about elese

Dr Elese Dowden is a second-generation Pākehā settler and recovering philosopher from Aotearoa New Zealand now living on unceded Wurundjeri country in Naarm. Elese attended the University of Auckland, graduating with an MA in political philosophy before moving to Meanjin to complete a PhD at the University of Queensland on continental French philosophy, settler colonialism and historic injustice in Aotearoa and Australia. 

Elese's poetry and literary reviews have been published in Cordite, Meanjin, Overland and Landfall, and her cross-disciplinary research interests include antipodean modernism, critical theory, French philosophy, and 20th Century literature, history and colonialism in Australasia. Elese is a lecturer in the History of Ideas at Trinity College, University of Melbourne, and helps organise the Melbourne School of Literature.