primary research projects:

1.) “Making worlds with crows”: This ARC-funded project focuses on changing human/crow relationships in the context of escalating processes of globalisation, biodiversity loss and climate change.

2.) “Extinction Stories: Inhabiting Landscapes of Loss”: This ARC-funded project focuses on the ways in which the loss of species, and efforts to prevent these losses, shape the contours of local people’s lives and the landscapes they inhabit in the Pacific, with a particular focus on Hawai`i.

Back to Top

Associations

  • Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S)
  • International Association for Environmental Philosophy (IAEP)
  • Australian Animal Studies Association (AASA)
  • Association for the Study of Literature, Environment and Culture – Australian/New Zealand (ASLEC-ANZ)
Back to Top

Awards and honours

  • Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (2017-2021)
  • Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany (2014-2016)
  • Delivered the Sir Keith Hancock Lecture to the 44th Symposium of the Australian Academy of the Humanities (2013)
  • Invited Advisory Board member: Environmental Humanities Collaboratory, Linköping University, Sweden
  • Editorial Board Member, Routledge Environmental Humanities book series
  • Editorial Board Member, Sydney University Press Animal Publics book series
Back to Top

In the media

For a listing of my major contributions to media discussion and public scholarship, please see www.thomvandooren.org.

Back to Top

Significant Editorial Introductions

  1. Bastian, M. and T. van Dooren (2017) ‘The New Immortals: Immortality and Infinitude in the Anthropocene’Environmental Philosophy, 14.1
  2. Rose, D., T. van Dooren, M. Chrulew, S. Cooke, M. Kearnes and E. O’Gorman (2012)‘Thinking Through the Environment, Unsettling the Humanities’Environmental Humanities, 1
  3. Metcalf, J and T. van Dooren (2012) ‘Editorial Preface’ inTemporal Environments: Rethinking Time and Ecology, special issue ofEnvironmental Philosophy(Spring)
  4. Rose, D. and T. van Dooren (2011) “Introduction”Unloved Others: Death of the Disregarded in the Time of Extinctions, special issue ofAustralian Humanities Review, 50

Review Articles

  1. van Dooren, T. (2018) “Temporal promiscuities in the Chthulucene: A reflection on Donna Haraway’sStaying with the Trouble,”Dialogues in Human Geography, 8.1, pp. 91-101.
  2. van Dooren T. (2009): “Thinking with Dogs: A Review of Donna Haraway’s When Species Meet”Subjectivity, 28
  3. van Dooren T. (2007): “Sheep Futures: A Review of Sarah Franklin’s Dolly Mixtures,”Australian Humanities Review, 42

Translations of my work

French

  1. van Dooren, T. (2016) “Le blues des grues blanches: Violence du soin dans la préservation des espèces” Judith Chouraqui, Cyril Lecerf Maulpoix, Romain André and Grégoire Chamayou (trans.),Jef Klak, 30.
  2. van Dooren, T. (2016) “La partie des manchots” inRevolutions Animales, Karine Lou Matignon (ed.), Coédition ARTE éditions / Les Liens qui Libérent.
  3. van Dooren, T. (2016) “L’arche des morts-vivants, un espoir ?” inRevolutions Animales, Karine Lou Matignon (ed.), Coédition ARTE éditions / Les Liens qui Libérent.

Portuguese

  1. van Dooren, T., E. Kirksey and U. Münster (2016) “Estudos multiespécies: cultivando artes de atentividade” Susana Dias (trans.),ClimaCom, 3.7.
Back to Top

Selected grants

2017

  • Extinction stories: Inhabiting landscapes of loss in the Anthropocene; van Dooren T; Australian Research Council (ARC)/Future Fellowships (FT).

2015

  • Encountering Crows: Living with wildlife in a changing world; van Dooren T; Australian Research Council (ARC)/Discovery Projects (DP).

