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Your meticulously researched book, Cultivating Community, examines water management in the Murray–Darling Basin. As a researcher from Ottawa, what piqued your interest in a river system so far away from home?

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Amanda: Before writing the book, I spent two years as a policy analyst with the Department of Agriculture in Ottawa, Canada, working primarily on World Trade Organization files. This experience showed me how high-level government decisions—especially trade policies—affect farmers globally. Decisions made at the federal and international levels often leave farmers with little say in matters that directly impact their livelihoods. My dissertation supervisor, Dr Peter Andrée, who had done research in Australia, told me about the political controversy that plagued the Murray–Darling Basin (MDB) since the Millennium drought. I was struck by how deeply the drought had affected the region and how government decisions played such a critical role in its management. It seemed an ideal case study for understanding the relationship dynamics between environmental policy and farming communities.

Initially, my focus was on the intersection of agricultural and environmental policy, but my research led me to develop a strong interest in water policy. What started as an inquiry into the politics surrounding the drought grew into a broader exploration of the river system’s history. I found that many environmental decisions affecting the Basin were shaped by long-standing assumptions embedded in language and culture. This discovery pushed me to examine how these deeper historical and cultural forces influence modern-day water management.

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Cultivating Community draws on extensive field research among local farmers and Murray–Darling Basin Authority officials. What do you see as some of the major hurdles for positive collaboration between farmers and government officials?

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Amanda: One of the biggest challenges to collaboration between farmers and government officials is the fundamental difference in how each group perceives the world around them. These two groups operate within distinct cognitive paradigms—shaped by their lived experiences, values and professional demands. Farmers, grounded in the day-to-day realities of agriculture, focus on maximising yields, ensuring economic viability, and responding to environmental challenges as they arise. In contrast, government officials often approach water management from a policy-centric perspective, prioritising broader sustainability goals and regulatory compliance. This disconnect creates tensions, particularly when farmers perceive government policies like buybacks as decisions made without understanding the needs of the farming community. Issues related to over-allocation and salinity only compound these challenges, reinforcing the perception that government interventions are out of touch with local realities.

Trust, or the lack thereof, further complicates collaboration. Farmers can view officials as disconnected bureaucrats imposing regulations that seem overly complex or irrelevant to farmers’ concerns. Conversely, government officials may see farmers as resistant to change, particularly regarding environmental protections. This lack of mutual understanding is intensified by poor communication. Policy language can be complex for farmers to translate into practical action, and farmers’ concerns are often expressed in ways that don’t resonate with policymakers. Moreover, issues like drought, flooding, and economic hardship deepen this divide, as farmers struggle with regulations that feel disconnected from their lived experiences and the economic fragility of regional communities. To bridge this gap, both groups must build trust and craft solutions that address local realities, including community-led initiatives, infrastructure investment, and context-specific water management strategies.

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What was your experience like working in regional Australian communities?

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Amanda: Working in regional Australian communities was both rewarding and challenging. It is impossible to think about my time there without recalling the land and animals. The landscapes were striking, and the variety of bird species in central New South Wales (NSW) was extraordinary. I spotted fairy-wrens, kookaburras, kites, lorikeets and even sea eagles on farms. I also had the precarious blessing of witnessing a mob of at least fifty kangaroos bound past my kids and me at full speed, not more than ten metres away.

The research was difficult due to the vast distances between farms, which limited me to one interview per day. The year was exceptionally wet, leading to incidents like being swept off the road and having to wait for a stranger to help me out. As a solo female traveller without cell reception, these situations were particularly challenging. I also had issues running low on gas or windshield fluid (which meant bugs would obstruct my view). Despite these hurdles, the farmers were generally very welcoming and appreciated my efforts to visit them. The farmers I met were well-informed about politics and ecology, and I quickly discovered that most also shared my passion for the land and animals. Some of my experiences working in and navigating the landscape of regional NSW are shared in the book.

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In the book, you analyse five environmental discourses prevalent in the Murray–Darling Basin; could you briefly describe them here?

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Amanda: In managing the Murray–Darling Basin’s water resources, I identified five distinct environmental discourses: administrative rationalism, economic rationalism, democratic pragmatism, green environmentalism, and community centrism. These discourses represent the diverse priorities of various stakeholders involved in shaping the Basin’s water policies, ranging from farmers to government officials to local communities and environmental advocates. Each approach reflects a different worldview when it comes to balancing the complex demands on water in the region, though each has its limitations.

Administrative rationalism advocates a top-down, bureaucratic approach, with government authorities and scientific experts leading the decision-making process. This discourse emphasises regulation, centralised control, and technical expertise to ensure sustainable water use. However, its reliance on centralised decision-making often alienates local communities, leading to a lack of trust and resistance, as policies may feel disconnected from on-the-ground realities.

By contrast, economic rationalism treats water as an economic commodity, promoting market-based mechanisms such as water trading and privatisation to determine how water should be allocated. This discourse assumes that the free market is best equipped to ensure resources are distributed efficiently, with minimal government intervention. However, this approach can exacerbate inequalities, as wealthier stakeholders may buy up more water rights, leaving smaller farmers and marginalised communities with insufficient resources. It also risks undermining long-term environmental sustainability in favour of short-term profit.

Democratic pragmatism pushes for a more inclusive decision-making process, encouraging broader public participation. This discourse values the involvement of multiple stakeholders, including local communities, industries and environmental organisations, in shaping water management strategies. It stresses the importance of consensus-building and finding practical solutions that account for the diverse needs of all affected parties. While democratic pragmatism fosters inclusion, it does not always recognise how power dynamics can negatively impact the decision-making process. It tends to assume that actors have equal bargaining power, when in reality, numerous factors can affect the capacity of actors to influence policy.

Green environmentalism shifts the focus toward the ecological health of the Basin, prioritising environmental sustainability over economic or social concerns. This discourse calls for strong protections for ecosystems, advocating for policies that place the long-term health of rivers, wetlands and other natural resources above short-term human economic activities. However, green environmentalism can sometimes fail to address how social and economic injustices can often be deeply tied to environmental problems. It also conceives of humans as outside of nature, which can cause problems for the environmental movement.

Lastly, community centrism, a discourse introduced in the book, emphasises the importance of local knowledge and the unique needs of rural and Indigenous communities in the MDB. This approach advocates for bottom-up solutions that respect and integrate local experiences, fostering active community participation in water management decisions. Community centrism also champions socially fair water allocation systems that account for the specific challenges faced by marginalised groups, offering a more socially equitable approach to water governance.

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What are the advantages of a community-centred approach to environmental decision-making?

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Amanda: A community-centred approach to environmental decision-making offers several advantages, particularly when managing complex ecosystems like the MDB. First, it empowers local communities, particularly Indigenous and marginalised groups, by giving them a voice in the decision-making process. These communities often have intimate, long-standing knowledge of their local environment, which can provide valuable insights into sustainable management practices that external stakeholders might overlook. By drawing on local knowledge and traditions, this approach fosters solutions better suited to the area’s specific ecological, social and economic context.

Another advantage is that community-centred approaches promote greater social equity and justice. By prioritising the needs and values of the people most directly affected by environmental policies, decision-making processes are more inclusive, fair and transparent. It reduces the likelihood of disenfranchising local populations, particularly rural or Indigenous peoples, who might otherwise be ignored in top-down decision-making structures. Additionally, when communities are directly involved, they are more likely to support and comply with environmental regulations, creating a sense of ownership and accountability that can lead to more effective long-term management of natural resources.

