Dr Elese Dowden is a writer and recovering philosopher living on unceded wurundjeri country in naarm.
Elese is a second-generation Pākehā settler born in Aotearoa New Zealand with English heritage. she attended the University of Auckland in Tāmaki Makaurau, graduating with a Master of Arts in Philosophy in 2014. Her Master’s thesis was on cosmopolitanism, gender and the global economic order.
Elese moved to Meanjin in 2015 to complete a PhD scholarship as part of Marguerite La Caze’s Australian Research Council project, Ethical restoration after oppressive violence, based at the University of Queensland. Her PhD thesis was entitled “A Camusian ethic for reconciliation: Forgiveness and grief in Australia, New Zealand and Rwanda“. broader themes include continental French philosophy, settler colonialism and historic injustice.
More recently, Elese’s poetry and literary reviews have been published in Cordite, Meanjin, Overland and Landfall among others. her cross-disciplinary research interests include the History of Ideas, French philosophy, Australian and New Zealand literature, critical theory and colonial history. She presently teaches in the History of Ideas and is working on themes of sovereignty, anti-colonialism, postfeminism, monotheism and digital cultures.
To read Elese’s work, go to elesedowden.com/publications.
