November 9, 2016

Gender and cultural studies expert heads School of Humanities and Social Inquiry

Professor Fiona Probyn-Rapsey excited to be joining UOW academic community

Professor Fiona Probyn-Rapsey has officially joined the School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, in the Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts, as the new Head of School, taking up the position last month.

Professor Probyn-Rapsey, who was previously based in the University of Sydney’s Department of Gender and Cultural Studies, where she began her academic career in 2003, said she was thrilled to be joining UOW.

“I’m incredibly excited to be here,” Professor Probyn-Rapsey said. “It’s such a beautiful campus and the research culture in the School of Humanities and Social Inquiry is amazing. There’s a lot of really great research coming out of the school.”

Professor Probyn-Rapsey’s own research interests lie in feminist critical race studies and animal studies, examining how gender, race and species intersect.

She is fascinated by the connection between animal species and culture, and how humans relate to animals.

“The study of animals is often seen as a question for science, but it is a also a pressing cultural question,” Professor Probyn-Rapsey said.

“How do society’s ideas, beliefs, and cultural practices influence how we interact with animal species and the environment? Many of the current problems that we face (climate change, species eradications) are approached as dilemmas for science primarily, and yet in terms of social change and transformation, we need to understand these problems as cultural and social ones. Indeed, reasons for inaction are best understood as cultural problems. This is where the Humanities offers hope and leadership.

One of the key research questions that motivate Professor Probyn-Rapsey is how humans interact with the natural environment.

“What are our conflicts and obligations towards the non-human world? Because of Wollongong’s amazing location, between the mountains and the beach, there is so much intrinsic potential here for thinking about this relationship.”

Professor Probyn-Rapsey is co-editor of the Animal Publics series and her first book, Made to Matter: White Fathers, Stolen Generations (2013) examined how the white fathers of Indigenous children (many of whom are now part of the Stolen Generations) reacted to and were positioned by Australian assimilation policies.

She is also on the editorial board of the Australian Humanities Review, Environmental Humanities, and the Animal Studies Journal, and is currently working on an anthology of essays, with Professor Lori Gruen from Wesleyan University (USA) called Animaladies.