Dr Wood Roberdeau

Wood Roberdeau’s current teaching and research concentrates on art theory and practice within the wider environmental humanities; his work is informed by the spatial theme of dwelling and new concepts of political ecology after twentieth century eco-criticism. Wood co-chairs the Critical Ecologies research stream, as part of Technologies, Worlds, Politics.

Past research has investigated the tenets of the American and European neo-avant-gardes so as to explore contemporary art’s remobilization of everyday poetics by locating corresponding tensions within sociology, phenomenology and metaphysics. Questions concerning human subjectivity and agency, as well as the ontology of objects and materiality, have since led to a focus on Geopoetics and the activation of visual art within philosophical post-humanism. 

Academic qualifications

• PhD, Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths, University of London, 2008
• MA, Contemporary Art, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London, 2002
• BA, French Literature, Colorado College, Colorado Springs, 1999

Teaching

Wood teaches Conceptual Ecologies, a core course on the MA in Contemporary Art Theory. For the BA in History of Art and BA in Fine Art/History of Art, he convenes Space & Time (year 1), Inhabitations (year 2) and Cohabitations (year 2). Past BA teaching has included core module Introduction to Art History (year 1), London Art Worlds (study abroad students), Postmodernities (years 2 and 3) and core module Contemporaneities (year 2). From 2016-2019, he takes up the key departmental role of Chair of Learning and Teaching. 

Areas of supervision

Projects that connect with the following thematic research clusters in the department of Visual Cultures are welcome: Environmental Humanities and Ecologies; Philosophy, Critical and Visual Theory; Political Aesthetics.

Professional activites

Wood is a member of the following learned societies: Association of Art Historians; Centre for Studies of Home; Edinburgh Environmental Humanities Network; Society for Literature, Science and the Arts.

Featured work

• 'Time and Environment in The Survivalist', Society for Literature, Science and the Arts 31st Annual Conference, Arizona State University, Tempe, 9-12 November, 2017
• ‘Nature vs. Culture: Xenotext and the Poetic Limit’, After Biopolitics, Society for Literature, Science and the Arts 29th Annual Conference, Rice University, Houston, 12-15 November, 2015
• What Does Climate Change? 80 Years of Environmental Politics – Left and Right, Platypus Affiliated Society, Goldsmiths, 23 October, 2015
• Critical Environments, co-curated with Lynn Turner, Visual Cultures Public Programme, Goldsmiths, Spring Term, 2015
• ‘Readymade Rurality and Ecological Non-knowledge: Imagining the Art Farm’, Re-imagining Rurality, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, University of Westminster, London, 27-28 February, 2015
• ‘Sites of Vital Materiality: Art History’s Apiaries and Ecologies of Everyday Life’, Art History and Ecology, Association of Art Historians 40th Anniversary Conference, Royal College of Art, London, 10-12 April, 2014
• ‘Centralizing the Periphery: Social Art, Eco-aesthetics and Liminal Space’, Ordinary/Everyday/Quotidian, University of York, York, 26-27 September, 2013