AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES Dr. Claire Brennan is a history lecturer at James Cook University, Townsville, where she researches the environmental history of northern Australia. She is particularly interested in the history of hunting and the way in which animals are used to create connections between people and landscapes. At present she researches the history of crocodile hunting in northern Australia, although she is engaged in writing the history of northern Australia more broadly. Her research portfolio is available at https://research.jcu.edu.au/portfolio/claire.brennan. Thomas Bristow is an editor, researcher, and writer. He is editorin-chief of the journal Philosophy Activism Nature (PAN) and the environmental humanities series editor at Routledge (Literature, Media, and Culture). Thomas holds the positions of Honorary Fellow at University of Western Australia, Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies at University of London, and Roderick Research Fellow at James Cook University. He has written a monograph on poetry in the Anthropocene, co-edited The Cultural History of Climate Change, and published over 30 pieces on the relationship between literature and the environment. Sharon Bryan after a misspent youth dallying in libraries, studied Education and English Literature before moving into librarianship, and has been a librarian for the past 15 years. She currently works as the Blended Learning Librarian at JCU — a role that enables her to engage in her two favourite past-times: researching a wide range of subjects and creating educational and creative works based on what she has learned. She once completed a Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics for her own personal amusement. She also has a writing desk that has been in her family since the mid-20th Century. Elizabeth Conway has a deep interest in the natural environment, and has studied ecology and biology at the University of Canberra. History is another of Elizabeth’s interests, particularly local history. This interest in local history has fuelled her keenness to uncover her family’s past. Her first book Making Them Real: Finding a Queensland Past was co-authored with her sister, Pam Garfoot, and won the Queensland Family History Society’s Book Award for 2014.
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Allison Craven is Associate Professor of Screen Studies and English and teaches cinema and children’s literature at James Cook University in the College of Arts, Society and Education. She is the author of Finding Queensland in Australian Cinema: Poetics and Screen Geographies (2016) and Fairy Tale Interrupted: Feminism, Masculinity and Wonder Cinema (2017). Jean Dartnall’s first tertiary training was in the biological sciences and she had a brief research career working in human cytogenetics. She then retrained as a librarian and spent most of her working life in science related library work. Long-standing interests in history and in music have led to opportunities to research and write in these areas. Professor Diana Davis is currently an Adjunct Research Fellow in the Centre for European Studies at ANU. A Life Member of the Australian Psychological Association, she holds a B.A. Dip.Ed., M.A. (Australian Literature) and B.Ed. (University of Melbourne), and a Ph.D. in Social Psychology (Monash). Prior to ANU she held positions at RMIT, Monash and JCU where she was initially Professor of Education and then Foundation Professor of Creative Arts. In this role she variously headed the Departments of Creative Arts, Art and Design, and Music before their amalgamation into the College of Music, Visual Arts and Theatre under her leadership. Liz Downes was employed at JCU Library from 1975–2011 and also studied for a B.A. specialising in English literature and Australian history. She now volunteers with Special Collections, writing blog posts about collection items. Apart from keeping up with the lives of her two grandsons, Liz’s major interest lies in wildlife conservation. She is currently vice-president of the local branch of Wildlife Queensland (WPSQ) which tries to raise community understanding and appreciation of the natural environment as well as undertaking practical projects and conservation advocacy with all levels of government. Before retirement made life too busy, she sometimes wrote poetry.
50 Treasures
