John Charles Ryan is postdoctoral research fellow in the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at the University of New England, Australia, and honorary research fellow in the School of Humanities at the University of Western Australia. He is the author of Plants in Contemporary Poetry: Ecocriticism and the Botanical Imagination.Li Chen is researcher and writer for environmental conservation and community development NGOs in Perth, and has published in the journals Heritage and The Conversation.

A wonderfully engrossing book, elegantly championing the pivotal role of wetlands in Australian cultural life. The chapters within this book are as serpentine and mesmerising as the waterscapes they interrogate. The book draws the reader into considerations of why we often experience cognitive dissonance in these landscapes, to explore how wetlands as ‘othering’ spaces is embedded within interconnected artistic, semantic and physical practices. Australian Wetland Cultures provides us with a timely reminder that these paludal environments are a palimpsest of our ever shifting human drive to mould and mark landscapes. Our cultural perceptions shape our relationship with space, and the authors prove this is nowhere more true than within wetlands; places for the dead, the living and the more-than-human. I encourage readers to immerse themselves within this wonderful text, with an eye to appraising wetlands with a renewed vigour henceforth.

• List of FiguresAcknowledgmentsCreditsPt IAustralian Wetland CulturesThe Swamp Nandi ChinnaRacecourse Lagoon, Uralla, New South Wales John C. RyanCh 1 Introduction to Australian Wetland Humanities: Thinking About (and With) SwampsJohn Charles Ryan and Li ChenCh 2 Rainbow Serpent Anthropology, or Rainbow Spirit Theology, or Swamp Serpent Sacrality and Marsh Monster Maternity? Rod GiblettCh 3 Artist and Swamp: Wetlands in Australian Painting and Photography Rod GiblettCh 4 Poet and Swamp: Wetlands in Australian VerseJohn Charles RyanCh 5Plant and Swamp: The Biocultural Histories of Five Australian HydrophytesJohn Charles RyanPt IIWestern Australian Wetland CulturesBeeliar Nandi ChinnaThree Wetland Poems by John Kinsella, Dedicated to J.P. QuintonPoem for the GatheringThe Trees Along Bibra LakeResisting from Within the Green Tent at Bibra Drive, Beeliar (For James)Ch 6 Environmental Activism and Wetlands Conservation in Western Australia Philip JenningsCh 7 Where Fanny Balbuk Walked: Reenvisioning Perth’s Wetlands John Charles Ryan, Danielle Brady, and Christopher KuehCh 8 The Cultural Significance of Wetlands: Perth’s Lost Swamps to the Beeliar Wetlands Danielle Brady and Jeffrey MurrayCh 9 Swamp-philia and Paludal Heroism: The Passion of Wetland Conservationists in Australia and Elsewhere John Charles Ryan and Li ChenPower of Deluge Glen PhillipsCh 10 Epilogue: Twenty-Five Years of Wetland Studies in the Humanities Rod GiblettAbout the Contributors

John Charles Ryan is postdoctoral research fellow in the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at the University of New England, Australia, and honorary research fellow in the School of Humanities at the University of Western Australia. He is the author of Plants in Contemporary Poetry: Ecocriticism and the Botanical Imagination.Li Chen is researcher and writer for environmental conservation and community development NGOs in Perth, and has published in the journals Heritage and The Conversation.

A wonderfully engrossing book, elegantly championing the pivotal role of wetlands in Australian cultural life. The chapters within this book are as serpentine and mesmerising as the waterscapes they interrogate. The book draws the reader into considerations of why we often experience cognitive dissonance in these landscapes, to explore how wetlands as ‘othering’ spaces is embedded within interconnected artistic, semantic and physical practices. Australian Wetland Cultures provides us with a timely reminder that these paludal environments are a palimpsest of our ever shifting human drive to mould and mark landscapes. Our cultural perceptions shape our relationship with space, and the authors prove this is nowhere more true than within wetlands; places for the dead, the living and the more-than-human. I encourage readers to immerse themselves within this wonderful text, with an eye to appraising wetlands with a renewed vigour henceforth.

• List of FiguresAcknowledgmentsCreditsPt IAustralian Wetland CulturesThe Swamp Nandi ChinnaRacecourse Lagoon, Uralla, New South Wales John C. RyanCh 1 Introduction to Australian Wetland Humanities: Thinking About (and With) SwampsJohn Charles Ryan and Li ChenCh 2 Rainbow Serpent Anthropology, or Rainbow Spirit Theology, or Swamp Serpent Sacrality and Marsh Monster Maternity? Rod GiblettCh 3 Artist and Swamp: Wetlands in Australian Painting and Photography Rod GiblettCh 4 Poet and Swamp: Wetlands in Australian VerseJohn Charles RyanCh 5Plant and Swamp: The Biocultural Histories of Five Australian HydrophytesJohn Charles RyanPt IIWestern Australian Wetland CulturesBeeliar Nandi ChinnaThree Wetland Poems by John Kinsella, Dedicated to J.P. QuintonPoem for the GatheringThe Trees Along Bibra LakeResisting from Within the Green Tent at Bibra Drive, Beeliar (For James)Ch 6 Environmental Activism and Wetlands Conservation in Western Australia Philip JenningsCh 7 Where Fanny Balbuk Walked: Reenvisioning Perth’s Wetlands John Charles Ryan, Danielle Brady, and Christopher KuehCh 8 The Cultural Significance of Wetlands: Perth’s Lost Swamps to the Beeliar Wetlands Danielle Brady and Jeffrey MurrayCh 9 Swamp-philia and Paludal Heroism: The Passion of Wetland Conservationists in Australia and Elsewhere John Charles Ryan and Li ChenPower of Deluge Glen PhillipsCh 10 Epilogue: Twenty-Five Years of Wetland Studies in the Humanities Rod GiblettAbout the Contributors