Dr John Ryan

Dr, PhD, MA

Adjunct Senior Research Fellow

Email: john.ryan@nd.edu.au

  • Biography

    John Charles Ryan is an international transdisciplinary scholar working in the fields of creative writing, literary studies, and environmental humanities. In addition to his affiliation with the Nulungu Research Institute, he holds positions as Adjunct Associate Professor at Southern Cross University, Australia and Adjunct Faculty in Earth and Environmental Sciences at Susquehanna University in the United States. His research focuses on Aboriginal Australian poetry, Southeast Asian ecocriticism, ecopoetics, ecomedia studies, and transdisciplinary plant studies. His recent publications include the books Environment, Media, and Popular Culture in Southeast Asia (Springer, co-edited), Introduction to the Environmental Humanities (Routledge, co-authored), and The Mind of Plants: Narratives of Vegetal Intelligence (Synergetic, co-authored). He has presented his research at 93 international conferences and symposia, including 18 keynote presentations. He is Editor of the new journal Plant Perspectives and Managing Co-editor of the deep ecology journal The Trumpeter. In 2023, he undertook visiting research and teaching fellowships in Finland (University of Oulu), China (Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University), and Thailand (Mae Fah Luang University). For more information, see www.johncharlesryan.com

  • Teaching areas

    Dr Ryan teaches in creative writing, literary studies, environmental humanities, and sustainability studies.

  • Research expertise and supervision

    Dr Ryan has extensive experience with teaching, advising, research, and service. He has successfully supervised research-based students—and, more recently, international academics, and early career researchers—in Australia, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Thailand, and the United States.

  • Books

    8 academic books (authored and edited) including:

    Books Authored

    • Introduction to the Environmental Humanities (co-authored with J.A. Hubbell, Routledge, London, 2022)
    • Plants in Contemporary Poetry: Ecocriticism and the Botanical Imagination (Routledge, New York, 2018)
    • Posthuman Plants: Rethinking the Vegetal (Common Ground Publishing, Champaign, IL, 2015)
    • Being With: Essays in Poetics, Ecology and the Senses (Common Ground Publishing, Champaign, IL, 2014)
    • Digital Arts: An Introduction to New Media (co-authored with Cat Hope, Bloomsbury, New York, 2014)
    • Unbraided Lines: Essays in Environmental Thinking and Writing (Common Ground Publishing, Champaign, IL, 2013)
    • Green Sense: The Aesthetics of Plants, Place, and Language (TrueHeart Academic Press, Oxford, UK, 2012)

    Books Edited

    • Environmental Humanities in India: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Ecology and Sustainability (with D. Biswas, Springer Nature, in development)
    • Global Perspectives on Nationalism: Political and Literary Discourses (with D. Biswas & E. Panos, Routledge, 2022)
    • Postcolonial Literatures of Climate Change (with R. McDougall & P. Reynolds, Brill, Leiden, 2022)
    • Environment, Media, and Popular Culture in Southeast Asia (with J. Telles & J. Dreisbach, Springer Nature, Singapore, 2022)
    • Nationalism in India: Texts and Contexts (with D. Biswas, Routledge, London, 2021)
    • The Mind of Plants: Narratives of Vegetal Intelligence (with M. Gagliano & P. Vieira, Synergetic Press, Santa Fe, NM, 2021)
    • Australian Wetland Cultures: Swamps and the Environmental Crisis (with L. Chen, Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD, 2019)
    • Forest Family: Australian Culture, Art, and Trees (with R. Giblett, Brill, Leiden, 2018)
    • Southeast Asian Ecocriticism: Theories, Practices, Prospects (Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD, 2017)
    • The Language of Plants: Science, Philosophy, Literature (with M. Gagliano & P. Vieira, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2017)
    • The Green Thread: Dialogues with the Vegetal World (with P. Vieira & M.  Gagliano, Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD, 2016)

  • Book chapters

    8 book chapters including:

    • Australia, in B. L. Johnson (ed), The Cambridge Handbook of Literature and Plants (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2024)
    • ‘Old Trees Hold Memory’: Aboriginal Australian Perspectives on Memory, Trauma, and Witnessing in the Arboreal World, in D. Macauley & L. Pustarfi (eds), The Wisdom of Trees: Thinking Through Arboreality (State University of New York Press, Albany, NY, 2024)
    • Making Kin With Plants: Poetry in the Phytosphere, in K. Mondal (ed), Staying Together: Natureculture in a Changing World (Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD, 2024)
    • Literary Ethnobotany in Aboriginal Australia: Oodgeroo Noonuccal’s Poetry as Biocultural Activism, in D. Okocha, M. Yousaf & M. Onobe (eds), Handbook of Research on Deconstructing Culture and Communication in the Global South (IGI Global, Hershey, PA, 2023)
    • Phytopoetics: Human-Plant Relations and the Poiesis of Vegetal Life, in J. Fiedorczuk, M. Newell, C. Okoth, & B. Quetchenbach (eds), Routledge Companion to Ecopoetics (Routledge, New York, 2023)
    • Passive Flora? Reconsidering Nature’s Agency through Human-Plant Studies (HPS), in S. Osterhoudt & K. Sivaramakrishnan (eds), Sustaining Natures: An Environmental Anthropology Reader (University of Washington Press, Seattle, WA, 2023), 277–305

  • Journal articles and proceedings

    96 journal articles including:

