Ted Geier

Dr. Geier has long experience in professional settings such as law and organizational communications, and currently teaches UWP 104A Writing in the Professions: Business Writing. His writing experience and advisory work include grant writing, professional genres and workplace personae, academic modes, scholarly production from graduate school success approaches through professional scholarly journals and book publishing, and holistic writing approaches that nurture the whole person beyond the deadline and the task.

In his scholarly work, he specializes in animals and environment, literature, film, and theory, with additional interests in work culture and social relations. He completed his PhD. in Comparative Literature & Critical Theory at UC Davis and was then a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Rice University 2015-16 Rice Seminars, “After Biopolitics,” with Cary Wolfe and Timothy Morton. In 2020-21, he was Managing Editor of Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (Oxford UP) prior to beginning a role as Research Editor & Coordinator for the Harvard Law School Animal Law & Policy Program Animal Markets and Zoonotic Disease research initiative.

A regular peer review contributor to several interdisciplinary journals, he is currently on the Executive Steering Committee for the new Journal of Animal History and founded an interdisciplinary animal studies research initiative (2013-20) across multiple colleges including Veterinary Medicine, Animal Science, and Humanities, which hosted conference and research events on animal welfare and cultural studies. Of late, he has been teaching animal studies, social justice themes, and other subjects, in Philosophy, American Studies, Humanities, film, and literary studies at UC Davis, The California State University system, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Current research projects include a brief book-length study of Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men and a larger book project, “Eco_Disney” analyzing Disney’s assertive yet simplified narratives of coexistence, diversity, and ecology via racialized, gendered, and colonizing anthropomorphic designs in, for example, Zootopia, Bambi, and WALL-E. Significant topics include: How Disney films and songs express ecological thought. How the corporate practices, economic and land use impacts, digital presences, and social missions of Disney articulate consumer identities and influence the world. How Disney’s texts—narratives, constructed spaces such as theme parks and immersive animal experiences, real estate, and a dazzling media ecology extending into sports and news—“Disney-fy” the public imaginary of animal concern, environmentalism, and political action across the world (and beyond!).

Interview 

“Stories Capture the Social Experience, Creativity Writes Across Media.” Carbon Radio interview series. Interview on Writing instruction, student wellness, inspiration, and the difference between poetry and ad copy. September 2021. https://medium.com/illumination/stories-capture-the-social-experience-23...

Dr. Geier's website:  https://nonhumans.org/