Associate Professor Philip Steer staff profile picture

Contact details +6469517498

Associate Professor Philip Steer MA, PhD

Associate Professor

Doctoral Supervisor
School of Humanities Media and Creative Comm

My research focuses on the culture, economics, and environments of settler colonialism, espeically in nineteenth-century Australia and New Zealand. My current work explores the idea of settler literature as a form of environmental knowledge, and asks what the colonial past might tell us about the cultural dimensions of present-day environmental problems. I am recipient of two Marsden grants, author of Settler Colonialism in Victorian Literature: Economics and Political Identity in the Networks of Empire (Cambridge, 2020), and co-editor with Nathan K. Hensley of Ecological Form: System and Aesthetics in the Age of Empire (Fordham, 2019).

More about me...View less...

Professional

Contact details

  • Ph: +64 6 951 7498
    Location: 4.54, Sir Geoffrey Peren Building
    Campus: Turitea

Qualifications

  • Master of Arts - Victoria University (2004)
  • Doctor of Philosophy - Duke University (2009)

Certifications and Registrations

  • Licence, Supervisor, Massey University

Prizes and Awards

  • Donald Gray Prize for best essay published in the field of Victorian Studies - North American Victorian Studies Association (2022)

Research Expertise

Research Interests

  • New Zealand literature
  • Victorian literature
  • Environmental literature
  • Settler colonialism

Thematics

21st Century Citizenship

Area of Expertise

Field of research codes
Australian Literature (excl. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Literature) (200502): British and Irish Literature (200503):
History and Philosophy of Specific Fields (220200): History and Philosophy of the Humanities (220207):
Languages, Communication And Culture (200000): Literary Studies (200500): New Zealand Literature (excl. Maori Literature) (200505):
Philosophy And Religious Studies (220000)

Keywords

Victorian literature and culture; New Zealand literature and culture; Settler colonialism; Ecocriticism.

Research Projects

Completed Projects

Project Title: Settler Literature and Environmental Change in Colonial New Zealand and Australia

Date Range: 2020 - 2024

Funding Body: Royal Society of New Zealand

Project Team:

Project Title: Realism, romance, and the settler colony: Literary form, imperial territory and political economy, 1829-1915

Date Range: 2012 - 2015

Funding Body: Marsden Fund - Fast Start

Project Team:

Research Outputs

Journal

Steer, P., & Shewry, T. (2024). Uncertain Waters and Irony in Australian Settler Literatures. Environmental Humanities. 16(2), 351-370 Retrieved from https://read.dukeupress.edu/environmental-humanities/article/16/2/351/389147/Uncertain-Waters-and-Irony-in-Australian-Settler
[Journal article]Authored by: Steer, P.
Read Online: DOI icon
Read Abstract: abstract icon
Steer, P. (2023). The culture of erosion: Settler colonialism, geological agency, and New Zealand literature, 1930s–1950s. Journal of Commonwealth Literature. 58(3), 610-626
[Journal article]Authored by: Steer, P.
Read Online: DOI icon
Read Abstract: abstract icon
1
Steer, P. (2021). The Climates of the Victorian Novel: Seasonality, Weather, and Regional Fiction in Britain and Australia. PMLA. 136(3), 370-385 Retrieved from https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/pmla/article/climates-of-the-victorian-novel-seasonality-weather-and-regional-fiction-in-britain-and-australia/D4D1DA080195FCF381868600F2E229E2
[Journal article]Authored by: Steer, P.
Read Online: DOI icon
Read Abstract: abstract icon
Steer, P. (2018). The historians, the literary critics, and the Victorian settler empire. Literature Compass. 15(5)
[Journal article]Authored by: Steer, P.
Read Online: DOI icon
Read Abstract: abstract icon
4
Steer, PMC. (2016). Gold and Greater Britain: Jevons, Trollope, and Settler Colonialism. Victorian Studies. 58(3), 436-463
[Journal article]Authored by: Steer, P.
Read Online: DOI icon

view more...

