07 Jul Soenke Biermann
Hailing originally from northern Germany, Soenke Biermann has lived in the Northern Rivers region near Byron Bay, Australia, for the past thirteen years. He has a background in Critical Pedagogy, Indigenous and Cultural Studies, and is currently completing his dissertation on Unsettling Settler Universities at Southern Cross University’s (SCU) School of Arts and Social Sciences. His research explores decolonizing approaches to university teaching that critically unpack and de-center the dominance of Northern knowledge and engage with diverse knowledges and ways of knowing from the Global South. Soenke has given more than twenty conference presentations, published his research in a range of academic journals and been invited to give talks at UC Berkeley, McGill University, Humboldt University and the University of Barcelona. He is also a passionate, multi-award winning university teacher who values and inspires curiosity, compassion and critical thinking. Apart from his teaching which takes students out of the classroom and into the field to explore questions of eco-cultural diversity, activism and social justice, Soenke has also worked on several student equity projects which seek to promote greater diversity, fairness and inclusion in higher education. He is currently the director of Long Island University’s (LIU Global) Australia Program, part of a unique four-year undergraduate degree in Global Studies that enables students to become empowered global citizens by requiring them to live, study and work in up to eight countries around the world.