Contact Details

Dr Denise Russell
deniser@uow.edu.au
02 42213387

Denise has always been interested in animals and during her time teaching at Sydney University designed and taught a course entitled ‘Humanity and Animality’ for second and third year philosophy students. She was the founding editor of the journal Animal Issues: philosophical and ethical issues related to human/animal interactions, a University of Sydney publication which published articles on animal experimentation and related topics. It has now been taken up by Brill Publishers in Holland as part of the Animals and Society Journal. Denise served on the Animal Ethics Committee at the University of Sydney as an Independent member. 

Denise is currently an Honorary Fellow in the School of English Literatures and Philosophy at the University of Wollongong. Her first book, Women, Madness and Medicine (Polity, Cambridge, 1998) presents an alternative way of understanding women's distress, to dominant medical psychiatry. 

Denise has several recent articles published in animal  studies.Her new book, Who Rules the Waves: Piracy, Overfishing and Mining the Oceans (London: Pluto Press, 2010) includes chapters on threats facing whales and dolphins and the over-exploitation of fish. In 2011 her focus has been on whales with a detailed analysis of the research from the Japanese whaling programs. 

 

Dr Melissa Boyde
boyde@uow.edu.au
02 42213746

Melissa is a Research Fellow in the school of English Literatures and Philosophy at the University of Wollongong whose research is in the fields of modernist literature and visual art.  Melissa’s research has been recognized through awards including the 2003 NSW Premiers History Fellowship and the 2002 Mary Alice Evatt Art Prize.

A few years ago when convenor of seminars for an Arts Faculty research group we themed a series on Animal studies.  Invited speakers included Professor Helen Tiffin, Professor Una Chaudhuri from New York University and Ace Bourke of Christian the lion YouTube fame. Melissa is currently co-editing a collection of these papers for a forthcoming book.  

At the 2009 Minding Animals conference I first gave a paper on the live export industry: ‘”Mrs Boss! We gotta get those fat cheeky bullocks into that big bloody metal ship!”: Live export as romantic backdrop in Baz Luhrmann’s Australia’.  When I gave another version at a conference at the National Museum in Canberra the Sydney Morning Herald described the topic as ‘bizarre’.  Post the exposure of cruel practices associated with this industry in a recent  ABC Four Corners report the topic may no longer seem quite as bizarre:  www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2011/s3229270.htm

In July 2011, I convened the Global Animal conference at the University of Wollongong.  For more information on the conference please go to: http://ro.uow.edu.au/globan10/ or read the report in our Events link on the RAAT homepage

Downloadable full text selected articles by Melissa can be found at:  http://works.bepress.com/boyde/

A book chapter Denise and I wrote on the RAAT project can be downloaded at:  http://ro.uow.edu.au/sinet/1

In July 2011 Melissa was elected President of the Australian Animal Studies Group (AASG): www.aasg.org.au

Mailing Address

School of English Literatures and Philosophy 
Faculty of Arts
University of Wollongong
Northfields Ave
Wollongong NSW 2522
Australia