Steer, PMC. (2015). The romance of uneven development: Geography, capitalism, and Robert Louis Stevenson’s globalized pacific. Victorian Literature and Culture. 43(2), 343-356
[Journal article]Authored by: Steer, P.
Read Online: DOI icon
Read Abstract: abstract icon
Steer, PM. (2012). Figures from the past: Sargeson’s lonely men and the limits of nationalism. Journal of New Zealand Studies. 13, 34-45 Retrieved from http://ojs.victoria.ac.nz/jnzs/article/view/1187/1115
[Journal article]Authored by: Steer, P.
Read Abstract: abstract icon
Steer, PM. (2011). Forms of Settlement: Colonial Space, Time and Genre from Adventure in New Zealand to The Fossil Pits. Journal of New Zealand Literature. 28(2), 58-81
[Journal article]Authored by: Steer, P.
Steer, P. (2009). Greater Britain and the imperial outpost: The Australasian origins of The Riddle of the Sands (1903). Victorian Review: an interdisciplinary journal of victorian studies. 35(1), 79-95
[Journal article]Authored by: Steer, P.
Steer, P. (2008). National pasts and imperial futures: Temporality, economics and empire in William Morris's News from Nowhere (1890) and Julius Vogel's Anno Domini 2000 (1889). Utopian Studies. 19(1), 49-72
[Journal article]Authored by: Steer, P.
Steer, P. (2007). History (never) repeats: Pakeha identity, novels and the New Zealand wars. Journal of New Zealand Literature. 25, 114-137
[Journal article]Authored by: Steer, P.

view less...

Book

Steer, P. (2025). Victorian Liberalism, Settler Character, and Literary Form. In A. Majumder (Ed.) The Cambridge Companion to British Literature and Empire. (pp. 161 - 173). Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press
[Chapter]Authored by: Steer, P.
Read Online: DOI icon
Read Abstract: abstract icon
Steer, P. (2025). A ‘sweet especial rural scene’? Nature, Culture, and Agriculture in the 1870s. In A. Chapman (Ed.) Nineteenth-Century Literature in Transition: The 1870s. (pp. 274 - 294). Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press
[Chapter]Authored by: Steer, P.
Read Online: DOI icon
Read Abstract: abstract icon
Steer, P. (2024). Writing the ‘Wooden World’: periodicals and settler environmental knowledge in colonial New Zealand. In D. Finkelstein, D. Johnson, & C. Davis (Eds.) The Edinburgh Companion to British Colonial Periodicals. (pp. 97 - 111). Edinburgh, United Kingdom: Edinburgh University Press
[Chapter]Authored by: Steer, P.
Steer, P. (2023). Narrating Migration in the Settler Colonies: Recent Climate Fiction in Australia and New Zealand. In C. Stan, & C. Sussman (Eds.) The Palgrave Handbook of European Migration in Literature and Culture. (pp. 19 - 35). Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan
[Chapter]Authored by: Steer, P.
Read Online: DOI icon
Read Abstract: abstract icon
Steer, P.L. Rodensky (Ed.)OctoberOctoberNovemberSteer, P.L. Rodensky (Ed.)NovemberOctoberNovemberNovember
[Reference Book]Authored by: Steer, P.
Read Online: DOI icon
Read Abstract: abstract icon

view more...

