In the midst of ecological upheaval, what becomes possible when we learn to tell different stories about the world and our place within it?
Join the Sydney Environment Institute in celebrating Professor Thom van Dooren's Biophilia Award and work in the environmental humanities.
As climate change and mass extinction challenge our deepest assumptions about life on Earth, the humanities offer something vital: new ways of seeing, feeling, and understanding our relationship with the living planet.
Professor Thom van Dooren is a pioneer of “field philosophy”, bringing the humanities into conversation with the natural sciences to illuminate what species loss means—culturally, ecologically, and ethically. His work reveals how endangered plants and animals carry many stories, including those of the worlds they shape and the futures that disappear when they are gone.
Join the Sydney Environment Institute in celebrating Professor van Dooren - recipient of the BBVA Foundation’s prestigious the prestigious Biophilia Award in Environmental Humanities and Social Sciences – as we recognise his outstanding contributions to understanding humanity’s entanglement with the living world.
On the night:
Professor Thom van Dooren will be joined by a panel of collaborators - artists, academics, writers, and storytellers - for a rich conversation about the power of storytelling, and the vital role of the environmental humanities in public life.
Followed by light refreshments and mingling.
Panel:
Thom is Professor of Environmental Humanities in the School of Humanities and the Sydney Environment Institute at the University of Sydney, Australia. Thom is also a Humboldt Research Award funded Fellow at the Multidisciplinary Environmental Studies in the Humanities (MESH) research hub at the University of Cologne and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.
Thom’s research and writing are situated in the interdisciplinary environmental humanities and bring the philosophy of science and the environment, science and technology studies, anthropology, cultural studies, and human geography into conversation with the natural sciences and ethnographic work with local communities.
He is the author of three widely cited, translated, and award-winning books, Flight Ways: Life and Loss at the Edge of Extinction (Columbia University Press, 2014), The Wake of Crows: Living and Dying in Shared Worlds (Columbia University Press, 2019), and A World in a Shell: Snail Stories for a Time of Extinctions (MIT Press, 2022).
David Schlosberg is Professor of Environmental Politics, Director of the Sydney Environment Institute and Co-Theme Lead of the Environmental Justices and Climate Disaster and Adaptation research themes. His work focuses on environmental, ecological, and climate justice; environment and everyday life; and climate adaptation planning and policy. David has worked extensively with local and state governments on just adaptation and resilience planning, the social impacts of climate change, and community-based food systems and policy.
Zoë Sadokierski is Associate Professor in Visual Communication and a co-director of the Visualisation Institute at the University of Technology Sydney. Her research explores creative ways to communicate complex issues such as species extinctions, climate futures and nuclear legacies. She has won multiple awards for her book design work, and her artist’s books and works on paper have been exhibited and collected in galleries and libraries around the world. She is author of Father, Son and Other Animals (Cordite 2024).
Dr Sophie Chao is Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Sydney. Her research investigates ecology, capitalism, health, food, and justice in the Pacific. She is author of In the Shadow of the Palms: More-Than-Human Becomings in West Papua (2022) and Land of Famished Beings: West Papuan Theories of Hunger (2025) and co-editor of The Promise of Multispecies Justice (2022) and Beyond Bios: The Life of Matter and the Matter of Life (2026), all published by Duke University Press. Chao is of Sino-French heritage and lives on unceded Gadigal lands in Sydney, Australia.
Dieter Hochuli leads the Integrative Ecology group at The University of Sydney. The group uses multiscale approaches to examine the mechanisms driving the ecology of a range of species, especially in novel ecosystems. Dieter has been at the University of Sydney since 1995, shortly after completing his PhD.
This event is hosted by the Sydney Environment Institute in partnership with the Sydney Environmental Humanities Network.
