Professor Freya Mathews

Freya Mathews is Adjunct Professor of Environmental Philosophy at Latrobe University, where she co-coordinates the Environmental Culture Research Cluster. Her books include The Ecological Self (1991), Ecology and Democracy (editor) (1996), For Love of Matter: a Contemporary Panpsychism (2003), Journey to the Source of the Merri (2003), Reinhabiting Reality: towards a Recovery of Culture (2005). She is the author of over fifty articles in the area of ecological philosophy and co-edits the journal, Philosophy Activism Nature. Her current special interests are in wildlife ethics and indigenous Chinese perspectives on sustainability. In addition to her research activities she manages a private biodiversity reserve in Central Victoria.

BA University of London; PhD University of London

Key areas of interest

• ecological philosophy;
• environmental ethics;
• wildlife ethics;
• Indigenous philosophy (specifically Australian Aboriginal and Chinese Daoist thought)

Selected Publications for period 2002-2012

Articles in Academic Journals

“Towards a Deeper Philosophy of Biomimicry”, Organization and Environment, 24, 4, 2011

“The Eco-Genesis of Ethics and Religion”, Journal for the Study of Religion and Nature 5, 3, 2011

“Planet Beehive”, Australian Humanities Review, Special Issue 50, 2011 (also available as a book entitled Unloved Others edited by Deborah Bird Rose and Thom van Dooren)

“Planetary Collapse Disorder: Honeybees as Portent of the Limits of the Ethical”, Environmental Ethics 32, 4, 2010
“On Desiring Nature”, Indian Journal of Ecocriticism, 3, 2010, 1-9
(reprinted in Earthsong, forthcoming 2011)

“A Contemporary Metaphysical Controversy”, Sophia, 49,2, 2010, 231-236

“Letters from Sun Dew (Series 3)”, The Trumpeter, 26, (2) 2010

“Letters from Sun Dew (Series 2)”, The Trumpeter 26, (2), 2010

“An Invitation to Ontopoetics”, editorial introduction to a Special Issue of PAN Philosophy Activism Nature 6, 2009 (online)

“Thinking from within the Calyx of Nature”, Environmental Values 17, 1, 2008, pp 41-65

“Metaphysics: a Once and Future Discourse”, Dialogue 27, 2, 2008

“Conversation with Sun Dew: a Metaphysics of Invocation”, The Trumpeter 24, 1, 2008

“The Cypress and the Rose”, The Trumpeter 24, 2, 2008 (4224 words)

“Vale Val”, Environmental Values 17. 2008, pp 317-321

“The Poetic Structure of Being: an Invitation to Ontopoetics”, Australian Humanities Review 43, Dec 2007

“’Without Animals Life Is Not Worth Living’”, Between the Species VII, August 2007

“The World Hidden Within the World: a Conversation on Ontopoetics”, The Trumpeter 23, 1, 2007

“Beyond Modernity and Tradition: towards a Third Way for Development”, Nanjing Forestry University Journal, July 2006, (translated into Chinese by Li Ling)

“Beyond Modernity and Tradition: towards a Third Way for Development” also published in Ethics and the Environment 11 (2), 2006, pp 85-114

“Beyond a Materialist Environmentalism”, Nanjing Forestry University Journal 2, 5, 2005 (translated into Chinese by Guo Hui)

‘Letting the World Do the Doing”, Australian Humanities Review 33, 2004

‘Land Metaphysics”, Dialogue 23, 1, 2004, pp 11-17

Editorial, PAN (Philosophy Activism Nature), 2, 2002

Book Chapters

“Post-materialism” in Stuart Walker and Jacques Giard (eds), Handbook of Sustainable Design, Berg Press, Oxford, forthcoming 2012

“A History of Environmental Philosophy” in Nick Trakakis and Graham Oppie (eds), A History of Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand, Springer Publishing, Dordrecht, forthcoming 2012

“Panpsychism as Paradigm?” in Michael Blamauer (ed), The Mental as Fundamental in “Process Thought Series” (Ed. Nicholas Rescher, Johanna Seibt and Michel Weber),Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt Heusenstamm, 2011

“Without Animals Life is not Worth Living” in Manish Vyas (ed), Being for the Other: Ethics and Animal Rights in Literature and Religion, Daya Publishing House, New Delhi, 2011

“Earth as Ethic” and “Strategia: thinking with or accommodating the world” in Katherine Gibson, Ruth Fincher and Deborah Rose (eds), Ethics for the Anthropocene, University of Minnesota Press forthcoming 2012

“Environmental Philosophy” in Nick Trakakis, A Companion to Australian and New Zealand Philosophy, Monash ePress, Melbourne, 2010

“Moral Ambiguities in the Politics of Climate Change” in Ved Nanda (ed), Climate Change and Environmental Ethics, Transaction Press, New Jersey, 2011

“Conversation amongst Rocks with Sun Dew” on web site for Kathleen Dean Moore and Michael Nelson (eds) Moral Ground, Trinity University Press, 2010, accessed at moralground.com/bonus/conversation-amongst-rocks-with-sun-dew

“Why has the West Failed to Embrace Panpsychism?” in David Skrbina (ed), Mind That Abides: Panpsychism in the New Millennium, (Advances in Consciousness Research Series) John Benjamins, Amsterdam and Philadelphia, 2009, pp 341-260

“Ontopoetics in Australia” in Makarand Paranjape (ed), Sacred Australia, Clouds of Magellan Press, Melbourne , 2009, pp 253 – 270

Encyclopedias and Companions

Entry on Dualism, Encyclopedia of Sustainability, Berkshire Publishing, 2010

“Urban Reinhabitation: CERES as Case Study” in Bron Taylor and Jeffrey Kaplan (eds), Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature, Continuum International, London, 2005 pp 1684-1686