Steer, P.(2020). Settler Colonialism in Victorian Literature: Economics and Political Identity in the Networks of Empire. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press
[Authored Book]Authored by: Steer, P.
Read Abstract: abstract icon
Hensley, NK., & Steer, P. (Eds.) (2018). Ecological Form: System and Aesthetics in the Age of Empire. New York, United States of America: Fordham University Press
[Edited Book]Edited by: Steer, P.
Read Online: DOI icon
Read Abstract: abstract icon
Hensley, NK., & Steer, P. (2018). Introduction: Ecological Formalism; or, Love Among the Ruins. In NK. Hensley, & P. Steer (Eds.) Ecological Form: System and Aesthetics in the Age of Empire. (pp. 1 - 17). New York, United States of America: Fordham University Press
[Chapter]Authored by: Steer, P.Edited by: Steer, P.
Read Online: DOI icon
Read Abstract: abstract icon
Hensley, NK., & Steer, P. (2018). Signatures of the Carboniferous: The Literary Forms of Coal. In NK. Hensley, & P. Steer (Eds.) Ecological Form: System and Aesthetics in the Age of Empire. (pp. 63 - 82). New York, United States of America: Fordham University Press
[Chapter]Authored by: Steer, P.Edited by: Steer, P.
Read Online: DOI icon
Read Abstract: abstract icon
Steer, PMC. (2016). Colonial ecologies: Guthrie-Smith’s Tutira and writing the settled environment. In M. Williams (Ed.) A History of New Zealand Literature. (pp. 85 - 97). New York: Cambridge University Press
[Chapter]Authored by: Steer, P.
Steer, P. (2018). Modernism and Māoritanga: Rereading the Cultural Politics of Modernist Appropriation in the bone people. In R. Begam, & MV. Moses (Eds.) Modernism, Postcolonialism, and Globalism: Anglophone Literature, 1950 to the Present. (pp. 277 - 294). New York, United States of America: Oxford University Press
[Chapter]Authored by: Steer, P.
Read Online: DOI icon
Read Abstract: abstract icon
Steer, PMC. (2017). On systematic colonization and the culture of settler colonialism: Edward Gibbon Wakefield’s a letter from Sydney (1829). In D. Felluga (Ed.) BRANCH: Britain, Representation, and Nineteenth-Century History. (pp. 1 - 22). online: Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net
[Chapter]Authored by: Steer, P.
Read Abstract: abstract icon
Steer, PMC. (2016). Colonial Gothic. In R. Crane, J. Stafford, & M. Williams (Eds.) The world novel in English to 1950. (pp. 253 - 267). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press
[Chapter]Authored by: Steer, P.
Steer, PMC. (2014). Antipodal home economics: International debt and settler domesticity in Clara Cheesemans a rolling stone. In TS. Wagner (Ed.) Domestic Fiction in Colonial Australia and New Zealand. (pp. 145 - 160). London, England: Pickering & Chatto
[Chapter]Authored by: Steer, P.

view less...

Conference

Steer, P. (2024, January). A ‘sweet especial rural scene’? Nature, Culture, and Agriculture in the 1870s. Presented at EVENT 2024: A Flightless Conference with NAVSA | BAVS | AVSA | VI | DACH-V. Virtual.
[Conference Oral Presentation]Authored by: Steer, P.
Steer, P. (2022, March). Deforestation, Colonial Poetry, and Environmental Knowledge: “The Big Kauri, Waiotahi Creek”. Presented at North American Victorian Studies Association [NAVSA]. Vancouver/Online.
[Conference Oral Presentation]Authored by: Steer, P.
Read Abstract: abstract icon
Steer, P. (2021, November). Not Seeing the Forest for the Tree? Kauri and the Scales of Settler Colonial Environmental Knowledge. Presented at 8th Association for the Study of Literature, Environment and Culture, Australia+New Zealand (ASLEC-ANZ) Conference Aotearoa: Ngā Tohu o te Huarere: Conversations Beyond Human Scales. Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand.
[Conference Oral Presentation]Authored by: Steer, P.
Steer, P. (2021, August). Scott’s Minstrelsy, the Ballad, and the Work of Settlement. Presented at Walter Scott in the Settler Colonies
[Conference Oral Presentation]Authored by: Steer, P.
Steer, P. (2021, December). “The Forest Temples of New Zealand”: Romanticism as Environmental Knowledge in the Settler Public Sphere. Presented at Romantic Studies Association of Australasia
[Conference Oral Presentation]Authored by: Steer, P.

view more...

