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Zohreh Baghban

De Montfort University

Thesis title:

Munching as if the More-than-Human Counted: Creative Writing, Bioethics and Net-Zero

My Creative Writing Practice Research PhD will produce a multimodal collection of short fiction establishing a unique nexus between what we eat, how we treat animals, and the goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This uses creative writing’s capacity to imaginatively adopt animals’ perspective to generate a bio-ethical understanding of UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (2, 12, and 13) in Climate Change, sustainable consumption, and food security to impact non-scholarly audiences. Bio-ethics is the ethical implications of human/nonhuman relationships and current discussions on the concept of animal rights. A sustainable harmonised future necessitates an understanding of Net Zero policy that moves beyond reducing meat consumption to improve animals’ status and to also consider how we attempt to reduce emissions.  Biopolitics/bioethics reinstates animal welfare as a key component by presenting a deeper analysis of current discussion, through theoretical and empirical research.

My main research Question:

  • How can Creative Writing provoke a fuller understanding of the bio-ethical interrelations between animal treatment and Net Zero policy?

And is supplemented by sub-questions:

  • How might multimodal short fiction agitate for a sustainable future for animals as well as humans?

  • Can multimodal practice offer an “other” perspective on human (in)action by privileging an animal’s perspective?



Research Area

  • Creative Writing

Publications

"Respect the power of the beast: an ecocritical analysis into interspecies relationships in Shaun Tan’s Tales from the Inner City"


Baghban, Z. and Poursanati, S. (2024) ‘Respect the power of the beast: an ecocritical analysis into interspecies relationships in Shaun Tan’s Tales from the Inner City’, Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, pp. 1–14. doi: 10.1080/21504857.2024.2311710.

Conferences

Being Human In the Media and Creative Industries
A One Day Post-Graduate Conference
19th June 2024, Faculty of Arts Building
Link to Site Event


MeCCSA Creative Practice Symposium at Ravensbourne University, London

MeCCSA Practice Network Symposium 2024: Exploring the Intersection of Creative Practice and Intelligent Technologies

Link to the Symposium

Other Research Interests

  • Animal Turn
  • Bioethics
  • Climate Change and Net Zero
  • Meat Industry 
  • Art of Collage Making
  • AI Generation and Nonhuman Relationship

Memberships

https://www.researchcatalogue.net/profile

Growth Edges cohort

M4C First-Gen Network


Roles

SAF Rep role 2023-24 at M4C