Community-centred decision-making also fosters resilience and adaptability. Engaging those most familiar with the local landscape allows for more flexible and adaptive responses to environmental challenges, whether droughts, floods or other ecological shifts. Local communities can quickly mobilise to respond to immediate crises, and their continuous involvement ensures that environmental management remains dynamic and responsive to changing conditions over time.

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For readers who would like to learn more about water management and environmental ethics, what resources might you recommend?

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Amanda: For readers interested in expanding their knowledge of water management and environmental ethics, there are several works that I would recommend. A good starting point would be Vandana Shiva’s Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit (2002). In the book, Shiva critiques the privatisation of water resources, emphasising the importance of water as a fundamental human right. She explores how corporate control of water contributes to inequality and environmental degradation, and offers a critical analysis of how the commodification of natural resources impacts both marginalised communities and ecosystems.

Another valuable resource is Maude Barlow’s Blue Future: Protecting Water for People and the Planet Forever (2013). Barlow, a globally recognised water campaigner, outlines a comprehensive blueprint for protecting the world’s water resources. Her work addresses the challenges of pollution, depletion and water privatisation, and argues for ecologically focused, community-centred solutions that empower local communities to manage their resources. This attention to community engagement and social equity makes her work especially relevant to ongoing water management debates.

For those seeking a deeper understanding of ecological knowledge and ethics, Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (2013) offers a unique perspective. Kimmerer weaves together Indigenous wisdom and scientific understanding, advocating for a more reciprocal relationship between humans and the natural world. Her emphasis on community and traditional ecological knowledge mirrors themes found in the work of another Indigenous writer, Bruce Pascoe, in Dark Emu: Aboriginal Australia and the Birth of Agriculture (2014), which looks at the rich history of agriculture in pre-colonial Australia. These works highlight the critical importance of Indigenous knowledge in environmental management.

Murray Bookchin’s work is foundational in a broader socio-ecological context. The Ecology of Freedom: The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy (1982) was an influential text in the writing of this book. Bookchin explores the connections between ecological issues and social structures, arguing that environmental degradation is closely tied to hierarchical power systems. His call for decentralised, community-driven solutions resonates strongly with discussions on water management and the need for local empowerment in decision-making processes.

Wendell Berry’s The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture (1977) also provides critical insights into the ethical concerns surrounding land use and environmental stewardship. Berry critiques modern agricultural practices and argues for a return to sustainable farming rooted in strong communities. His focus on the cultural and ethical dimensions of land use provides a critical lens through which to view current environmental challenges.

As someone who loves reading literature, I find John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939) eye-opening. This book offers a powerful depiction of how environmental degradation, in this case, the Oklahoma Dust Bowl, intertwines with economic inequality and human suffering. Steinbeck’s exploration of land and livelihood, though fictional, mirrors real-world concerns about the social impacts of environmental collapse. In this way, the book is a timeless masterpiece that helps explain how the events of the early twentieth century were foundational in shaping the current agricultural and environmental landscapes. ��

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Cultivating Community: How discourse shapes the philosophy, practice and policy of water management in the Murray–Darling Basin��is available now. Order your copy��here.

Congratulations on the publication of your new book, International Student Policy in Australia! You have researched social policy for a number of years – what sparked your interest in this particular area?

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Gaby: Thank you! I came to research on international students by accident. I was based at Monash University in the early part of my career in the early to mid-2000s. There was a favourable funding context, as the university had just issued a large call for project funding applications on the broad theme of ‘global movements’. Importantly, this coincided with the beginning of a new phase in my research, which was beginning to branch out from the areas I was trained in. Specifically, I was becoming excited about investigating the global dimensions of issues and categories of people that I had up to then analysed as being within nation-state and nation-‘bound’ terms. If you like, I was really finding myself as a researcher on people whose welfare could not be determined solely in the policy regime of one country. To be honest, up to then I was never attracted to researching international students, because I did not like the idea of researching human subjects who appeared before me in the classroom. It had seemed somehow too easy and not intellectually adventurous enough. But let me assure you that it is a very challenging area, if only because policy studies specialists – especially social policy researchers – are generally very sympathetic but not that interested. Though, having said that, let me emphasise their general support. Nobody is in the way. I do and have published on international students in social policy journals and settings. In fact, part of my research contribution, as I see it, is bringing public and social policy theories and perspectives to the study of international education and the lives of students.

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The book begins with an account of Scott Morrison’s press conference on 3 April 2020, in which he announced that international students would not receive any compensation for the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Do you think this overt disregard for international student welfare shocked or surprised many social policy experts? What about the students themselves?

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Gaby: In a way it did. The exclusion of international students from income compensation in 2020 occurred in a policy environment where a highly conservative government discovered the need for social policies – specifically, ‘universalist’ as opposed to ‘selective’ payment benefits – as the primary means to avoid economic recession while a pandemic was besieging Australia and the rest of the world. It was surprising also because, up to that point, like most researchers in the area, I was convinced that the economics of international education would win the day. That argument states that international students may not choose Australia in the future if they were treated so badly in 2020. In other words, governments would not want to sacrifice the future trade benefits brought about by international student revenues. Otherwise stated again, they would not want to ‘kill the golden goose’. But then, on the other hand, as I argue in the book, the international education ‘market’ for Australia has never seen extended declines in global share. It is a market characterised by ‘resilience’. In fact, the main trend is one of growth. And excluding temporary visa holders like international students from benefits in 2020 was totally consistent with the historical trajectory of national social policy. The thinking behind the Australian welfare state has always been that permanent residents and citizens can receive welfare payments and services if and when they qualify, but ‘foreigners’ never can.

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Australia has long been a popular destination for international students. How did Australia gain this reputation? And how has it changed in recent years?

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Gaby: Full-fee international education was opened up by the Hawke Labor government by the early 1990s. At that stage Australia was not expected to be a global ‘player’, but that status did emerge, as I demonstrate in Chapter 3 of the book. Australia has now long been associated with a positive and relatively accepting and liberal lifestyle and culture. It generally has favourable climatic and other conditions. It is considered safe. It has also become an increasingly competitive economy on the international stage. It is a globally recognised and respected country. Finally, and most importantly, in the last two decades, universities have increasingly relied on international student revenues as a means to fund research, which is a particularly attractive strategy in the face of what has been a lowering of the funding share coming from governments. In the process of increasing the research reputations of our universities, more international students have chosen to come to study in Australia. Our higher education system is generally seen as internationally focused and high-quality, and our universities have been climbing up the global research and quality rankings. The book explores these ‘student choice’ and ‘mobility’ factors further.

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In what ways does the government’s diminishing support for international students reflect public attitudes towards university funding?

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Gaby: As I suggest in my response to the previous question, there is a really close relationship between the research agendas of universities and the attraction of international students to Australia. Universities therefore obviously want and increasingly need international students. The Australian public, on the other hand, has become a little bit warier of universities because of their corporatisation. Indeed there is some data which suggests that universities are less respected national institutions than they once were. There are also some in the wider community who, in addition to questioning universities’ motivations as hosts for international students, also question whether we should be accepting so many international students. Let me be clear, though, that international students do not displace domestic students. Both student cohorts are being encouraged to study in larger numbers and are generally courted by governments. The current international student caps proposal is the only exception to that erstwhile rule. Finally, international students do not crowd out domestic students or other members of the community from housing, and the economic benefits of them being here far outweigh any effects they may (or may not) have on inflation and the cost of living. Any anti-international student sentiment is bad for Australia.

