MYLES OAKEY


PhD Candidate
School of Humanities
Sydney Environment Institute
University of Sydney 

︎︎︎Curriculum Virate
︎︎︎Contact


RECENT PUBLICATIONS

01. A Bird, a Flock, a Song, and a Forest (Forthcoming)  
︎︎︎ Authored by Thom van Dooren, Zoë Sadokierski, Myles Oakey, Sam Widin, Timo Rissanen, and Ross Crates.


RECENT PROJECTS

︎︎︎ Animal Trails (Forthcoming)


I am a PhD candidate and sessional academic at the University of Sydney, where my research and teaching are engaged in the area of the environmental humanities and related fields. My career portfolio is focused around delivering high-quality pedagogy in secondary and tertiary institutions and generating original interdisciplinary academic research projects.


AREAS OF RESEARCH

Environmental Humanities
Philosophical Ethology
Environmental Anthropology
Science and Technology Studies
Extinction Studies


EDUCATION

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Candidate, Gender and Cultural Studies, University of Sydney, completion 2025
    Supervised by Associate Professor Thom van Dooren and Dr. Sophie Chao
First Class Honours Bachelor of Music (Music Inquiry), University of New South Wales, 2017
    Supervised by Associate Professor Manolete Mora
Bachelor of Education ( Secondary), University of New South Wales, 2017
Diploma of Audio Engineering, SAE Institute, Sydney, 2010


EMPLOYMENT

Experience delivering evidence-based pedagogy and specialised knowledge in differential modes and diverse contexts. Committed teaching philosophy that facilitates enriched learning environments for all students and engaging learning experiences through creativity in the design teaching material and practice-based learning tailored to students.

Research Assistant, Biocultural Diversities Team, Sydney Environment Institute (SEI), University of Sydney, 2023 ongoing
Course Coordinator, Lecturer and Tutor, GCST2603, Gender and Cultural Studies, University of Sydney, 2022 and 2023
Guest Lecturer, GCST3638, Gender and Cultural Studies, University of Sydney, 2022 and 2023
Course Tutor, GCST3638, Gender and Cultural Studies, University of Sydney, 2022
Secondary Teacher, NSW Department of Education, Sydney Distance Education High School , 2020 - 202
Programme Support Administrator, Academic Administration and Support Team, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, UK, 2019 - 2020
Secondary Teacher, NSW Department of Education, Picnic Point High School, 2017-2018
Freelance Arts Writer and Copyeditor, (various), I Care If You Listen, CutCommon Magazine, The Line of Best Fit, Cusp Magazine, Open Strings Berlin, 2016-2020


PUBLICATIONS

van Dooren, T., Price, C.J. Banks, P. B., Berger-Tal, O., Chrulew, M., Johnson, J., Lajeunesse, G., Lynch, K. E., McArthur, C., Parker, F. C. G. Oakey, M., Pitcher, B. J.St. Clair, C. C., Ward-Fear, G., Widin, S., Wong, B. B. M., Blumstein, D. T. (2023). "The ethics of intervening in animal behaviour for conservation." Trends in Ecology & Evolution.

LEADERSHIP

Postgraduate Network Coordinator, Sydney Environment Institute (SEI), University of Sydney, 2022 – ongoing

Development, planning, and coordination of postgraduate researcher working group and events program, connecting environmental focused scholars across the university.

GRANTS, FELLOWSHIPS, SCHOLARSHIPS

FASS HDR Faculty of Arts and Social Science Doctoral Research Travel Grant Scheme
($7,000 AUD)
Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Sydney, 2020-2024, ($124,700 AUD)
Fieldwork Travel Scheme,Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Sydney, 2022, ($7,500 AUD)
Honours Research Bursary Award, Faculty of Arts, Design, and Architecture, University of New South Wales, 2016, ($5000 AUD)


AWARDS AND DISTINCTIONS

University Medal 2017, University of New South Wales
Dean’s List Award 2014-2017, University of New South Wales
Young Writer of the Year 2016, CutCommon Magazine

DEVELOPMENT

Multi-authored academic journal article (Accepted), Forthcoming
Animal Trails Project, Forthcoming

CONFERENCES AND PRESENTATIONS

Australasian Animal Studies Association, 2023
The composition of culture, with and amongst fragments
Standing in Place Conference, Sydney Environment Institute (SEI), 2023
Parasitic Syncopations: mistletoe time-beings in times of temporal disjuncture
Panellist Discussion, Lost Song Art Exhibition, Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, 2023
Australian Science and Technology Studies (AusSTS) Graduate Network Conference ‘Generations’, 2022
An Unknown Songbird: the artefacts of acoustic life and its making
Sydney Environment Institute Postgraduate Seminar, 2021
An Arts of Listening in the Anthropocene
Work-in-Progress Seminar, Gender and Cultural Studies, University of Sydney, 2021
An Arts of Listening in the Anthropocene
Musicological Society of Australia, Sydney Chapter, 2017
Suspending Sobriety in the Tavern of Drunkards and Lovers: Towards a cosmopolitan ethnography of Sufi musical life-worlds

TEACHING

GCST2603 Animal/Human Cultures
This unit explores diverse sites of human/animal encounter: from the factory farm to the laboratory, from our intimate relations with pets to efforts to eradicate undesirable ‘pests’. It interrogates changing ideas in the sciences, popular culture, and cultural theory about animal life – their intelligence, sociality, reproduction, and more – as well as our relationships with animals and our ethical obligations to them. At stake here is not only how we treat other species, but also how our own human lives and possibilities – including our understandings of race, gender, and more – are shaped by shifting notions of ‘the animal’.



GCST3638 Nature, Culture, Power
This unit uses feminist, decolonising, and multispecies, frameworks to investigate how environmental problems are shaped by intersecting factors of gender, race, sexuality, ability, economic status, and colonialisms. Drawing on examples such as climate change, toxic contamination, resource extraction, and biodiversity loss, this unit examines the material and conceptual links between human and non-human natures, and cultural, political, economic and social forces.

I acknowledge the traditional custodians of the Dharug and Gundungurra peoples of the Blue Mountains where I live and the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation where the University of Sydney is located. I pay my respects to elders, past, present and emerging and acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded.