Dr Matthew Whittle

About

Matthew Whittle’s research explores the relationship between colonialism and climate change, including the exploitation of animals and species extinction in contemporary literature and art. His co-authored monograph with Jade Munslow Ong, Global Literature and the Environment (Routledge 2024), contextualizes the “sixth extinction” within the history of capitalist-imperialism. This includes a discussion of how works by writers such as Joseph Conrad, Inua Ellams, Witi Ihimaera, Kerri Hulme, and J.M. Coetzee offer insights into the commodification of non-human animals by the ivory, whaling and food industries, as well as through trophy hunting and emerging “de-extinction” initiatives. This work expands upon Matthew’s co-edited special issue of the Journal of Commonwealth Literature, ‘Postcolonial Environments: Animals, Ecologies, Localities’ (2016), which features his article on the artworks of Walton Ford that engage critically with the historical connections between colonial trophy hunting, natural history, and naturalist art. Matthew has returned to Walton Ford’s art for an article in the Privacy Studies Journal on the confluence between the extinction of the Tasmanian tiger, sheep farming and the genocide of Aboriginal Tasmanians. Outside of his research, he has acted as the University of Kent’s nominated Trustee of the Powell-Cotton Museum. He would consider PhD proposals on postcolonial and ecocritical approaches to contemporary literature.