2014

  • Encountering crows: world-making with hunters and scientists in Germany; van Dooren T; Alexander-von-Humboldt Foundation/Humboldt Research Fellowship.
Back to Top

Selected publications

  • Extinction Studies: Stories of Time, Death and Generations

    Extinction Studies: Stories of Time, Death and Generations (Columbia University Press, 2017)

  • Flight Ways: Life and Loss at the Edge of Extinction

    Flight Ways: Life and Loss at the Edge of Extinction (Columbia University Press, 2014)

  • Vulture

    Vulture (Reaktion Books, 2012)

Download citations: PDF RTF Endnote

Books

  • van Dooren, T. (2014). Flight Ways: Life and Loss at the Edge of Extinction. New York: Columbia University Press. [More Information]
  • van Dooren, T. (2012). Vulture. London: Reaktion Books.

Edited Books

  • Rose, D., van Dooren, T., Chrulew, M. (2017). Extinction Studies: Stories of Time, Death and Generations. New York: Columbia University Press.

Book Chapters

  • van Dooren, T. (2018). Environmental Humanities. In N. Castree, M. Hulme and J.D. Proctor (Eds.), Companion to Environmental Studies. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. [More Information]
  • van Dooren, T., Despret, V. (2018). Evolution: Lessons from Some Cooperative Ravens. In Lynn Turner, Ron Broglio and Undine Sellbach (Eds.), The Edinburgh Companion to Animal Studies, (pp. 160-180). Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh.
  • van Dooren, T. (2018). Extinction. In Lori Gruen (Eds.), Critical Terms for Animal Studies, (pp. 169-181). London: The University of Chicago Press. [More Information]
  • van Dooren, T. (2017). Banking the Forest: Loss, Hope, and Care in Hawaiian Conservation. In Joanna Radin and Emma Kowal (Eds.), Cryopolitics: Frozen Life in a Melting World, (pp. 259-282). Cambridge: MIT Press. [More Information]
  • Rose, D., van Dooren, T. (2017). Encountering a More-than-human World: Ethos and the Arts of Witness. In Ursula K. Heise, Jon Christensen and Michelle Niemann (Eds.), Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities, (pp. 120-128). Oxon: Routledge.
  • Rose, D., van Dooren, T., Chrulew, M. (2017). Introduction: telling extinction stories. In Deborah Bird Rose, Thom van Dooren, and Matthew Chrulew (Eds.), Extinction Studies: Stories of Time, Death and Generations, (pp. 1-18). New York: Columbia University Press.
  • van Dooren, T. (2017). Spectral Crows in Hawai'i: Conservation and the Work of Inheritance. In Deborah Bird Rose, Thom van Dooren, and Matthew Chrulew (Eds.), Extinction Studies: Stories of Time, Death and Generations, (pp. 187-216). New York: Columbia University Press.
  • van Dooren, T. (2015). The Last Snail: Loss, Hope and Care for the Future. In Anna-Sophie Springer and Etienne Turpin (Eds.), Land & Animal & Nonanimal, (pp. 1-14). Berlin: Haus der Kulturen der Welt.
  • van Dooren, T. (2015). Vulture Stories: Narrative and Conservation. In Gibson, K., Rose, D. B. and Fincher, R. (Eds.), Manifesto for Living in the Anthropocene, (pp. 51-55). New York: Punctum Books.
  • van Dooren, T. (2014). Mourning Crows: Grief and extinction in a shared world. In Garry Marvin and Susan McHugh (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Human-Animal Studies, (pp. 275-289). New York, NY: Taylor and Francis. [More Information]

