In this seminar Graham Huggan will discuss his research for a new book to be published next year on five contemporary celebrity conservationists: David Attenborough, Jacques-Yves Cousteau, Dian Fossey, David Suzuki and Steve Irwin.

The book argues that celebrity and conservation are intertwined at a time of global environmental crisis when public knowledge of conservation and other environmental issues is increasingly mediated by celebrity figures, especially via their appearances on TV. Using a broad-based cultural studies approach, it gauges the importance of these figures as media personalities; compares their roles as science popularisers and environmental advocates; and critically assesses their contributions to current debates on the democratisation of scientific knowledge, sustainability in the context of environmental decline and species extinction, and the relationship between celebrity and the national cause.

Professor Graham Huggan, is the Professor of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Literatures at the University of Leeds, UK where he directs the Centre for Canadian Studies (CCS) and the Institute for Colonial and Postcolonial Studies (ICPS).

Enquiries:  Ken Taylor on 6125 5883, Alastair MacLachlan on 6125 2842