Swamphen: A Journal of Cultural Ecology

Swamphen: A Journal of Cultural Ecology encourages critically creative responses to the sentient habitats of the world. We publish scholarly articles, lyrical essays, creative works and reviews of relevant scholarship, amplifying work that attends to human encounters with other species. Our journal emerges from the air, lands and seas that formed the first peoples of our region and we attend to these communities’ narratives as a first principle. While the journal primarily offers literary insights into the unsettled territories many know as Australia and Aotearoa, we also look to other ecologies in formation during this time of critical environmental change. Swamphen is peer reviewed and published biennially, in response to ASLEC-ANZ conferences. We welcome proposals for special issues.

Swamphen: a Journal of Cultural Ecology was previously known as the Australasian Journal of Ecocriticism and Cultural Ecology. Our refreshed name refers to the Australasian swamphen (Porphyrio melanotus), known as the pūkeko in Māori language and the kwilom in Noongar language. Like the swamphen, our journal attends to life on the ground, in the skies and in waters. The name itself, swamp and hen, brings together the plants, earth, water and animals that are the focus of ASLEC-ANZ.

Editorial team: Christine Howe, Kate Middleton, Alanna Myers, Robyn Maree Pickens and Sue Hall Pyke.

General enquiries: Susan Pyke (smpyke@unimelb.edu.au)

Book review queries: Alanna Myers (alanna.myers@unimelb.edu.au)

Current Issue: Swamphen #8: Particular Planetary Aesthetics (guest edited by Louise Boscacci and Perdita Phillips, October 2022) – for details of the launch on October 14 2022 go to Journal News

Forthcoming Issues: #9 (Strange Letters, 2023), #10 (Beyond Human Scales, 2023)

Past Issues: Swamphen #7 (Grounding Story); from 2011-2016 Swamphen was known as the Australian Journal of Ecocriticism and Cultural Ecology https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/Swamphen/issue/archive

Swamphen is published through the University of Sydney and current and previous editions are available at:  https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/Swamphen

Cover artwork and design by Charlie Perry