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What advice would you give international students who are interested in pursuing higher education in Australia?

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Gaby: The main piece of advice is please do come and study in Australia. As a lecturer I can say that international students enrich the classroom I stand in, and they do that beyond measure. As I say in the preface, it is to absolutely nobody’s benefit if international students do not come here. If they do not come, international students lose by missing out on a high-quality education and new life-experiences in a beautiful country. The domestic economy and governments miss out on the benefits of international education as an export. Educational providers at all levels miss out on the broader benefits of internationalising curricula and their campus and classroom cultures. And Australian society certainly misses out on the opportunities that come with a more global Australia. I hope we always have international students in large numbers in Australia.

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International Student Policy in Australia: The welfare dimension is available now. Order your copy��here.

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Congratulations on the publication of your new book, Photogrammetry for Archaeological Objects: A Manual. As an archaeologist, how did you come to specialise in photogrammetry modelling?

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Madeline: I actually learnt how to do photogrammetry underwater first! It’s been a really interesting journey over many years, starting as an undergraduate student at the University of Sydney doing a double degree in archaeology and marine science. During this, I undertook an intensive maritime archaeology course at Flinders University where, under the instruction of Dr Kōtarō Yamafune, I was first introduced to photogrammetry. As part of the course, we endeavoured to model the wreck of an early 1900s oyster cutter, the��Caprice, in Mount Dutton Bay, SA. Upon my return to studying at the University, I quickly joined one of the marine sciences labs as a volunteer under the guidance of Professor Will Figueira and Dr Gus Porter. My role involved processing thousands of images of the Great Barrier Reef to create accurate photogrammetry models for ongoing scientific assessments. With this foundation, I was then able to confidently move on to designing an honours research project modelling the Neolithic temples of Malta. This led me to further photogrammetry fieldwork in Sri Lanka with Professor Barbara Helwing, modelling first millennium BCE stupas and archaeological objects. Soon after, I was brought on as a research assistant to Professor Peter Hiscock, where I modelled hundreds of lithic artefacts from around Australia and trained students in Australia and overseas. It was through this experience that was able to hone my method of modelling small objects for archaeological analysis.��In the five years since, I have become the Discipline of Archaeology’s photogrammetry specialist and worked on a variety of projects, including creating a digital catalogue of objects for the Chau Chak Wing Museum and teaching photogrammetry to undergraduate and postgraduate students. As a result of these experiences, I decided to compile this manual for students, hoping it will assist them in their photogrammetry endeavours.

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Can you briefly describe what photogrammetry modelling is, and how it might be useful for archaeologists?

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Madeline:��Photogrammetry modelling is the process of creating digital three-dimensional models of objects, features or landscapes using well-exposed, overlapping two-dimensional photographs. All you need is a camera! By creating digital models of your research subject material, you open up new and varied ways to analyse your archaeological material. For example, you can obtain precise measurements of any areas or cross-sections of your subject, assess volume and surface area, and even strip back the texture so you can analyse the raw morphology, even of areas that are not visible to the naked eye. Photogrammetry can also be used to understand production methods, structural variations across a number of specimens, and create archival records, as digital 3D models are immune to time and degradation. You can even map landscapes and create digital elevation models that can be further used in Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

For archaeologists, photogrammetry is particularly useful as it offers a non-invasive way to capture a 3D snapshot of cultural material or landscapes that can be analysed and re-analysed over and over again without damaging the subject. Models can be sent anywhere in the world and are incredibly useful educational tools, even if the original object is locked away in a museum somewhere. This helps promote public accessibility to cultural heritage – all you need is a screen!��

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Photogrammetry for Archaeological Objects: A Manual is an easy-to-follow introduction and guide to photogrammetry. Is this a resource you wish had been available when you first started 3D modelling?

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Madeline:��Absolutely! With this manual in my hands, I would have saved a huge amount of time working out the best techniques and approaches in both the shooting and processing stages of photogrammetry. It is a common assumption that photogrammetry is easy – which it can be, but only if making accurate and successful models is not a high priority! It takes time and understanding to set up your camera accurately, to position the camera and the lights, to know how many camera angles are required and how to work in an uncontrolled environment where your only light source is the sun. There is so much essential knowledge to understand before jumping in. Knowing how to process a basic model is also pretty simple; however, once you scratch the surface and delve deeper into the software, there is a lot to learn which can get confusing. Through countless hours of working with , I have discovered a variety of tools, functions and methods that really help the processing stage. Through trial and error, I tested a lot of the software’s features. This is why I wanted to write this manual, so I could share all the things I have learnt along the way and make the learning curve easier for beginners, so they don’t have to go through the stress of finding the answers to their problems by themselves – it’s all in the book!

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How might these case studies help develop an understanding of how to approach different photogrammetry projects?

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Madeline:��These case studies were specifically chosen to cover a range of different shapes, material types and colours, each presenting its own unique challenge and solution. They span from very small objects (a microlith) to shiny objects (a coin), long and thin material (bone fragment), and triangular and black stone tools. The intention here is to demonstrate examples of effective methods in both the shooting and processing stages that produce successful models. This introduces the reader to a variety of approaches and allows them to pick the best methods for their own projects. I have tried to cover the most common archaeological objects (like stone tools, bone fragments, coins and pottery) so readers can simply follow what I have outlined in the manual, however it is very likely other objects will be modelled, so this will set them on the right track! Unfortunately, in photogrammetry modelling there is no standard, one-size-fits-all approach, so introducing the readers to the range of choices not only in the shooting stage, but also in choosing equipment and in processing, will hopefully show them how to best design their own methodology.

Although this manual primarily focuses on modelling archaeological objects, I have also included three case studies on how to approach modelling excavation pits, landscape features and walled structures. It is highly likely that at some point an archaeologist photogrammetrist will encounter the need to model these in their career, so I have included them just in case!

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Madeline:��The methodology here is absolutely not exclusive to archaeologists, as anyone in the fields of zoology, palaeontology, geology, marine and medical sciences, and art and architecture (to name a few) will be able to use the techniques. Any discipline that requires high-resolution photogrammetry models for use in research, analysis or education will find this manual highly useful! This guide aims to provide a foundation for researchers to create accurate and successful models; archaeology is merely the lens through which photogrammetry is explored.��

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You have worked at a number of archaeological sites, both here in Australia and abroad. What have been some of your most memorable experiences from working at these sites?

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Madeline:��It is really difficult for me to name just one memorable moment as I have worked in some amazing places – from mustatils in Saudi Arabia to Aboriginal rock art sites in Australia. I think one of the most prominent projects that really stands out for me is modelling the oldest stone axe fragment in Australia, currently housed in the Western Australian Museum. This was an incredibly difficult object to model as it is so small, but to see and work with it was just a really humbling experience, knowing someone made it tens of thousands of years ago, and here I was taking photos of it. The other project would have to be modelling the Neolithic temples in Malta. This was the first project where I got to take the reins and navigate the modelling process. After months of research and preparation, being able to explore the temples and analyse their engineering and architecture and recreate it in digital space was really exciting. Walking through them again using a VR headset was an additional highlight! Those weeks when I was exploring the rooms and capturing every detail of the temple walls, envisioning what the temples were originally like and what they were used for, are a memory I won’t forget easily.��

I also want to add that the other experiences that I am particularly grateful for in my photogrammetry career are all the friendships I have made. Through teaching and collaborating on projects I have met some of the most inspiring and driven people, for whom I am deeply thankful. Specialising in photogrammetry has opened up many doors for me, offering new experiences and challenges each year, and I’m genuinely excited for what the future will bring.��

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Photogrammetry for Archaeological Objects: A Manual is available now. Order your copy here.

