Associate Professor Kate Rigby
PhD (Monash University), MA (University of Melbourne), BA (University of Melbourne)
Kate Rigby curriculum vitae [
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Biography
Following undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the University of Melbourne and Freiburg University (Germany), I completed my PhD at Monash University in 1991 and was offered a Lectureship in German Studies at Monash that year. In 1994, I returned to Germany as a Humboldt Fellow, and in 1997 was promoted to Senior Lecturer. Since 1996, I have also been on the Board of the Centre for Theology and Religious Studies, and from 1999 to 2004, I held a dual appointment in German and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies, of which I was the Director from 2004-2007. I was promoted to Associate Professor and elected to the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2006, and held the position of Deputy Head (Education) in ECPS from 2009-2011. Informing my more recent research in the area of German Studies and Comparative Literature, is my strong interest in ecocriticism, ecophilosophy and ecotheology. I am co-editor, with Sharron Pfueller and Freya Mathews, of the ecological humanities journal, PAN (Philosophy Activism Nature) and I was the founding President of the Association for the Study of Literature, Environment and Culture (http://www.aslec-anz.asn.au/Australia-New Zealand ) between 2004 and 2008. I am also a founding member of the Australian Ecological Humanities research network (http://www.ecologicalhumanities.org/ )
Research interests
Ecocritical theory and European philosophy
An examination of the potential contribution of twentieth-century European philosophy to the development of contemporary ecocritical theory, with a particular emphasis on phenomenology and Critical Theory.
Imagining catastrophe
An examination of literary responses to, and prefigurations of, natural and environmental disaster from the 17th century to the present, focussing on German and English-language texts, and framed by current concerns regarding climate change.
Ecopoetics
How might poetic language help to reframe human perceptions of and interactions with nonhuman others and the earth? My exploration of this question draws on a range of critical theories and is addressed to a diversity of poetic practices from the Romantic lyric through to contemporary experimental forms.
Romantic ecologies
A continuing investigation of the understandings of 'nature' and human-non-human relations in European Romanticism, and its ambivalent legacy down to the present.
Religion and ecology
How do different religious texts and traditions shape human perceptions of, and relations with, the other-than-human world? In particular, I am interested in the 'greening' of the Abrahamic faiths, especially Christianity, and the development of the (interreligious) 'greenfaith' movement.
Diasporic natures
An examination of the place and perception of 'nature' in German Jewish literature and philosophy.
Selected publications
- Rigby, K and Goodbody, A. (eds). (2011) Ecocritical Theory: New European Perspectives (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia)
- Rigby, K. (2007) “Prometheus Redeemed? From Autoconstruction to Ecopoetics,” in Kearns, L. and Keller, C. edited Ecospirit : religions and philosophies for the earth, edited by Laurel Kearns and Catherine Keller pp 270-294 (New York : Fordham University Press, 2007)
- Rigby, K. (2004) Topographies of the sacred : the poetics of place in European Romanticism. (Charlottesville, : University of Virginia Press.)
- Rigby, K. (2004) ‘“Earth, World, Text: On the (Im)possibility of Ecopoiesis’.,” New literary history, Vol 35.3, (Summer 2004) pp. Pages 427-442. (University of Virginia
- Rigby, K. (1996) Transgressions of the feminine : tragedy, enlightenment and the figure of woman in classical German drama. (Heidelberg, : C. Winter.)
- Beinssen-Hesse, S. and, Rigby, K.(1996) Out of the shadows : contemporary German feminism, “Interpretations” series. (Carlton, Vic :, Melbourne University Press.)