Journals

  • Kirksey, E., Munro, P., van Dooren, T., Emery, D., Kreller, A., Jeffrey, K., Lau, K., Miller, M., Morris, K., Newson, S., et al (2018). Feeding the flock: Wild cockatoos and their Facebook friends. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 1(4), 602-620. [More Information]
  • van Dooren, T. (2018). Thinking with Crows: (Re)doing Philosophy in the Field. Parallax, 24(4), 439-448. [More Information]
  • Calver, M., Adam, P., van Dooren, T., Rose, D., Wallis, I., Banks, P., Hochuli, D. (2017). Dangerous Ideas in zoology: Plenary session 2. Australian Zoologist, 38(3), 414-421. [More Information]
  • van Dooren, T., Bird Rose, D. (2017). Keeping faith with the dead: Mourning & De-extinction. Australian Zoologist, 38(3), 375-378. [More Information]
  • Kearnes, M., van Dooren, T. (2017). Rethinking the final frontier: Cosmo-logics and an ethic of interstellar flourishing. GeoHumanities, 3(1), 178-197.
  • O'Gorman, E., van Dooren, T. (2017). The promises of pests: Wildlife in agricultural landscapes. Australian Zoologist, 39(1), 81-84. [More Information]
  • van Dooren, T. (2016). Authentic Crows: Identity, Captivity and Emergent Forms of Life. Theory, Culture and Society, 33(2), 29-52. [More Information]
  • van Dooren, T., Rose, D. (2016). Lively Ethography: Storying Animist Worlds. Environmental Humanities, 8(1), 77-94. [More Information]
  • van Dooren, T., Kirksey, E., M�nster, U. (2016). Multispecies Studies: Cultivating Arts of Attentiveness. Environmental Humanities, 8(1), 1-23. [More Information]
  • van Dooren, T. (2016). The Unwelcome Crows: hospitality in the anthropocene. Angelaki - Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, 21(2), 193-212. [More Information]
  • van Dooren, T. (2015). A Day with Crows - Rarity, Nativity and the Violent-Care of Conservation. Animal Studies Journal, 4(2), 1-28.
  • van Dooren, T. (2014). Care. Environmental Humanities, 5, 291-294. [More Information]
  • van Dooren, T. (2012). Nature in the anthropocene? A reflection on a photograph. Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature, 58, 228-234.
  • van Dooren, T., Rose, D. (2012). Storied-places in a multispecies city. Humanimalia, 3(2), 1-27.
  • van Dooren, T. (2012). Wild Seed, Domesticated Seed: Companion species and the emergence of agriculture. Philosophy Activism Nature, 9, 22-28.
  • van Dooren, T. (2011). Invasive Species in Penguin Worlds: An Ethical Taxonomy of Killing for Conservation. Conservation and Society, 9(4), 286-298. [More Information]
  • Bird Rose, D., Cooke, S., van Dooren, T. (2011). Ravens at Play. Cultural Studies Review, 17(2), 326-343.
  • van Dooren, T. (2010). Biopatents and the Problem/Promise of Genetic Leaks: Farming Canola in Canada. Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, 21(2), 43-63. [More Information]
  • van Dooren, T. (2010). Pain of Extinction: The Death of a Vulture. Cultural Studies Review, 16(2), 271-289.
  • van Dooren, T. (2009). Banking Seed: Use and Value in the Conservation of Agricultural Diversity. Science As Culture, 18(4), 373-395.
  • van Dooren, T. (2009). Genetic Conservation in a Climate of Loss. Australian Humanities Review, 46, 103-112.
  • van Dooren, T. (2008). Inventing Seed: The Nature/s of Intellectual Property in Plants. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 26(4), 676-697.
  • van Dooren, T. (2008). The Shifting Common Spaces of Plant Genetic Resources in the International Regulation of Property. The Journal of World Intellectual Property, 11(3), 176-202.
  • van Dooren, T. (2007). Terminated Seed: Death, Proprietary Kinship and the Production of (Bio)wealth. Science As Culture, 16(1), 71-93.
  • van Dooren, T. (2005). I Would Rather be a God/dess than a Cyborg: A Pagan Encounter with Donna Haraway. The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies, 7(1), 42-58.

Edited Journals

  • Bastian, M., van Dooren, T. (2017). Immortality and Infinitude in the Anthropocene. Environmental Philosophy, 14(1).
  • Lunney, D., van Dooren, T., Predavec, M. (2017). Zoology on the Table: The science, sustainability and politics of eating animals. Australian Zoologist, 39(1).
  • van Dooren, T., M�nster, U., Kirksey, E., Rose, D., Chrulew, M., Tsing, A. (2016). Multispecies Studies. Environmental Humanities, 8(1).
  • Metcalf, J., van Dooren, T. (2012). Temporal Environments: Rethinking Time and Ecology. Environmental Philosophy, 9(1).
  • Rose, D., van Dooren, T. (2011). Unloved Others: Death of the Disregarded in the Time of Extinctions. Australian Humanities Review, 50.