    • Ecocriticism. The Year’s Work in Critical and Cultural Theory (Oxford University Press) 2023
    • Towards an Indigenous Hydropoetics: Human-River Interdependencies in Aboriginal Australian Poetry. The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy, vol. 39, no. 1, 2023
    • Indigenous Phytopoetics: Plants, Poetry, and  Biocultural Justice. Harvest: Jahangirnagar University Studies in Language and Literature, vol. 38, 2023
    • On Becoming Plant-Minded. Co-authored with M. Gagliano & P. Vieira. TEA: The Ethnobotanical Assembly, iss. 9, Spring 2023
    • Fire Ecologies, Human-Tree Relations, and Anthropocene Resistance in Aboriginal Australian Literature. Lamar Journal of the Humanities, vol. 48, 2023, 62–81
    • Imagining Plant Percipience: Botanical Futures in the Speculative Fiction of Brian Aldiss and Ursula Le Guin. The Golden Line: A Journal of English Literature, vol. 5, no. 1, 2023
    • Solastalgia and Poetic Resilience in the Environmental Imagination of Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner. Journal of Narrative and Language Studies, vol. 11, iss. 21, 2023, 40–56
    • The Digital Environmental Humanities (DEH) in the Anthropocene: Challenges and Opportunities in an Era of Ecological Precarity. Co-authored with L. Hearn & P. Arthur. DHQ: Digital Humanities Quarterly, 2023
    • Making Open Scholarship More Equitable and Inclusive. Co-authored with P. Arthur, L. Hearn, N. Menon & L. Khumalo. Publications, 2023, vol. 11, iss. 41, 2023, 1–17, doi: 10.3390/publications11030041

  • Conference papers

    9 conference papers including:

    • Towards The Digital Environmental Humanities (DEH): Science, Technology, and Data Ecology in an Open Knowledge Era. Refereed Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Technology, Education, and Science (InCoTES), Universitas Sarjanawiyata Tamansiswa, Indonesia, 2023
    • Indigenous People, Plants, and Poetry: Biocultural Justice as an Essential Component of Sustainable Development. Refereed Proceedings of the 2nd International Research Conference, Reshaping the Global Landscape, Southville International School and Colleges, Philippines, 2023
    • Indonesian Character Building Strategy: Planning the Pancasila Student Profile Strengthening Project in Kurikulum Merdeka. Coauthored with F. Nurdyansyah, et al. Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Education and Social Science Research (ICESRE), Universitas PGRI Semarang, Indonesia, 2022, 362–69. doi: 0.18502/kss.v7i19.12456
    • Environmental Exploitation in the Indonesian Documentary Film Sexy Killers: From the Perspectives of Narrative Analysis and Ecocriticism. Proceedings of the First International Conference of the Faculty of Cultural Science, Brawijaya University, Malang, Indonesia, 2021, 1–8. https://eudl.eu/doi/10.4108/eai.4-11-2020.2308914

  • Original creative works

    Over 100 published poems including:

    • Rock Orchid, Port Jackson Fig Tree, Gorge-Dwelling Plant, and Moreton Bay Fig Tree, AUIS Literary Journal (American University of Iraq), 2023
    • Canticle, Plant Ekphrasis, and Duh: On Remembering Plant Names, Limina: A Journal of Historical and Cultural Studies, vol. 28, iss. 1, 2023, 20–25
    • Body, Landscape, Time, and Place, The Power of Plants: An Ancient Vitality Exhibition, Being Art Museum, Shanghai, China, 12 May–16 July 2023
    • Wedge Acres, One Good Memory Series, Silver Birch Press, Jan. 10, 2023
    • Artificial Intelligence, The Thought Mare, and Bestiary. Creative Flight, vol. 3, iss. 2, 2022, 29–37
    • The Inner Lives of Garnishes. Biophilia, Fall, 2022, 12
    • Gorge. RILE: Revista Interdisciplinar de Literatura e Ecocrítica, vol. 8, no. 1, 2022, 239–241
    • Tamarind, in J. Ryan, P. Vieira, & M. Gagliano (eds), The Mind of Plants: Narratives of Vegetal Intelligence (Synergetic Press, Santa Fe, NM, 2021), 381
    • Seeing Trees: A Poetic Arboretum (with G. Phillips, 30 poems) Montrose, CO: Pinyon Publishing, 2020

  • In the media

    • ‘Plant Intelligence’, interview with S. Gougoulis. Weekend Breakfast, Triple J, ABC Radio, Australia, Jun. 24, 2023
    • The Language of Plants mentioned in ‘17 Fantastic Gifts for Plant Lovers’, by M. Cullen, The New York Times – Wirecutter, Dec. 14, 2022
    • ‘Are Plants Intelligent?’, interview with M. Bekoff. Psychology Today, Dec. 16, 2021 www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/animal-emotions/202112/are-plants-intelligent
    • ‘Interview: A Conversation with John C. Ryan’ by L. Frick. CutBank Literary Journal, Jul. 27, 2020 www.cutbankonline.org/interviews

  • Professional affiliations

    • Network of Asian Environmental Philosophy, 2022–
    • Robinson Jeffers Association (RJA), 2022–
    • The Beat Studies Association (BSA), 2022–
    • Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP), 2022–
    • Southeast Asian Media Studies Association (SEAMSA), 2022–
    • Modern Humanities Research Association (MHRA), 2019–
    • Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE-US), 2017–

  • Awards

    • 2023 Best Entry, Posthuman Plants, Exhibition on Posthumanist Aesthetics: New-Age Representations, Centre for Research in Posthumanities, Bankura University, India
    • 2018 Emerging Scholar Award, Fourteenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability, The Cairns Institute, Australia

  • Other

    • Editor, Plant Perspectives
    • Managing Co-Editor, The Trumpeter