Education

One of the first people in Germany working on postcolonial ecocriticism and, more recently, literary education for sustainability, he is the author and editor of more than 12 books and over 50 scholarly articles spanning environmental and transcultural learning, inclusive education, and the intersections of literature pedagogy and literary theory. Recent publications include Interkulturelles Lernen mit Literatur: Fokus Nigeria (as co-editor; Klett Kallmeyer 2020) and, as editor, Cultivating Sustainability in Language and Literature Pedagogy: Steps to an Educational Ecology (Routledge, 2021).  His current work explores the potential of literacy and the role of literary fiction in education for climate action as well as the role of dissent and controversy in culture-sensitive and inclusive educational settings. A particular interest in this is in non-Western climate imaginaries and educational practice of indigenous communities in Australia and disadvantaged people in India. Other interests include questions of educational philosophy, especially in terms of modelling learning objectives in times of large-scale extinction and climate catastrophe, literary value, the intersection of literary studies and literature pedagogy, and multimodal literature and media pedagogies.

This interest also extends to her academic teaching: “Teaching Australia in Postcolonial and Intercultural Perspective” (summer semester 2018) will explore the theoretical question of representing cultural identities in view of lesson and sequence planning for school teaching at lower and upper secondary levels, with a special focus on the genres of fiction and short film.

She was also involved in the organization and coordination of the Dr R Marika Chair for Australian Studies at the English Department of the University of Cologne (from 2010-2014).

At Mirima Dawang Woorlab-gerring, Brandon facilitated a team of Miriwoong language teachers at the Miriwoong Language Nest Program, which teaches the language to school children in Kununurra. Brandon’s project investigates ways of understanding how language revitalisation programs work in Australian contexts, redefining what makes language revitalisation efforts successful in terms of how language communities see the future of their languages, and co-designing language learning programs with the local communities. His research seeks to establish theories on which methods of language revitalisation are most effective and how contextual factors of program implementation affect outcomes. Using the tools of realist inquiry, this project intends to gain a deeper understanding of how language programs work, for whom, and in which circumstances, as well as facilitate development of language programs that are sensitive to local contexts and in doing so, are more effective. Brandon is collaborating closely with Prof. Adone and team.

John is a nationally, and increasing internationally, recognised teaching and multidisciplinary research scholar. His teaching is directed toward Education for Sustainability Development  and Community Engagement and Citizen Science. A substantial body of his research is directed toward institutional and education responses to climate change and the role of science education in future environments. John’s current research projects are centred Citizen Projects and embedded  John and his colleagues as leaders in the emerging field of Wildlife Sociology

John also is a strong advocate for the integration of First Nation’s knowledges and understandings to be incorporated  all mainstream science offerings. John is an active member of CSU’s Indigenous Board of Studies; Human Research Ethics Committee; and, University Senate.

She is the author of Practices of Proximity: The Appropriation of English in Australian Indigenous Literature (2010), which won the ESSE Book Award in 2012. The book investigated the appropriation of the English language taking place in the Australian literary contact zone between an official ‘white’ Australia – the apparent owners of both the land and the English language – and Australian Indigenous peoples. Documenting language variation and rescuing the debate from seemingly peripheral locations – the ‘empty’ Great Sandy Desert, or the abject urban margin – it insisted on the complex, ultimately open-ended and multilateral ownership of the English language by all who inhabit its intersubjective space, rendering the inherited authority of who ‘owns’ meaning problematical and ethically suspect. Her second monograph, Global English, Transnational Flows: Australia and New Zealand in Translation, addressed the central, yet unresolved, theoretical debate concerning the translation of post-colonial English language varieties. Her recent research centers on Climate Change and Climate-induced Migration Discourse, Populist Discourse, and Social-media Activism with many case-studies from the Australian context.  Her most recent monograph, The Evaluation of Risk in Institutional and Newspaper Discourse: the Case of Climate Change and Migration, provides an analysis of the evaluation of climate change and climate-induced migration risks in institutional and newspaper discourse. Katherine is collaborating closely with Prof. Adone and team.