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John Charles Ryan, PhD
Book Chapters
2024
Australia, in B. L. Johnson (ed), The Cambridge Handbook of Literature and Plants (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK), in press
Cultivating Botanical Wisdom: Durian Narratives and the Plant Posthumanities, in I. Ribo (ed), Posthuman Southeast Asia: Ecocritical Entanglements Across Species Boundaries (Lexington Books/Bloomsbury, Lanham, MD), in press
Indigenous Hydropoetics: Voicing Rivers through Aboriginal Australian Poetry, in Iftekhar, Hasharina, and Asiyah (eds), Fluid Phenomena: The River and Anthropocene Life-World in the Asia-Pacific (Brill, Leiden, Netherlands), in press
‘Old Trees Hold Memory’: Aboriginal Australian Perspectives on Memory, Trauma, and Witnessing in the Arboreal World, in D. Macauley & L. Pustarfi (eds), The Wisdom of Trees: Thinking Through Arboreality (State University of New York Press, Albany, NY), in press
2023
Making Kin With Plants: Poetry in the Phytosphere, in K. Mondal (ed), Staying Together: Natureculture in a Changing World (Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD), 73–95 [link]
Phytopoetics: Human-Plant Relations and the Poiesis of Vegetal Life, in J. Fiedorczuk, M. Newell, B. Quetchenbach & O. Tierney (eds), The Routledge Companion to Ecopoetics (Routledge, New York), 117–26 [link]
Literary Ethnobotany in Aboriginal Australia: Oodgeroo Noonuccal’s Poetry as Biocultural Activism, in D. Okocha, M. Yousaf & M. Onobe (eds), Handbook of Research on Deconstructing Culture and Communication in the Global South (IGI Global, Hershey, PA), 36–57 [link]
Passive Flora? Reconsidering Nature’s Agency through Human-Plant Studies (HPS), in S. Osterhoudt & K. Sivaramakrishnan (eds), Sustaining Natures: An Environmental Anthropology Reader (University of Washington Press, Seattle, WA), 277–305 [link]
2022
‘Into the Sap Stream’: Literary Ethnobotany and Human-Plant Intercorporeality in Aboriginal Australian Poetry, in S. Slovic, V. Sarveswaran, & S. Rangarajan (eds), The Bloomsbury Handbook to Medical-Environmental Humanities (Bloomsbury, London), 345–359 [link]
‘If We Return We Will Learn’: Empire, Poetry and Biocultural Knowledge in Papua New Guinea, in R. Chua, H. Hong, J. Santa Ana & X. Zhou (eds), Empire and Environment: Confronting Ecological Ruination in the Asia-Pacific and the Americas (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI), 94–110 [link]
Introduction: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Nationalism, in D. Biswas, E. Panos, & J. Ryan (eds), Global Perspectives on Nationalism: Political and Literary Discourses (Routledge, London), 1–19 [link]
‘Dressed in Native Trees’: Plants as Figures of Anti-National Resistance in Contemporary Aboriginal Australian Poetry, in D. Biswas, E. Panos, & J. Ryan (eds), Global Perspectives on Nationalism: Political and Literary Discourses (Routledge, London), 243–259 [link]
Introduction: Environment, Media, and Popular Culture in Southeast Asia, in J. Telles, J. Ryan, & J. Dreisbach (eds), Environment, Media, and Popular Culture in Southeast Asia (Springer Nature, Singapore), 1–27 [link]
The Creaturely Plant? Sumatra’s Titan Arum and the Ethics of Botanical Time-Lapse, in J. Telles, J. Ryan, & J. Dreisbach (eds), Environment, Media, and Popular Culture in Southeast Asia (Springer Nature, Singapore), 81–97 [link]
Introduction: Postcolonial Literatures of Climate Change, co-authored with R. McDougall and P. Reynolds, in R. McDougall, J. Ryan and P. Reynolds (eds), Postcolonial Literatures of Climate Change (Brill, Leiden, Netherlands), 1–55 [link]
Islands Within Islands: Climate Change and the Deep Time Narratives of the Southern Beech, in R. McDougall, J. Ryan and P. Reynolds (eds), Postcolonial Literatures of Climate Change (Brill, Leiden, Netherlands), 162–191 [link]