2018

  • van Dooren, T. (2018). Environmental Humanities. In N. Castree, M. Hulme and J.D. Proctor (Eds.), Companion to Environmental Studies. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. [More Information]
  • van Dooren, T., Despret, V. (2018). Evolution: Lessons from Some Cooperative Ravens. In Lynn Turner, Ron Broglio and Undine Sellbach (Eds.), The Edinburgh Companion to Animal Studies, (pp. 160-180). Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh.
  • van Dooren, T. (2018). Extinction. In Lori Gruen (Eds.), Critical Terms for Animal Studies, (pp. 169-181). London: The University of Chicago Press. [More Information]
  • Kirksey, E., Munro, P., van Dooren, T., Emery, D., Kreller, A., Jeffrey, K., Lau, K., Miller, M., Morris, K., Newson, S., et al (2018). Feeding the flock: Wild cockatoos and their Facebook friends. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 1(4), 602-620. [More Information]
  • van Dooren, T. (2018). Thinking with Crows: (Re)doing Philosophy in the Field. Parallax, 24(4), 439-448. [More Information]

2017

  • van Dooren, T. (2017). Banking the Forest: Loss, Hope, and Care in Hawaiian Conservation. In Joanna Radin and Emma Kowal (Eds.), Cryopolitics: Frozen Life in a Melting World, (pp. 259-282). Cambridge: MIT Press. [More Information]
  • Calver, M., Adam, P., van Dooren, T., Rose, D., Wallis, I., Banks, P., Hochuli, D. (2017). Dangerous Ideas in zoology: Plenary session 2. Australian Zoologist, 38(3), 414-421. [More Information]
  • Rose, D., van Dooren, T. (2017). Encountering a More-than-human World: Ethos and the Arts of Witness. In Ursula K. Heise, Jon Christensen and Michelle Niemann (Eds.), Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities, (pp. 120-128). Oxon: Routledge.
  • Rose, D., van Dooren, T., Chrulew, M. (2017). Extinction Studies: Stories of Time, Death and Generations. New York: Columbia University Press.
  • Bastian, M., van Dooren, T. (2017). Immortality and Infinitude in the Anthropocene. Environmental Philosophy, 14(1).
  • Rose, D., van Dooren, T., Chrulew, M. (2017). Introduction: telling extinction stories. In Deborah Bird Rose, Thom van Dooren, and Matthew Chrulew (Eds.), Extinction Studies: Stories of Time, Death and Generations, (pp. 1-18). New York: Columbia University Press.
  • van Dooren, T., Bird Rose, D. (2017). Keeping faith with the dead: Mourning & De-extinction. Australian Zoologist, 38(3), 375-378. [More Information]
  • Kearnes, M., van Dooren, T. (2017). Rethinking the final frontier: Cosmo-logics and an ethic of interstellar flourishing. GeoHumanities, 3(1), 178-197.
  • van Dooren, T. (2017). Spectral Crows in Hawai'i: Conservation and the Work of Inheritance. In Deborah Bird Rose, Thom van Dooren, and Matthew Chrulew (Eds.), Extinction Studies: Stories of Time, Death and Generations, (pp. 187-216). New York: Columbia University Press.
  • O'Gorman, E., van Dooren, T. (2017). The promises of pests: Wildlife in agricultural landscapes. Australian Zoologist, 39(1), 81-84. [More Information]
  • Lunney, D., van Dooren, T., Predavec, M. (2017). Zoology on the Table: The science, sustainability and politics of eating animals. Australian Zoologist, 39(1).

