Academic Bio
I am an interdisciplinary scholar, and my practice includes writing and image-making. Most of my work lies at the intersection of environmental humanities and artistic research, but I have also written on embodied knowledge, coloniality of knowledge and colonial legacies, whiteness, (post)industrial heritage, and visual arts. While rooted in Ukraine, my work stretches beyond the national borders and I am interested in the broader region of Eastern Europe and in different places and spaces that have shared experiences of Russian imperial subjugation, from Central Asia to the Baltic states.
I am currently working on my second monograph, focusing on plant stories in narratives from Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts in Ukraine. My first monograph “Ecocide in Ukraine: The Environmental Cost of Russia’s War” is forthcoming with Polity in Spring 2025. My first book “Limits of Collaboration: Art, Ethics, and Donbas”, was co-written with Victoria Donovan in collaboration with artists and curators Dmytro Chepurnyi, Viktor “Corwic” Zasypkin, Oleksandr Kuchynskyi, and Kateryna Siryk (Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Ukraine, 2022). My shorter pieces appeared in Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture, REGION: Regional Studies of Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia, Nature Human Behaviour, Journal of International Relations and Development, Arcadia: Environment & Society Portal, BBC Future Planet, The Funambulist Magazine: Politics of Space and Bodies, and many other places. A double special issue on environmental humanities of Ukraine I co-edited with Tanya Richardson is forthcoming with East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies in Fall 2024/Winter 2025.
In addition to writing, I also work with images through drawing, painting, collage, and film essays. Creative practice and community engagement are integral parts of my work, and I also build on these experiences in my teaching. In my courses, I approach learning and knowledge-making as collaborative and critical-creative practices and encourage experimentation and exploration beyond disciplinary and conventional academic boundaries.
I am teaching courses on environmental cultures, as well as on Ukraine, entangled and interconnected with the broader region of Eastern Europe and beyond. I am also developing a new course that will include essay film-making and other creative practices.
You can find my textual and visual work here: https://daryatsymbalyuk.com/