Dr Lara Herring is a lecturer in the School of Arts and Media at the University of Salford, UK.

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Congratulations on the publication of your book, Animal Activism On and Off Screen! Tell us a bit about how this project came together?��

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C&L: Thank you. We’ve known each other for many years and had previously worked together on a couple of funded research projects. This book brought together different research areas that we had been exploring individually and together, in screen studies, vegan celebrity, and animal rights. There was one catalysing event that really sparked the idea for this project. We were both fascinated by the public and critical reception of Joaquin Phoenix’s speech at the Oscars in 2020, and his activism during the awards season that had preceded it. Phoenix won the Best Actor Award for his performance in the film Joker (2019) and used the awards ceremony as a platform to talk about animal rights. Over the last 10 years, there has also been a notable increase in the number of films and television programs that featured veganism. It was clear that there has been a real shift in how animal activism was being done and depicted. This was where the seeds of the idea for this book really began. The aim of the project was to bring together research and commentary on animal activism in film and television, with celebrity studies, an area in which there has been relatively little work done on animal rights and vegan activism. We also wanted to include voices from the activist and filmmaking community alongside those of academics and we were fortunate to be able to do exactly this.��

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Animal Activism On and Off Screen is a collection of contributions that examine the relationship between animal advocacy and the film and television industries. Contributors include scholars, activists and film industry professionals. How important is it to include a broad range of voices when exploring this topic?��

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C&L: Yes, from the outset we knew we wanted to have this range of voices in the book. It was always important to us that this book should represent not only scholarly views but that it should give space to those from the filmmaking and activist communities. This sounds as if we have categorised contributors as either scholar, activist or filmmaker and it couldn’t be further from the truth. We think it’s important to point out that many of those contributing to the book are hyphenates: filmmaker-activists; scholar-activists; activist-scholar-filmmakers. For those involved in critical animal studies, for example, their scholarship and activism are intrinsically bound together. The same is true for many of the contributors to this book and indeed, the identity of filmmaker and activist is one of the questions we explore with Liz Marshall, who is well-know to so many as the director of The Ghosts in Our Machine (2013) and Meat the Future (2020). We were incredibly fortunate to be put in touch with Liz through a mutual friend and we were delighted when she agreed to be interviewed for the book. Through Liz we were able to contact Lorena Elke Dobbie, an activist and documentary film researcher who contributed an incredible chapter to the volume that also grapples with these different facets of identity. We consider ourselves very fortunate to have worked with such an amazing and talented group of people who have all been committed to the idea of this book from the start.��

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The book is broken up into three parts that investigate: representations of activism on screen; activist texts and their reception; and celebrity vegans and animal advocates. Was this a conscious decision or an organic one?��

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C&L:��From the beginning, we knew we wanted to explore three facets of activism and the screen industries, and we wanted to make links between activism in the onscreen and offscreen spheres. At the start though, we had only the idea of the three key themes and there was no intention to split the final book up into different parts. As time went on and we began to identify and secure contributors it became clear that the book was naturally evolving in such a way that we found ourselves with chapters falling quite neatly into one section or another. We thought it would be a good idea to make the on and off-screen elements of the book clearer by using the three discrete parts and we think this works well, helping to navigate the reader through the key guiding themes.��

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Animal Activism On and Off Screen includes a number of case studies – from documentaries like Blackfish (2013) to feature films like Okja (2017). What potential do you see for activism in both fiction and non-fiction films to make meaningful change? Do you believe one genre is more effective than the other?��

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C&L:��When people think of animal activism films, they tend to think of non-fiction. So perhaps what comes to mind is undercover filmmaking which takes place in industries where animals are exploited, such as farms, slaughterhouses and laboratories, or documentaries such as Cowspiracy (2014) or Earthlings (2005) which have been able to reach larger audiences due to increased internet access and distribution platforms such as Netflix. As many of our contributors discuss, there is no doubt that non-fiction film and television has reached large audiences and, in many cases, played a part in making meaningful change. Debra Merskin and Carrie Freeman’s chapter on the ‘Blackfish effect’ is a great example of this and the authors look at what lessons can be learnt from the success of that film. We were also interested in looking at fiction genres and so there are chapters that focus on TV crime series and films such as Okja (2017) and Cloud Atlas (2012). As the book demonstrates, it’s not possible to identify one genre as being more effective than another; there is more than genre at stake. We have to take into account audience reach, marketing, promotion, timing, how the film is used, in addition to questions about narrative and aesthetic choices and what resonates with audiences. What the chapters in this book have done, is to distil all these components through case studies and analyses and offer suggestions for future activist communication strategies.����

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Do you believe celebrities have a responsibility to lend their voices and platforms to the causes they believe in?��

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C&L:There’s a long history of celebrity activism and we have certainly seen a rise in the number of celebrities who are aligning themselves with different causes and issues over the last twenty-five years. As the contributors to our book demonstrate, when it comes to the value of celebrity activism in the animal rights sphere there are many factors to take into account. Elizabeth Cherry’s research looks at the merit of celebrity association but also highlights some of the concerns about celebrity activism from the point of view of grassroots activists, particularly the impact of celebrity bad behaviour on the movement. Toby Miller argues that celebrity-fronted PETA campaigns are undermined by contradictory messaging. Eva Giraud draws on the concept of media ecologies to reveal the connected expressions of vegan politics associated with one celebrity activist, James Cromwell, and discusses how radical narratives may emerge from commercial media activity. What the chapters in the celebrity section of the book clearly demonstrates is the complexity of celebrity activism and the various ways in which it can both benefit and hinder the animal rights movement.��

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What key insights or messages do you hope readers will��take away from your book? For those who are interested to read more about animal and film history, what other publications might you suggest?��

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C&L:��We hope that readers will take away some insights that can inform tactics, approaches or strategies that can benefit animal advocacy, whether that’s in the form of academic work, creative production, or grassroots campaigns. If people are interested in reading more about animals and the media, we recommend they look at Critical Animal and Media Studies: Communication for Nonhuman Animal Advocacy (2015) edited by Núria Almiron, Matthew Cole and Carrie P. Freeman; Seeing Species: Re-presentations of Animals��
in Media & Popular Culture (2018) by Debra Merskin; Animals on Television: The Cultural��Making of the Non-Human (2017) by Brett Mills; and, Animals, Anthropomorphism and Mediated Encounters (2020) by Claire Parkinson.��

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Animal Activism On and Off Screen is available now. Order your copy here.��

Fiona Morrison is an Associate Professor in the School of the Arts and Media at UNSW Sydney, where she has taught and supervised in the areas of postcolonial and world literatures, Australian literature and women’s writing. Her most recent book,��Christina Stead and the Matter of America��(2019), won the Walter McRae Russell Award in 2021 (ASAL). She is currently working on a book-length study of Henry Handel Richardson.

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Congratulations Fiona and Brigid on the publication of your book, Time, Tide and History: Eleanor Dark’s Fiction! What first drew you both to the work of Eleanor Dark?

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F&B:��Our first collaboration as editors was in 2016 on a special issue of Australian Literary Studies devoted to Christina Stead. Stead also features in Drusilla Modjeska’s seminal work Exiles at ��è��Ƶ (1981) which drew attention to a group of women writers who (unlike Stead) stayed at home in Australia between the wars yet were international or cosmopolitan in their outlook. Modjeska was the first scholar to suggest that while Stead was an experimental and political writer working in the world, Eleanor Dark was an experimental and political writer working at home in Sydney and the Blue Mountains. While Dark and Stead are quite different writers, both adopt innovative, modernist uses of language, themes and locations and both are engaged with social and political issues of their time and place.

There is a specific Sydney connection that drew us into this project. Both Stead’s Seven Poor Men of Sydney (1934) and Dark’s Waterway (1938) present intellectually rich and strikingly memorable representations of interwar Sydney. Both adopt distinctly modernist styles of narration. Waterway vividly conjures Sydney Harbour as a modern place layered by time and the past. Unfolding through a single, eventful day, Waterway follows multiple characters as they move between their village-like suburban cove and the city. Waterway stands as a kind of hinge text in Dark’s career. It continues some of the modernist techniques of Dark’s earlier fictions about interwar Australian life while pointing towards the historical trilogy that she would write next. The relation between these two phases – between modernist interwar and later historical fiction – fascinated us. We wanted to draw in colleagues to help us think about the shape of her writing and its development over time.

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Time, Tide and History features contributions from a number of scholars and experts. Tell us a bit about how this project came together.

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F&B:��With this connection to Stead in the background, and some work accomplished on Dark either through essay writing or supervision in the foreground, we had an eye out for the ways in which the field was becoming more and more interested in modernist Australian women’s writing. There seemed to be a groundswell of interest from early career scholars working on Dark, and through conferences and correspondence, we thought the time was right and the tide of scholarly interest turning in her direction. Our project started life as a one-day symposium on Dark that aimed to bring scholars and writers together. We worked on symposium plans together with our colleagues Meg Brayshaw and Melinda Cooper, both experts on Dark and interwar fiction generally. Melinda’s thesis on Dark gave rise to her excellent, multi-award-winning book, Middlebrow Modernism: Eleanor Dark’s Interwar Fiction (SUP, 2022). Meg had featured Dark’s Waterway as a focal text in her wonderful study, Sydney and its Waterway in Australian Literary Modernism (2021).

Our call for papers for the symposium met with a healthy response. We were just preparing to negotiate with Varuna – formerly the Blue Mountains home of Eleanor and Eric Dark, and now The National Writers’ House – as a possible venue for an event in May 2020, when the Covid19 pandemic struck. With little prospect of an in-person event, we decided to cut to the chase and begin working on an edited collection. We reached out to our initial symposium contributors, and to others in the field – early career researchers and more experienced hands – that we thought might be interested in, or already working on, Dark. The book formed around two main hubs: Dark’s interwar modernism and her mid-century and postwar historical fiction (the Timeless Land trilogy). We wanted to know more about Dark’s influence on the writing of Australian history, so we ventured to invite two eminent public historians – Tom Griffiths and Grace Karskens – into the project. They agreed, generously contributing a brilliant dialogue exploring Dark’s legacy for Australian history.

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In the book you note that Dark’s work was held in great esteem during her lifetime, yet there has long been a deficit of critical interest in her work. Why do you think that is? And what do you make of the more recent revival of this interest?

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F&B:��It’s important to note that this isn’t Eleanor Dark’s situation alone. There is much work to do in Australian literary studies on writers of significance, past and present. The gaps are partly to do with the marginalisation of literary studies in universities and public culture, which also affects Aust lit as a smaller, more highly specialised field. There are too few scholars for the work waiting to be done.

As we emphasise in our introduction, Eleanor Dark holds a firm place in Australia’s literary heritage. But critical responses to her works have fluctuated. There has been ebb and flow in the type and scale of scholarly and critical interest. If you compare the bodies of criticism on Dark to, say, Henry Handel Richardson, Patrick White, Martin Boyd and Christina Stead it is not insignificant. But neither is it full-bodied and well-tethered. A sustained and capacious engagement with her fiction is genuinely overdue.

In Dark’s case, Modjeska’s Exiles at ��è��Ƶ was an important milestone, drawing the attention of feminist critics to the interwar fiction. Biographies appearing after Dark’s death in 1985 built this momentum further. As essays in this collection show, Dark’s interwar fiction continues to inspire innovative work by a new generation of scholars. Across the same period, however, and despite its remarkable public success and visibility, The Timeless Land and its sequels have been far less frequently examined. It was our hunch the moment had arrived to think about the historical trilogy in relation to both its own time and ours.

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A key theme in Time, Tide and History is how Eleanor Dark represents and ‘yet simultaneously erases’ Indigenous presence in Australia. Can you expand upon this briefly?

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F&B: We’d like to adjust the wording of your question a little, to shift focus from the person of the author (“Eleanor Dark”) to her fiction. But yes, we do feel that her Timeless Land trilogy represents and at the same time erases the presence of Australia’s First Peoples. Founded on Dark’s meticulous research into the colonial archive, The Timeless Land broke entirely new ground in Australian fiction and in the writing of Australian history. It was the first such work to reimagine the events of 1788 from both British invader and Indigenous perspectives. In this endeavour Dark was radically progressive. Her Timeless Land trilogy, especially volume one, cuts right across the triumphalist official narrative of settlement that prevailed at the time of her writing. Her book seized the imagination of, among others, the influential Australian historian, Manning Clark. As the dialogue between Tom Griffiths and Grace Karskens attests, although it was a work of fiction, The Timeless Land galvanised historical approaches to colonisation and helped reshape the way Australians imagined the past. ��

How then, you ask, does her writing also erase Indigenous presence? Unsurprisingly, Dark’s imagining of Indigenous culture was necessarily limited by her own lack of deeper contact or personal connection with First Nations peoples of her own time. Her novel takes certain liberties in imagining the culture of Sydney’s First Peoples (Gadigal, Gamaragal, Bidjigal, Darug and many groups), drawing on anthropological studies of First Nations cultures that were quite distant in time, space and language from the Sydney people of 1788. Her narrative is also conditioned by prevailing ideas about First Peoples at the time of her writing. One of these is the idea that they belonged to a dying race. Essays in our book that examine the trilogy consider this problem from different vantage points. All recognise how Dark’s writing confronts the brutality of invasion and the injustice of dispossession yet, at the same time, identify narrative assumptions that Aboriginal people were “timeless”, unmodern and bound for extinction. Although Dark’s portraits of Indigenous characters are based on historical figures, like Wularawaray Bennelong and his wife Barangaroo, according them the humanity and dignity of inner lives, her narrative also positions them as doomed, tragic figures. Her narrative sees their culture as in many respects morally, ethically and even environmentally superior to – more noble than – that of the British invaders. Yet they are also seen as inherently unable to survive the modern world of the colonisers. Awareness of the survival and resistance of Aboriginal Australians – arising in the very same period – does not penetrate the narrative, or not apparently. Essays in our book recognise and tackle these complex contradictions. In so doing, they also engage with questions that continue to shape Australia as both society and nation today.

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In your opinion, what is Eleanor Dark’s greatest contribution to Australia literary culture?

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F&B: Eleanor Dark contributed immensely to Australian literary culture, in ways that continue into the present. Her writing and spirit are intimately connected to Varuna, in the Blue Mountains, her home with her husband Eric Payten Dark. Their far-sighted son, the late Mick Dark, gifted Varuna to Australian literary culture. It is now known as the National Writer’s House, and provides writers with a retreat, a place of beauty, inspiration and support for their efforts.