2016

  • van Dooren, T. (2016). Authentic Crows: Identity, Captivity and Emergent Forms of Life. Theory, Culture and Society, 33(2), 29-52. [More Information]
  • van Dooren, T., Rose, D. (2016). Lively Ethography: Storying Animist Worlds. Environmental Humanities, 8(1), 77-94. [More Information]
  • van Dooren, T., M�nster, U., Kirksey, E., Rose, D., Chrulew, M., Tsing, A. (2016). Multispecies Studies. Environmental Humanities, 8(1).
  • van Dooren, T., Kirksey, E., M�nster, U. (2016). Multispecies Studies: Cultivating Arts of Attentiveness. Environmental Humanities, 8(1), 1-23. [More Information]
  • van Dooren, T. (2016). The Unwelcome Crows: hospitality in the anthropocene. Angelaki - Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, 21(2), 193-212. [More Information]

2015

  • van Dooren, T. (2015). A Day with Crows - Rarity, Nativity and the Violent-Care of Conservation. Animal Studies Journal, 4(2), 1-28.
  • van Dooren, T. (2015). The Last Snail: Loss, Hope and Care for the Future. In Anna-Sophie Springer and Etienne Turpin (Eds.), Land & Animal & Nonanimal, (pp. 1-14). Berlin: Haus der Kulturen der Welt.
  • van Dooren, T. (2015). Vulture Stories: Narrative and Conservation. In Gibson, K., Rose, D. B. and Fincher, R. (Eds.), Manifesto for Living in the Anthropocene, (pp. 51-55). New York: Punctum Books.

2014

  • van Dooren, T. (2014). Care. Environmental Humanities, 5, 291-294. [More Information]
  • van Dooren, T. (2014). Flight Ways: Life and Loss at the Edge of Extinction. New York: Columbia University Press. [More Information]
  • van Dooren, T. (2014). Mourning Crows: Grief and extinction in a shared world. In Garry Marvin and Susan McHugh (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Human-Animal Studies, (pp. 275-289). New York, NY: Taylor and Francis. [More Information]

2012

  • van Dooren, T. (2012). Nature in the anthropocene? A reflection on a photograph. Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature, 58, 228-234.
  • van Dooren, T., Rose, D. (2012). Storied-places in a multispecies city. Humanimalia, 3(2), 1-27.
  • Metcalf, J., van Dooren, T. (2012). Temporal Environments: Rethinking Time and Ecology. Environmental Philosophy, 9(1).
  • van Dooren, T. (2012). Vulture. London: Reaktion Books.
  • van Dooren, T. (2012). Wild Seed, Domesticated Seed: Companion species and the emergence of agriculture. Philosophy Activism Nature, 9, 22-28.

2011

  • van Dooren, T. (2011). Invasive Species in Penguin Worlds: An Ethical Taxonomy of Killing for Conservation. Conservation and Society, 9(4), 286-298. [More Information]
  • Bird Rose, D., Cooke, S., van Dooren, T. (2011). Ravens at Play. Cultural Studies Review, 17(2), 326-343.
  • Rose, D., van Dooren, T. (2011). Unloved Others: Death of the Disregarded in the Time of Extinctions. Australian Humanities Review, 50.

2010

  • van Dooren, T. (2010). Biopatents and the Problem/Promise of Genetic Leaks: Farming Canola in Canada. Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, 21(2), 43-63. [More Information]
  • van Dooren, T. (2010). Pain of Extinction: The Death of a Vulture. Cultural Studies Review, 16(2), 271-289.

2009

  • van Dooren, T. (2009). Banking Seed: Use and Value in the Conservation of Agricultural Diversity. Science As Culture, 18(4), 373-395.
  • van Dooren, T. (2009). Genetic Conservation in a Climate of Loss. Australian Humanities Review, 46, 103-112.

2008

  • van Dooren, T. (2008). Inventing Seed: The Nature/s of Intellectual Property in Plants. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 26(4), 676-697.
  • van Dooren, T. (2008). The Shifting Common Spaces of Plant Genetic Resources in the International Regulation of Property. The Journal of World Intellectual Property, 11(3), 176-202.

2007

  • van Dooren, T. (2007). Terminated Seed: Death, Proprietary Kinship and the Production of (Bio)wealth. Science As Culture, 16(1), 71-93.

2005

  • van Dooren, T. (2005). I Would Rather be a God/dess than a Cyborg: A Pagan Encounter with Donna Haraway. The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies, 7(1), 42-58.
Back to Top

For support on your academic profile contact .