Elizabeth Callaway

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of Utah and affiliated faculty with the Environmental Humanities Graduate Program. I research and teach at the intersections of environmental humanities, digital humanities, and new media studies. My book, Eden’s Endemics: Narratives of Biodiversity on Earth and Beyond reexamines biodiversity, a supposedly neutral yardstick by which we measure the health of ecosystems. Rather than accept that biodiversity is a final measurement of variation among species, I pay attention to the narratives, genres, and tropes that are drawn upon in representations of biodiversity, revealing that biodiversity is not a matter of counting species so much as a matter of narrative. In my spare time, I work on various collaborative projects with digital humanists, biologists, and social scientists on biodiversity, climate change, and forests. I completed my PhD in English at the University of California Santa Barbara in 2016 and my undergraduate degree in English Literature and Biological Sciences from Stanford University in 2007.

Upcoming Talks and Travel

None until further notice.