On the other hand, it’s impossible to ignore the impact of the fiction itself, not least of The Timeless Land which so challenged and reshaped settler Australians’ historical imagination. Dark’s engagement with the experience of people in the past was studious, ethical, richly imaginative and important. The richness of her approach to history has been somewhat obscured by the idea that her historical novels were destined for the mass market in some way. It is time to reorient our understanding of this work

Dark’s other abiding contribution was the creation of experimental and responsive stories about the modern Australian experience in and beyond the interwar years, especially about women. Hers was not a textbook avant-garde writing: it was grounded in profound ways in place, and in the space of her characters and their relations. At the heart of her writing is a beautiful, idiosyncratic and expansive sense of Australian landscapes, regions and scenes that were significant to her. And the fascinating layering of philosophical and political interest in her fiction makes a distinctive contribution to both national and international writing of this period.

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For readers interested in exploring Australian modernist literature, what other authors and literary works might you suggest?

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F&B: As we know from scholarship informed by new modernist studies, Australia’s response to modernism has been incorrectly labelled derivative and belated. Patrick White was, for a time, held up as the first Australian modernist writer. Dark’s body of work, however, and the interwar work of her peers, confounds any such timeline. More importantly, if literary modernism extends well beyond any single period or style, and is understood as responding to modernity’s various phases, then Australian literature is still engaged with modernism.

That said, there are some outstanding texts from the interwar period that unambiguously exemplify breakthrough modernist styles, themes and approaches. At the top of our list are some obvious, and very significant candidates: Kenneth Slessor’s poetry, and – as mentioned earlier – Christina Stead’s first novel, Seven Poor Men of Sydney. And yet we would also recommend Henry Handel Richardson’s wonderful trilogy, The Fortunes of Richard Mahony which blends realism with a distinctly modernist sensibility. Many writers of our own time – before, during and beyond the so-called postmodernist period – engage modernism as a dynamic living legacy and as resource for their stories. Considered this way, there many books to recommend – not only the brilliant works of Patrick White, but also (to name only a few) fiction by Randolph Stow, Elizabeth Jolley, Thea Astley, Brian Castro and Gail Jones. Most recently there is Alexis Wright whose novels are not only profoundly shaped by her First Nations heritage but also Joycean in their play with language.

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Time, Tide and History: Eleanor Dark's Fiction is available now. Order your copy��here.

Myfany Turpin is an Australian Research Council fellow at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, the University of Sydney.

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Congratulations on the publication of your book, Yuupurnju: A Warlpiri song cycle! Tell us a bit about how this project began.

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The project began in Lajamanu community in 2013 when Henry Jakamarra asked me to record him singing traditional songs. I was happy to do that, although I didn’t realise at first that he would sing a whole song cycle, or what kind of language documentation work we would be able to do. He came to the place where I was staying more or less every day for three weeks, and sang for between 1 and 3 hours at a time. He was already in his nineties then, but his voice is strong and clear in the recordings. He said that the songs were important, and that anyone could listen to them; he wanted to write them down and keep them safe, and give them out to places that would keep them safe for people to learn in the future. In between each verse he would often give some information about the songs and the story they accompany.

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I’ve been privileged to witness several Warlpiri ceremonies being performed, but I haven’t witnessed this specific one, because it hasn’t been performed for many years. That is one of the reasons the Warlpiri Elders wanted to document it – so that it can be re-learned. It is a traditional Jukurrpa, or Dreaming, ceremony marking male maturity, and it is also important for women. Typically in these ceremonies men sit on the ground and sing and play clapsticks or boomerangs, which are the traditional Warlpiri percussion instruments. Women dance nearby, and the singing and dancing are performed all night, until dawn. The older people know the songs, and the younger people learn them by participating in the ceremonies. These ceremonies are important because they maintain highly valued long-standing traditions.

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For this book, the Yuupurnju song cycle was sung by Warlpiri Elder Henry Cooke Anderson Jakamarra, and documented, translated and interpreted by both Warlpiri and non-Warlpiri co-authors. What was this collaboration process like?

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After the songs were recorded I asked Jerry Patrick Jangala and Steven Patrick Jampijinpa to help write down the words. Steven Dixon Japanangka heard about the process and offered to help with some parts too. We would play a verse, then Jangala and Jakamarra would repeat the words slowly so that I could hear the sounds in the words and write them. We would do this several times, with me repeating them back until the men were confident that I had represented them correctly. They would also tell me the meanings of the verses and of the words. I would write them down too, asking questions to help my understanding. We went through versions of this process several times over the years, and then checked and re-checked what we had done, to be as accurate as we could be. Musicologist Myfany Turpin undertook the rhythmic annotation, and transcribed the syllables as sung. Syllables, and in particular vowels, are often pronounced differently when sung compared to when spoken. ��For example in Song 3, yulu ‘stance, or gait’ is sung ‘�⾱������’. And when ‘u’ and ‘i' are set to a long note they are sung as ‘ay’, as in English ‘day’. This helps to provide a full picture of the musical aspects of the verses – the rhythms and the words are both important.

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Having the audio easily available is critical for Warlpiri people to learn the songs. It also helps to bring the song cycle to life when they hear the voice of Jakamarra, who many would recognise and who they would have known well, and respected as a very knowledgeable senior man. Warlpiri people are more likely to learn the song cycle by listening and singing the verses repeatedly than by reading the written words. The QR codes are an easy way to access to the songs.

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We think that the images will help people to remember the details of the songs, because they might relate to the images easily and this multi-sensory experience might help with retaining new knowledge. The images also show the relationship the songs have with things in the physical world, such as places and plants. They also make the book attractive, which we hope will draw people in to read through it completely.

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Other books in the ��è��Ƶ Indigenous Music, Language and Performing Arts series provide valuable information from a range of perspective on Indigenous songs and music. For example ‘The Old Songs Are Always New’ about the music of Tiwi people, and the suite of books on Wangga songs from West Arnhem land. Specifically for Warlpiri, the new book Vitality and Change in Warlpiri Songs is a fabulous source of information. There is more and more Indigenous music available in the media, too.

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Congratulations on the publication of your book, After Alexander! The title refers to the historical periods following the death of Alexander the Great. As an archaeologist, what first drew you to this era of history?

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John: Thank you. At school I studied Ancient Greek and Latin, and at university I continued with Latin as well as archaeology, ancient history and fine arts – so initially I was drawn to the world of Classical Greece and Rome. (Naturally, I still have a great interest in these areas as they form an important aspect of Seleucid and Roman culture in the Middle East.)

However, in second year archaeology, the late Dr Anthony McNicoll – one of the two co-directors of the University of Sydney excavations at Pella in Jordan – gave a wonderful course on ancient trade that concentrated mainly on the Seleucid (the period following Alexander in much of the Middle East) and Early Roman periods. I was hooked! As a result, I joined the Pella excavation team and, following McNicoll’s tragically early death in 1985, I took over his work in the Hellenistic and Early Roman periods there.

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After Alexander catalogues hundreds of line drawings and photographs of unearthed pottery fragments from the Hellenistic and Early Roman periods at Pella in Jordan. How important are these visual representations for bringing the written catalogue to life?

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John: There are several reasons why these visual representations are important. Perhaps the most fundamental is that for the relatively later periods, such as the post-Alexander and Early Roman eras, the pottery recovered from undisturbed strata still provides the most reliable guide to the chronology of the levels we are uncovering, as the pottery shapes change with time. This means, of course, that the strata must be excavated with care (often more difficult than one thinks), and the pottery fragments described, photographed and drawn. This careful recording allows scholars working at other sites in Jordan and elsewhere to get a more certain idea for dating their own sites.

