Research Profile

Sarah Bezan

Biography

I joined UCC in 2023 as Lecturer in Literature and the Environment in the School of English & Digital Humanities, where I am also a founding member of the Radical Humanities Laboratory. As a literary scholar, my work is broadly focused on the entangled social and ecological dimensions of species loss and revival in contemporary settler colonial literatures and digital media/arts.

My scholarship in the growing field of Extinction Studies was inspired by a paleo-dig I undertook at the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre, which is located on Treaty 1 territory, the home of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene Peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation. During this paleodig, I unearthed the bones of an 80 million year old mosasaur (known as the ‘T-Rex of the Sea’), and became fascinated with the cross-pollination of the arts and sciences in the creative representation of extinct species.

This interest in extinction continues in my book
project on species revivalist representations of extinct species like the dodo, woolly mammoth, and thylacine. In addition, I am at work on another book (under advance contract with Reaktion) that explores the “next natures” of the biotechnologically revived woolly mammoth (or “mammophant”). These projects follow on from my first scholarly monograph, Dead Darwin: Necro-Ecologies in Neo-Victorian Culture (under advance contract with Manchester University Press). In this book, I examine how twentieth and twenty-first century authors and artists reimagine Darwin's thinking on decompositional processes through the necro-ecological agency of earthworms, snails, corals, fish, and fungi. My research on these projects combines approaches to animal studies, science and technology studies (STS), ecofeminism, extinction studies, and Darwinist/evolutionary literary studies. I warmly welcome proposals from prospective postgraduate researchers working in these areas.

Prior to joining UCC, I held a British Academy Newton International Fellowship at The University of Sheffield Animal Studies Research Centre (2018-2020) and was a postdoctoral researcher at The University of York's Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity. In 2017, I completed my PhD in English at The University of Alberta, where my research was generously supported by the Killam Trust and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

My editorial work demonstrates the wider breadth of my research specialisms. I am a co-editor of several volumes and special issues on subjects including queer ecology, animal studies, and blue humanities. This includes a special issue on "Taxidermic Forms and Fictions" with Susan McHugh for Configurations: Journal of Literature Science, and Technology and two edited volumes, including Animal Remains with Robert McKay (Routledge's Perspectives on the Nonhuman in Literature and Culture Series 2022) and Seeing Animals After Derrida with James Tink (Lexington Books/Rowman and Littlefield Ecocritical Theory and Practice Series 2018). I have also recently published a special issue on "Sex and Nature in the Anthropocene" with Ina Linge (Environmental Humanities) and a special issue on "Interdisciplinary Coastal Humanities" with Rich Gorman and James Smith (Anthropocenes: Human, Inhuman, Posthuman).

In 2020, I founded the Cultures of Species Revivalism Research Group, a research network dedicated to examining approaches to de-extinction science from across the arts, humanities, and social sciences. For more information, visit https://www.sarahbezan.com/culturesofspeciesrevival

Research Interests

My main research interests include literary and aesthetic representations of species loss and revival, critical approaches to nature and death (or what I term 'necro-ecology'), and the material cultures of species afterlives.

Publications

Book Chapters

 YearPublication
(2023)'Robbie Bushe's Neo-Neanderthals: Genealogical Imaginaries and the Deep Future of Green Transition'
Sarah Bezan (2023) 'Robbie Bushe's Neo-Neanderthals: Genealogical Imaginaries and the Deep Future of Green Transition' In: Green Transitions. Stavanger, Norway: Norwegian Press. [Details]
(2022)'The Species Revivalist Sublime: Encountering the Kaua’i ‘ō‘ō in Jakob Kudsk Steensen’s Re-Animated'
Sarah Bezan (2022) 'The Species Revivalist Sublime: Encountering the Kaua’i ‘ō‘ō in Jakob Kudsk Steensen’s Re-Animated' In: Animals, Plants, Afterimages: The Art and Science of Representing Extinction. New York: Berghahn. [Details]
(2022)'A Posthumanist Critique of De-Extinction Science'
Sarah Bezan (2022) 'A Posthumanist Critique of De-Extinction Science' In: Bioethics and the Posthumanities. London: Routledge. [Details]
(2021)'Speculative Sex: Queering Biotechnological Futures in Larissa Lai’s Salt Fish Girl'
Sarah Bezan (2021) 'Speculative Sex: Queering Biotechnological Futures in Larissa Lai’s Salt Fish Girl' In: Ecofeminist Science Fiction: International Perspectives on Gender, Ecology, and Literature. London: Routledge. [Details]
(2020)'CanLit’s Ossiferous Fictions: Animal Bones in Margaret Atwood’s Life Before Man and Carol Shields’s The Stone Diaries'
Sarah Bezan (2020) 'CanLit’s Ossiferous Fictions: Animal Bones in Margaret Atwood’s Life Before Man and Carol Shields’s The Stone Diaries' In: The Palgrave Handbook of Animals and Literature. London: Palgrave. [Details]
(2019)'Crossing the Barriers of Taste: The Alimentary Materialism of Jim Crace’s The Devil’s Larder'
Sarah Bezan (2019) 'Crossing the Barriers of Taste: The Alimentary Materialism of Jim Crace’s The Devil’s Larder' In: Literature and Meat Since 1900. London: Palgrave. [Details]
(2019)'A Darwinism of the Muck and Mire: Decomposing Eco- and Zoopoetics in Stephen Collis and Jordan Scott’s decomp'
Sarah Bezan (2019) 'A Darwinism of the Muck and Mire: Decomposing Eco- and Zoopoetics in Stephen Collis and Jordan Scott’s decomp' In: Texts, Animals, Environments: Zoopoetics and Ecopoetics. Freiburg: Rombach Verlag. [Details]
(2018)'The Anterior Animal: Derrida, Deep Time, and The Immersive Vision of Paleoartist Julius Csotonyi'
Sarah Bezan (2018) 'The Anterior Animal: Derrida, Deep Time, and The Immersive Vision of Paleoartist Julius Csotonyi' In: Seeing Animals After Derrida. London: Rowman & Littlefield. [Details]