Steer, P.Not Seeing the Forest for the Tree? Kauri and the Scales of Settler Colonial Environmental Knowledge. . Online and Wellington, New Zealand and Melbourne, Australia
[Conference Paper]Authored by: Steer, P.
Read Abstract: abstract icon
Steer, P. (2018, October). The Bad Form of the Australian River: The Production of Environmental Knowledge and Value in Henry Lawson. Presented at Annual Conference of the North American Victorian Studies Association (NAVSA) 2018: Looking Outward. St Petersburg, Florida, United States of America.
[Conference Oral Presentation]Authored by: Steer, P.
Read Abstract: abstract icon
Steer, PMC. (2017, November). Problems of scale & silence, or, Locating the literary critic in the settler empire. Presented at Cultural Geographies of the Colonial Southern Hemisphere. Dublin, Ireland.
[Conference Oral Presentation]Authored by: Steer, P.
Steer, PMC. (2017, September). “Was such a change in the seasons credible?": Climate Extremes, Climate Knowledge, and the Victorian Novel. Presented at Vcologies 2. University of Houston, Texas.
[Conference Oral Presentation]Authored by: Steer, P.
Steer, PMC. (2017, September). Curnow and Environmentalism. Presented at A Symposium on the Life and Works of Allen Curnow. Auckland University.
[Conference Oral Presentation]Authored by: Steer, P.
Steer, PMC. (2016, November). Colonial bildung and metropolitan sociality: The mark system, urania cottage, and great expectations. Presented at North American Victorian Studies Assocaition [NAVSA] 2016. Phoenix, Arizona.
[Conference Oral Presentation]Authored by: Steer, P.
Steer, PMC., & Hensley, N. (2016, September). Signatures of the Carboniferous: The Literary Forms of Coal. Presented at Vcologies. UC, Davis.
[Conference Oral Presentation]Authored by: Steer, P.
Steer, PMC. (2015, July). Ecology and epic in the settler colony. Presented at North American Victorian Studies Association. Honolulu, Hawai'i.
[Conference Oral Presentation]Authored by: Steer, P.

view less...

Other

Steer, P. (2022, May). “The Forgotten Poetry of the Colonial Environment. Presented at Palmerston North. : University of the Third Age.
[Oral Presentation]Authored by: Steer, P.
Steer, P. (2020). The forgotten environmental crisis: how 20th century settler writers foreshadowed the Anthropocene. : The Conversation Media Group Ltd
[Internet publication]Authored by: Steer, P.
Read article at Massey Research Online: MRO icon
Read Online: DOI icon
Steer, P. (2020, November). “This new element of the New Zealand landscape": Erosion and New Zealand literary culture, 1930s-50s.. Presented at School of People, Environment and Planning, Massey University.
[Oral Presentation]Authored by: Steer, P.
Steer, P. (2019, November). The Culture of Erosion: Deforestation and New Zealand’s Settler Literature, 1930s-50s. Presented at Department of English, University of California, Santa Barbara.
[Oral Presentation]Authored by: Steer, P.
Steer, PMC. (2017). Reading classic novels in an era of climate change. : The Conversation
[Internet publication]Authored by: Steer, P.

view more...

Steer, PMC. (2017). Bottom of the lake: How the setting for a classic book of New Zealand literature became a toxic swamp. : The Spinoff
[Internet publication]Authored by: Steer, P.
view less...

Teaching and Supervision

Contact Supervisor

Summary of Doctoral Supervision

Position Current Completed
Main Supervisor 2 1
Co-supervisor 3 1

Current Doctoral Supervision

Main Supervisor of:

  • Ali Khanihoolari - Doctor of Philosophy
    Conservative Political Ideas and Popular Fiction: The Works of Frederick Marryat
  • Tracey Hepi - Doctor of Philosophy
    Speculative Poetics of the Moana: Whakapapa, Monsters, and Desire in Māori and Pacific Futures

Co-supervisor of:

  • Nic Reagan - Doctor of Philosophy
    Ironsand Encounters: Ironsands as Actors in Aotearoa New Zealand
  • Shahid Shahid - Doctor of Philosophy
    Never the Twain Shall Meet?: Representations of Nature in Children’s Literature by Rudyard Kipling and Rabindranath Tagore
  • Hannah Hansen - Doctor of Philosophy
    Empowering the Paranormal: Monstrosity, Power, and Postfeminism in the Paranormal Romance

Completed Doctoral Supervision

Main Supervisor of:

  • 2025 - Robert McLean - Doctor of Philosophy
    Not to Exact a Full Look at the Worst: (Mis)representations of State-Sanctioned Violence in New Zealand Poetry.

Co-supervisor of:

Media and Links