Teresa Shewry

Teresa Shewry is Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara, with her office located in South Hall 2522. She maintains active academic engagement through teaching and research initiatives within the English Department.

Her educational background includes:

• Ph.D. in Literature from Duke University
• B.A. in English and Japanese from Victoria University, New Zealand

Professor Shewry's research centers on the environmental humanities, exploring intersections between literature and ecological crises with particular focus on Pacific Ocean contexts. Her work examines how narratives of hope emerge amid environmental degradation, emphasizing cross-cultural environmental activism across the Pacific Rim. She investigates literary representations of water systems, oceanic spaces, and climate futures through frameworks of ecocriticism and postcolonial studies.

Her scholarly contributions encompass:

• Pacific and Pacific Rim cultural studies
• Twentieth-century Anglophone literary traditions
• Climate fiction (cli-fi) and speculative environmental narratives
• Humor as ecological critique
• Fantasy literature's engagement with environmental ethics
• Oceanic humanities methodologies

Professor Shewry demonstrates significant academic leadership through externally funded initiatives, most notably co-organizing the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar on 'Sea Change,' which facilitated interdisciplinary conversations about oceanic environmental transformations. Her teaching portfolio consistently integrates her research specialties across undergraduate and graduate courses.