2021
Writing the Lives of Plants: Phytography and the Botanical Imagination, in J. White & G. Whitlock (eds), Life Writing in the Anthropocene (Routledge, New York), 151–173 [link]
Toward a Phen(omen)ology of the Seasons: The Emergence of the Indigenous Weather Knowledge Project, in D. Macauley & L. Fischer (eds), The Seasons: Philosophical and Environmental Perspectives (State University of New York Press, Albany), 113–139 [link]
Introduction: On Becoming Plant-Minded, in J. Ryan, P. Vieira, & M. Gagliano (eds), The Mind of Plants: Narratives of Vegetal Intelligence (Synergetic Press, Santa Fe, NM), xv–xxv [link]
Banyan, in J. Ryan, P. Vieira, & M. Gagliano (eds), The Mind of Plants: Narratives of Vegetal Intelligence (Synergetic Press, Santa Fe, NM), 21–29 [link]
2020
Intelligent Wilderness: Plant Cognition and Shifting Perceptions of the Botanical World, in R. Bartel, M. Branagan, F. Utley & S. Harris (eds), Rethinking Wilderness and the Wild: Conflict, Conservation and Co-existence (Routledge, New York), 165–78 [link]
Kelp, in C. Muir & J. Newell (eds), Living with the Anthropocene: Love, Loss and Hope in the Face of Environmental Crisis (NewSouth Books, Sydney), 187–97 [link]
2019
Seismic, or Topogorgical, Poetry, in E. Magrane, L. Russo, S. de Leeuw & C. Santos Perez (eds.), Geopoetics in Practice (Routledge, New York), 101–16 [link]
Towards Literary Ethnobotany: Burmese Poetry and Biocultural Knowledge of Plants, in K. Maiti & S. Chakraborty (eds), Global Perspectives on Eco-Aesthetics and Eco-Ethics: A Green Critique (Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD), 227–35 [link]
Narratives of Nettle: Austerity, Nitrophiles, and the Weed Garden as a Locus of Resistance, in N. Milthorpe (ed), The Poetics and Politics of Gardening in Hard Times (Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD), 59–76 [link]
Introduction to Australian Wetland Cultures: Thinking About (and With) Swamps, co-authored with Li Chen in J. Ryan and L. Chen (eds.), Australian Wetland Cultures: Swamps and the Environmental Crisis (Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD), 7–31 [link]
Poet and Swamp: Wetlands in Australian Verse, in J. Ryan and L. Chen (eds.), Australian Wetland Cultures: Swamps and the Environmental Crisis (Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD), 71–97 [link]
Plant and Swamp: The Biocultural Histories of Five Australian Hydrophytes, in J. Ryan and L. Chen (eds.), Australian Wetland Cultures: Swamps and the Environmental Crisis (Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD), 99–138 [link]
Where Fanny Balbuk Walked: Re-Imagining Perth’s Wetlands, co-authored with D. Brady & C. Kueh, in J. Ryan and L. Chen (eds.), Australian Wetland Cultures: Swamps and the Environmental Crisis (Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD), 163–74 [link]
Swamp-philia and Paludal Heroism: The Passion of Wetlands Conservationists in Australia and Elsewhere, co-authored with Li Chen in J. Ryan and L. Chen (eds.), Australian Wetland Cultures: Swamps and the Environmental Crisis (Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD), 195–223 [link]
‘No More Boomerang’: Environment and Technology in Contemporary Aboriginal Australian Poetry, in I. Campos (ed.), Ecopoetics and the Global Landscape: Critical Essays (Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD), 3–33 [link]
2018
Introducing Forest Family, co-authored with R. Giblett in J. Ryan & R. Giblett (eds), Forest Family: Australian Culture, Art, and Trees (Brill, Leiden), 1–8 [link]
From Understory to Overstory: Critical Studies of Old-Growth Trees and Forests in J. Ryan & R. Giblett (eds), Forest Family: Australian Culture, Art, and Trees (Brill, Leiden), 11–26 [link]