Edited Books

 YearPublication
(2022)Animal Remains
Sarah Bezan and Robert McKay (Ed.). (2022) Animal Remains London: Routledge. [DOI] [Details]
(2018)Seeing Animals After Derrida
Sarah Bezan and James Tink (Ed.). (2018) Seeing Animals After Derrida Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. [Details]

Peer Reviewed Journals

 YearPublication
(2023)'Coastal Methodologies: Audio-Visual Workbooking in Ayasha Guerin’s Submerged'
Sarah Bezan (2023) 'Coastal Methodologies: Audio-Visual Workbooking in Ayasha Guerin’s Submerged'. Anthropocenes, [Details]
(2019)'The Endling Taxidermy of Lonesome George: Iconographies of Extinction at the End of the Line'
Sarah Bezan (2019) 'The Endling Taxidermy of Lonesome George: Iconographies of Extinction at the End of the Line'. Configurations, [Details]
(2019)'Dodo Birds and the Anthropogenic Wonderlands of Harri Kallio'
Sarah Bezan (2019) 'Dodo Birds and the Anthropogenic Wonderlands of Harri Kallio'. Parallax, [Details]
(2019)'Regenesis Aesthetics: Visualizing the Woolly Mammoth in De-Extinction Science'
Sarah Bezan (2019) 'Regenesis Aesthetics: Visualizing the Woolly Mammoth in De-Extinction Science'. Antennae, [Details]
(2015)'Necro-Eco: The Ecology of Death in Jim Crace’s Being Dead'
Sarah Bezan (2015) 'Necro-Eco: The Ecology of Death in Jim Crace’s Being Dead'. Mosaic: a journal for the interdisciplinary study of literature, [Details]
(2012)'Shame as a Structure of Feeling: Raped and Prostituted Women in J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace and Futhi Ntshingila’s Shameless'
Sarah Bezan (2012) 'Shame as a Structure of Feeling: Raped and Prostituted Women in J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace and Futhi Ntshingila’s Shameless'. Journal of the African Literature Association, [Details]
(2012)'From the Mortician’s Scalpel to the Butcher’s Knife: Towards an Animal Thanatology'
Sarah Bezan (2012) 'From the Mortician’s Scalpel to the Butcher’s Knife: Towards an Animal Thanatology'. Journal for Critical Animal Studies, [Details]
(2012)'‘This earth, hot like burning coals’: Alchemical Transmutation in Animal’s People'
Sarah Bezan (2012) '‘This earth, hot like burning coals’: Alchemical Transmutation in Animal’s People'. Criterion, [Details]

Interview

 YearPublication
(2022)Hydrofeminism on the Coastline: An Interview with Astrida Neimanis.
Sarah Bezan, Astrida Neimanis (2022) Hydrofeminism on the Coastline: An Interview with Astrida Neimanis. Interview [Details]
(2021)Mapping Digital Animalities: An Interview with Ken Rinaldo.
Sarah Bezan, Ken Rinaldo (2021) Mapping Digital Animalities: An Interview with Ken Rinaldo. Interview [Details]

Professional Activities

Employment

 EmployerPositionFrom / To
The University of York Postdoctoral Researcher in Perceptions of Biodiversity Change01-SEP-20 / 31-DEC-22
The University of Sheffield British Academy Newton International Fellow01-JAN-18 / 01-JAN-20

Teaching Activities

Teaching Interests

Environmental Humanities
Animal Studies
Neo-Victorian & Contemporary Literature
Cultural Studies
Posthumanism
Science and Technology Studies
Ecofeminism
Extinction Studies
Settler Colonial Studies
Postcolonial Ecocriticism
Queer Ecology

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English Department

Roinn an Bhéarla

O'Rahilly Building, University College Cork, Cork. Ireland

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