Jana Norman

Jana Norman

Higher Degree by Research Candidate

School of Humanities

Faculty of Arts, Business, Law and Economics

Dr Jana Norman is pursuing her second doctoral degree at the University of Adelaide, in the Faculty of Arts. She holds a PhD from the University of Adelaide Law School ('19), a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from the University of Florida ('89) and a Masters of Divinity from Yale University ('93).

Dr Norman's research interests revolve around constructs of human identity, particularly as these are being challenged and reframed in the Western cultural context by posthumanism and new materialisms. Her thesis in legal theory explores reimagining the human legal subject as non-dualised, material human be-ing, embodied, embedded and entangled within the natureculture continuum. She proposes her construct, the Cosmic Person, as complement to other movements within legal theory related to rights of nature and conferring legal personhood on non-human entities, joining these efforts towards re-constituting the human-earth relationship within Western culture on more mutually sustaining terms. Dr Norman argues for the potential of emerging non-dualised philosophies to help establish new possibilities for decolonising inter-cultural dialogue about human impact on the planet.

Currently affiliated with the ARC Linkage Project, LGBTQ Migrations: Life Story Narratives in the South Australian GLAM Sector, Dr Norman is working on developing and demonstrating a non-dualised, self-reflexive approach to museum practices as framework for pursuing radical inclusivity.

Humanities

  • Post-human critical theory
  • Post-human critical museology
  • Environmental Philosophies
  • Feminist Studies

Law

  • Earth Jurisprudence
  • Legal Subjectivity
  • Critical Legal Studies
  • Feminist Legal Theory

My current project focuses on developing and demonstrating a non-dualised, self-reflexive approach to museum practices as framework for pursuing radical inclusivity. Museums not only exhibit objects; these institutions also display underlying cultural assumptions about power, knowledge and meaning. In western culture, these assumptions are characterised by dualism: the naturalised hierarchy of being arising from a perceived unassailable distinction between humans and nature, which subtends across an intersectional array of Othering (Plumwood 1993, Norman 2019). The pooling of nature and humans into the non-dualised ontological field described by agential realism (Barad 2007) surfaces new possibilities in the social imaginary (Code 2006) that can be explored productively under the rubric of queering the museum (Sullivan & Middleton 2020). This project is affiliated with the ARC Linkage Project, LGBTQ Migrations: Life Story Narratives in the South Australian GLAM Sector.

My first PhD focused on developing a post-human legal subjectivity for the human legal subject, as complement and contrast to the current trend towards establishing legal personhood for non-human entities. In The Posthuman (Polity Press, 2013), Rosi Braidotti places 'the critical post-human subject within an eco-philosophy of multiple belongings ... a relational subject constituted in and by multiplicity.' (49) I place my post-human, by which I mean ecocentric, legal subject within multiple belongings: universe, earth, and person. I call this super-thick legal subject the Cosmic Person and argue that such an embedded and embodied legal subject shifts the focus of law from the individual life project to the project of life itself.

  • Journals
    Year Citation
    2021 Norman, J. (2021). An engraved invitation to consider human - earth relations: Thinking non-dualism through the mining-based art practice of Lee Harrop. Journal of Human Rights and the Environment, 12(1), 77-99.
    DOI Scopus1
    2021 Norman, J. (2021). Emerging perspectives on the freedom to choose: two pathways out of individualism. Agathon: A Journal of Ethics and Value in the Modern World.
    2021 Harrop, L., & Norman, J. (2021). Still lives: A beautiful science. Journal of Human Rights and the Environment, 12(1), 69.
    DOI
    2018 Norman, J. (2018). Introducing the cosmic person: an ecocentric legal subject. Alternative Law Journal, 43(2), 126-130.
    DOI Scopus1
    2018 Norman, J. (2018). Public Nuisance Claims in Climate Change Litigation: How Useful Are They?. Property Law Review, 7(3), 195-202.

  • Books
    Year Citation
    2021 Norman, J. (2021). Posthuman legal subjectivity: Reimagining the human in the anthropocene. Routledge.
    DOI Scopus2

  • Original Creative Works
    Year Citation
    2022 Authors: Muecke S, Eadie J, Antonello A, Barnett T, Norman J, Matthews A, Zagala S. Title: Saltfish: Ecologies of Creative Processes. Description: N/A. Extent: ongoing.
    2021 Authors: Norman J. Title: Onto-ethical celestial navigation in the Anthropocene (a 10-point guide). Description: N/A. Extent: ongoing.

  • Internet Publications
    Year Citation
    2013 Norman, J. (2013). Review of 'Grace at Table: Small spiritual solutions to large material problems, solving everything' by Donna Schaper.

Tutor, ENGL 2071 - Anthropocene Arts: Naturecultures in Crisis

"Underworld Entanglements and Other Anthropocene Logics", ENGL 2071 - Anthropocene Arts: Naturecultures in Crisis 

"Eco Writing: Escape Route (Not Escapism)", ENGL 3044 - Body Culture Text, English & Creative Writing, University of Adelaide, 19 October 2020.

Tutor, ARTS 1007 - The Enquiring Mind, Faculty of Arts, University of Adelaide, Semester 1 2019.

  • Current Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)
    Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name
    2021 External Supervisor BUILDING BRIDGES- DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND RELIGION Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Mary Manickam

  • Other Supervision Activities
    Date Role Research Topic Location Program Supervision Type Student Load Student Name
    2021 - ongoing External Supervisor Domestic violence, faith communities and secular law University of Adelaide Doctorate M Manickam

  • Board Memberships
    Date Role Board name Institution name Country
    2019 - ongoing Board Member Board of Directors The Hut Community Centre Australia

  • Memberships
    Date Role Membership Country
    2022 - ongoing Member Socio-Legal Studies Association United Kingdom
    2021 - ongoing Member Global Network for Human Rights and the Environment Australia
    2020 - ongoing Member Australian Museums and Galleries Association Australia
    2017 - ongoing Member Law, Literature, and the Humanities Association of Australasia Australia

  • Presentation
    Date Topic Presented at Institution Country
    2021 - 2021 Flowing Waters A conversation on writing rivers in southern lands Southern Waters A Creative and Critical Symposium University of Adelaide
    2021 - 2021 Love not care: human (legal) subjectivity as co- becoming earth Law & Love [In and Beyond Pandemic Times] Images, Narratives, Histories, Cultures Law, Literature and Humanities Association of Australasia
    2021 - 2021 Provocative Possibilities: the natural and social history museum as situation of co-becoming Situations of Theory University of Adelaide/Flinders University Australia
    2021 - ongoing (Un)fixing our position Subtitle: Onto-ethical celestial navigation in the anthropocene (a 10-point guide) Provocation #3: the end of the world has already happened. J M Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice Australia
    2021 - 2021 Getting Messy with Museums: Sample Writing from the Pooling Project English and Creative Writing Postgrad Conference University of Adelaide Australia
    2020 - ongoing La Niña and a moment of bloom in South Australia, 1974 Currents, Flows and Pressure Points in Australian Literature: A Creative-Critical Symposium of Stories from the South University of Adelaide Australia
    2019 - 2019 Still Lives: Mining Myopias Law, Literature and the Humanities Association of Australasia: JurisApocalypse Now! Law in End Times Southern Cross University School of Law and Justice Australia
    2019 - ongoing Mining Meaning When Matter and Meaning Emerge Together Still Lives: The Roles of Arts, Social Values and Science in Mining Charles Darwin University/University of Adelaide Law School Australia
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