Linda Williams

A cultural historian with a background in social & critical theory, Williams works in the environmental humanities and studies in human-animal relations with a focus on how histories of the longue durée have shaped responses to the present-day crises of climate change and mass species extinction, particularly in the urban context. Her research in cultural and environmental history investigates the status of the nonhuman world in Western art & thought, particularly in European ideas of nature from 17th century early modernity.

In 2006, Williams initiated the AEGIS research network for the Arts & Ecology at RMIT (aegisnetwork.org); & from 2011-2014 led an ARC Linkage Project: Spatial Dialogues: Public Art & Climate Change. She has curated several major international exhibitions, including HEAT: Art & Climate Change (2008) the first exhibition of its kind in the Indo-Pacific region, and one of the first in the world. In 2015 & 2016 she was an associate investigator at the ARC CoE For the History of Emotions on 17th century environmental thought, and in 2016 was invited as a research follow at UCLA on Ocean Ecologies & Imaginaries. Along with giving numerous keynotes and research papers in the field of the environmental humanities at various international venues, from 2013-2016 she was vice president and then president of The Association for the Study of Literature, Environment and Culture, Australia and New Zealand) and since 2013 has been a member of the HfE Australia Pacific Observatory in the Ecological Humanities.

Recent publications can be seen at:

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5273-7683 and https://rmit.academia.edu/LindaWilliams