Forest Giants: Locating Southwest Australian Old-Growth Country in J. Ryan & R. Giblett (eds), Forest Family: Australian Culture, Art, and Trees (Brill, Leiden), 27–43 [link]
From Burls to Blockades: Artistic Interpretations of Karri Trees and Forests, in J. Ryan & R. Giblett (eds), Forest Family: Australian Culture, Art, and Trees (Brill, Leiden), 93–122 [link]
The Sweetness of Flowers in the Air: Literary Ethnobotany and Classical Burmese Poetry, in R.S. Silvest & S. Uddin (eds.), Regional Literature in the Perspectives of World English Literature (Authorspress, New Delhi, India), 29–40 [link]
Imagining Plant-Like Futures? Vegetal Intelligence in Brian Aldiss’ Hothouse, in R.S. Silvest & S. Uddin (eds.), Regional Literature in the Perspectives of World English Literature (Authorspress, New Delhi, India), 67–75 [link]
2017
An Introduction to Southeast Asian Ecocriticism, in J. Ryan (ed.), Southeast Asian Ecocriticism: Theories, Practices, Prospects (Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD), 1–36 [link]
From Padauk to Hyacinth: Literary Botany, the Agency of Plants, and the Contemporary Poetry of Myanmar, in J. Ryan (ed.), Southeast Asian Ecocriticism: Theories, Practices, Prospects (Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD), 179–203 [link]
Sowing Seeds: Phytocriticism and the Botanical Dimensions of Indonesian Literature for Children and Young Adults, co-authored with R. Li, in J. Ryan (ed.), Southeast Asian Ecocriticism: Theories, Practices, Prospects (Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD), 229–251 [link]
Epilogue: Ziggy Stardust and the Irrawaddy Dolphin: Prospects for a Transboundary Ecocriticism in Southeast Asia, in J. Ryan (ed.), Southeast Asian Ecocriticism: Theories, Practices, Prospects (Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD), 293–302 [link]
Introduction, in M. Gagliano, J. Ryan, & P. Vieira (eds), The Language of Plants: Science, Philosophy, Literature (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press), vii–xxxiii [link]
In the Key of Green? The Silent Voices of Plants in Poetry, in M. Gagliano, J. Ryan, & P. Vieira (eds), The Language of Plants: Science, Philosophy, Literature (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press), 273–296 [link]
Where Have All the Boronia Gone? A Posthumanist Model of Environmental Mourning, in A.C. Willox & A. Cunsolo (eds), Mourning Nature: Hope at the Heart of Ecological Loss and Grief (McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal), 117–143 [link]
2016
Botanical Memory: Materiality, Affect, and Western Australian Plant Life, in J. Damousi & P. Hamilton (eds), A Cultural History of Sound, Memory, and the Senses (Routledge, New York), 212–230 [link]
Introduction, in P. Vieira, M. Gagliano, & J. Ryan (eds.), The Green Thread: Dialogues with the Vegetal World (Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD), ix–xxvii [link]
Tolkien’s Sonic Trees and Perfumed Herbs: Plant Intelligence in Middle-earth, in P. Vieira, M. Gagliano & J. Ryan (eds), The Green Thread: Dialogues with the Vegetal World (Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD), 37–58 [link]
Coming Back to Life: A Literary History of Resurrection Plants, in Wiyatmi, E. Liliani, & D. Budiyanto (eds), Sastra Hijau Dalam Berbagai Media (Interlude Publishing, Yogyakarta, Indonesia), 8–31 [link]
2015
Reading for Sustainability through Botanical Aesthetics: Embodied Perceptions of Perth’s Flora, 1829 to 1929, in C. Crouch, N. Kaye, & J. Crouch (eds.), An Introduction to Sustainability and Aesthetics: The Arts and Design for the Environment (BrownWalker Press, Boca Raton, FL), 193–202 [link]
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