Moreover, the type of clay and style of decoration used can often tell us where the pot was made, helping to identify the trading links that Pella had with both neighbouring and more distant towns and cities during the Hellenistic and Early Roman periods.

Additionally, the pottery fragments – especially the “fine wares” – can be individually very attractive (as seen in this book’s photographs) and certainly help to enliven a work such as this where text is such an important element.

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What can these artefacts tell us about Hellenistic and Early Roman society and culture at Pella?

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John: The artefacts we have recovered at Pella demonstrate the ebb and flow of its fortunes during these periods. During the third century BCE, historical documents suggested that the southern Levant was under the control of the Ptolemies of Egypt rather than the Seleucids. At first, we had no archaeological proof of this until our excavations uncovered pottery and coins consistent with a garrison (part of this Ptolemaic control) on the highest and most defensible part of the site.

Ancient historians suggest that the Ptolemies were defeated and that Pella fell into Seleucid hands during the second century – and this is exactly what our excavations have demonstrated, with widespread settlement across the site and a marked increase in the quality of the pottery and other artefacts.

We now also have strong archaeological evidence, with the presence of a thick destruction level containing datable pottery and coins, that Pella was destroyed in the early first century BCE by the Jewish king Alexander Jannaeus, with only limited resettlement in the following Early Roman period. Ancient literature and many modern scholars had been ambivalent as to whether this destruction took place and largely silent as to the question of Early Roman settlement there. Our excavations at Pella have now confirmed both this destruction and the limited resettlement that followed.

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What kind of audience do you hope to reach with this book?

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John: I am hoping to reach an audience of both archaeologists and non-archaeologists. Until now, the post-Alexander (Hellenistic) and Early Roman periods in modern Jordan have been less studied and published than the same periods in Israel, Syria and elsewhere. This book, therefore, with both a detailed description of the excavations and the recovered pottery, along with an interpretation and discussion of these findings at Pella, will help fill a gap for scholars working on these periods in the southern Levant but needing more information about the situation in Jordan during these periods.

Furthermore, the description of the excavations at Pella and the pottery recovered from these levels are well enhanced by photographs, demonstrating to scholars and lovers of history and archaeology alike what a prosperous, fertile and beautiful site Pella in Jordan is.

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Throughout your career, you have also conducted excavations in Syria, Greece and Cyprus. What have been some of your most exciting discoveries or experiences during these excavations?

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John: I have certainly had numerous exciting finds over the period that I have worked on these excavations, including: from Pella, an extremely rare gold Roman coin which (as gold doesn’t tarnish) looked as though it was minted the day before it was found; in Greece, a beautifully painted and perfectly preserved large Hellenistic vase from Macedonia; and, in Syria, the columns, altars, and architectural members of a temple built during the rule of Alexander’s general Seleucus, along with its larger-than-life-size cult statue (perhaps Zeus) in translucent marble that was transported all the way from the island of Paros in Greece.��

These finds, and others I have not the space to mention, are obviously wonderful, but just as thrilling to me is the painstaking detective work in the ��removal of soil and other debris over a number of excavation seasons to reveal more and more of the structures – be they houses, temples, tombs or fortifications – that have been buried (along with the associated pottery, coins and other artefacts) for some two millennia or more.

Just as rewarding are the strong bonds we form with those local villagers who make up a large proportion of our excavation teams. Many of them will work alongside us for a decade or more, and as a result we get to know both them and their families very well indeed. While this is generally a source of joy, sometimes this can result in much sadness for our team members, as we often wonder what has happened to our village workers and friends over time – as in Syria, where the country has undergone wars and, more recently, devastating earthquakes.

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What other resources might you recommend for readers who wish to learn more about the Hellenistic and Early Roman periods in the Middle East and the Mediterranean?

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John: For many decades the Hellenistic period (in particular) was largely ignored by historians and archaeologists who tended to concentrate their efforts on the earlier powerful Bronze Age (second millennium BCE) or the later Roman empires in the Middle East. The conquests of Alexander the Great, of course, have always been popular with historians, and this has now led to a much greater focus, both historically and archaeologically, on the kingdoms formed after his death, such as that of the Seleucids in the Middle East or the Ptolemies in Egypt. This focus has now demonstrated that, while some areas conquered by Alexander readily adopted Greek language and customs, other regions remained relatively impervious to these new influences. Indeed, it is this piecemeal and uneven response to the imported culture of the Macedonian armies of Alexander and his generals, demonstrated by the pottery and other artefacts at Pella, that provides one of the most fascinating areas for research in the Hellenistic east. This can be seen in the now increasingly numerous books on the history and art of the Hellenistic world, including A Companion to the Hellenistic World (Erskine 2005) and Art in the Hellenistic World (Stewart 2014).

Gay Hawkins is an Emeritus Professor at the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University. She is a leading researcher in the fields of environmental humanities, STS and the politics of materials.

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Congratulations on the publication of your book, Making Animals Public: Inside the ABC’s Natural History Archive. What inspired you to start this project?

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G&B: The initial interest came from wondering about the role of the ABC in attuning audiences to animals and how it developed a distinctly Australian form of natural history TV. While Australians now take natural history animals on their screens for granted, getting them onto television in the 1960s involved a lot of technical and cultural intervention. Once they got there, these animals rapidly became very popular with audiences and had significant impacts on them. They also developed a life of their own! We were interested in exploring both those dynamics: how animals were made informative and entertaining, and how natural history programs have shaped public interest in nature, conservation, the environment and science. Natural history television is now a huge global production industry and format. The ABC has been the key institution for developing this genre in Australia. It has played a very significant role in documenting myriad natural environments as well as many rare and elusive Australian animals – and showing these to audiences for the first time. While there have been lots of analyses of the evolution of the ABC as a major cultural force in Australia, these have focused on genres like drama, comedy and current affairs. Natural history television remained relatively unexamined.

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Making Animals Public��examines the evolution of natural history television on the ABC, through a combination of disciplines – screen studies, critical animal studies, and science and technology studies. How important was this interdisciplinary approach to your analysis of this archive?

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G&B: An interdisciplinary approach was important because the material demanded it. The book is not an institutional history; it is an exploration of what is distinct about screen animals, how they are made televisual. Hence the need to draw on media and screen studies accounts of mediation and representation. It is also a study of what natural history animals say, more broadly, about the place of animals in society and animal–human relations. How are audiences invited to look at natural history animals: as superior to humans or as companions in a complex multispecies world? Finally, we were interested in concepts from science and technology studies that foreground how science is shaped by cultural dynamics. Scientific knowledge has a huge influence in defining what is natural, what is factual and what threatens us. Natural history television is a major force in communicating science and making scientific knowledge accessible and popular.

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In the book, you state that televised animals are “enacted and staged rather than found and documented”. Can you expand on this briefly?

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G&B: In recent years, natural history television has been criticised for creating televisual “Edens”. The accusation is that these programs protect audiences from the realities of ecological crisis by showing animals in pristine environments doing remarkable things. Related to this is concern about the use of domesticated animals and an array of other production techniques in order to simulate animals in the wild. While these critiques are compelling, the claim that natural history animals aren’t really that natural after all is misplaced. It implicitly endorses the idea of an “authentic animal” and fuels concern about mediation as distorting. In the rush to critique what the media “does” to animals, we can lose sight of how natural history animals are crafted and composed in complex and myriad ways. In order for animals to be able to inhabit television, they needed to be staged and enacted rather than simply documented. Camera angles, narration, soundtracks, edits, etc. all work to craft a natural history animal that will engage viewers. The issue we explore is not how these techniques obscure the real animal but how they reveal what has come to count as a natural history animal and how this has changed over time. The ABC has made huge shifts in screening animals over the last 15 years and foregrounding human–animal interactions – from the politics of feral animal management to living with sharks. They have also explored major conservation issues such as extinctions and environmental destruction. This undermines the idea of pristine, untouched nature.

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How do you think ABC documentaries about Australia’s natural flora and fauna, from the 1950s to now, have contributed to Australian identity and environmental awareness?

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G&B: The public broadcaster has played a key role in framing the biota of the Australian continent as central to national identity, and also as unique, fragile and valuable. It has been central in building environmental awareness in audiences: this is a reflection of the institution’s charter to inform, educate and entertain a national public. This reached its apogee with the series Nature of Australia (ABC 1988) which was made for the bicentenary. During the period that our book focuses on – from the 1950s to the 2000s – we trace a growing disquiet about the trajectory of Australia’s modernization and its ecological cost. This is a trajectory in which “nature” moves from an exploited and neglected backdrop to the nation’s growth and development, to center stage as “the environment” and a matter of public interest and concern. More recently, planetary concerns have become a focus, with programs investigating climate change and its threat to all life on earth.

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What do you expect or hope for the future of natural history programs?

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G&B: There have been significant shifts in how animals and nature are explored on the ABC. The final chapter of the book explores the Your Planet series that screened in 2020. This series examined planetary forces shaping the environment. After the Fires and Big Weather: And How to Survive It, for example, investigated the impacts of climate change and showed the devastating effects of catastrophic weather events on humans and animals. This was definitely not easy viewing! The key shift in these programs was that they challenged the idea that nature would always go on, that it was resilient and would recover. In abandoning this premise, they could be described as “post-natural history” shows. Situating nature and wildlife in a planetary framework is important; it doesn’t deny the local but it gives it a bigger context. This is politically significant because it disrupts a focus on singular issues or species and foregrounds the forces that all humans and animals are facing.��

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Within the ABC’s oeuvre, what natural history programs might you recommend to readers of your book?

G&B:��

• After the Fires
• Nature of Australia: A Portrait of the Island Continent
• Back to Nature
• A Dog’s World with Tony Armstrong

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Getting started in the publishing industry can seem like a daunting feat, with many different areas and roles to choose from. There are different branches including trade, education, academic, scholarly and scientific publishing etc. ��There are also a number of divisions in publishing that are often not as visible as the roles of publisher or editor. These range from sales, marketing, production, publicity, product, digital, legal, finance and more.

��è��Ƶ (SUP) is a not-for-profit, scholarly publisher of research-based books that engage, inspire and stimulate debate. At SUP, we believe in the value of research, the power of knowledge and the ability of books to change the world. Our mission is to enable, support and facilitate the dissemination of outstanding research. We look to find new ways of extending the availability and accessibility of knowledge and increasing engagement with individual works.

Meet the Team

We’ve asked our team some frequently asked questions about their entry into the industry and advice for those wanting to make a start.

Susan: I’m the manager and publisher for ��è��Ƶ. I manage the business, and also commission new books for two of the SUP scholarly series.

Naomi: I’m the publishing manager and ��è��Ƶ, my main role is to steer our books through the publishing process, and liaise with our wonderful authors, copyeditors and designers.

Nathan: I’m the production officer at ��è��Ƶ. My tasks include typesetting, scheduling, ebook distribution and design.

Kelly: I’m the publishing projects officer at ��è��Ƶ. My main role is to provide marketing, sales, and distribution support to the team.

Q: Did you always want to work in Publishing?

Susan: I always wanted to work with books, but hadn’t considered working in publishing until the opportunity arose to restart SUP.

Naomi: I have always loved reading, but it wasn’t until I was about halfway through my undergraduate degree that I realised there was a whole industry devoted to making books.

Nathan: Initially I wanted to be a web designer, but I realised my skill set aligned better to traditional publishing.

Kelly: I’ve always enjoyed reading but didn’t realise there were so many different opportunities available that would allow me to work with books in some capacity.

Q: Did you study/ What did you study?

Susan: I studied a BA Library Science at Kuring-gai CAE (now UTS). It was probably close to the end for that degree, once KCAE became part of UTS the degrees changed into Information Management and Knowledge Management. I also have an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management at UNSW, which helped me with the business side of running SUP.

Naomi: My undergraduate degree was in economics, and then when it dawned on me that instead of crunching numbers I could devote my days to books, I enrolled in the masters of publishing at the University of Sydney.

Nathan: I studied a BA in Fine Arts and a Masters in Multimedia Design.

Kelly: I did��Bachelor of Business degree��at the University of Newcastle, and when I graduated I found out about the Masters of Publishing available at the University of Sydney and enrolled myself in the next available semester.����

Q: What are some of your previous roles and how were they applicable to working in SUP?

Susan: I would say I’ve worked at the confluence of IT, media and information management for most of my career. My first job post-uni was in the editorial library of the Sydney Morning Herald, where you needed to find answers to journalists’ questions really quickly. We had an in-house full text database of the SMH stories, and these needed to be checked each day to ensure that the text in the database matched what actually appeared in the print edition.

I also worked at the State Library of NSW as a reference librarian and then running one of their small businesses, ILANET, which offered network services to libraries around Australia. That was at beginning of the internet age, so we were an ISP for a while.

I came to the University of Sydney Library as a web developer, and I also worked as a freelance web developer for several years, including for the Sydney Writers Festival. Restarting SUP gave me the opportunity to bring all of my skills and experience together – running a business, checking the accuracy of text, and bringing the research to a wider audience.

Naomi: I spent almost 8 years working at a trade publisher, starting as publishing assistant and moving through the editorial department to become an editor. One of my focuses was on cookbooks and ‘image-heavy’ books, which has translated well to SUP’s archaeology series and Indigenous music, language and performing arts series, as the books we publish in these categories also require a keen attention to balancing textual information with graphs, images and tables.

Nathan: I’ve worked for Weldon Owen, Pan Macmillan, Hachette Australia, and Wolters Kluwer CCH. All gave me the skills working in production and design that I use today.

Kelly: I worked as a client services coordinator at a marketing agency before I started working at a trade publisher as a sales coordinator, and later as a marketing and publicity coordinator. I worked there for 3 years before moving to a children’s education publisher as a marketing coordinator for a time before coming to work at SUP.

Q: What do you recommend for someone trying to get into the industry?

Susan: When you’re starting out, don’t get too hung up on getting into your ideal role straight away. Many of our interns take a ‘foot-in-the-door’ role and then use that to move into editorial later, or in fact find out that they love production or sales or PR. And keep reading widely!

Naomi: Keep an eye out for opportunities outside of the editorial department: publicity, sales and marketing are creative and interesting areas to work, you don’t just have to be an editor!

Nathan: Be open to learning everything! Also, many people want to work as an Editor, but there are many good Publishing roles in Sales, Marketing, Publicity and Production that many people often overlook as a potential career.

Kelly: There are many opportunities in the industry that may not necessarily be what you have in mind, but they can serve as stepping stones into another role, or you may find that you prefer working in a different area than you had imagined. Intern or try to find an entry level role where you can. I’ve met so many publishing professionals with a wide variety of studies and experience, so definitely think about your applicable skills and how they can be used in the different areas of publishing. Read as much as you can!

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If you have more questions, check out our blog post ‘Your Publishing Questions Answered!’.

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