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Dr. Cary Campbell is an educational philosopher, curriculum theorist, and music educator whose interdisciplinary work bridges theoretical inquiry with practical applications for contemporary teaching and learning. His research operates at the intersections of biosemiotic, post-digital, and posthumanist theories, exploring how education can meaningfully respond to the challenges of mass digitalization, the climate crisis, and the necessity of cultivating place-connectedness.
Dr. Campbell’s scholarship focuses heavily on developing existentially and ecologically aware approaches to pedagogy in an era marked by accelerating economic growth and the global polycrisis. He is the author of the book, Education in a Time of Social and Environmental Unravelling: Transdisciplinary Responses to the Polycrisis (Routledge, 2026), which articulates a terrestrial vision for critical eco-pedagogy and challenges conventional climate change education by examining human-ecological relationships within planetary limits. Building on these themes of ecology and perception, his upcoming book project, Tuning In: A New Theory of Sound, Music, and Instruments (Cambridge University Press, late 2026, co-written with Thomas Hoeller), extends his scholarship into sound studies and acoustic ecology, investigating the evolutionary emergence of human musicking and sonic communication rituals.
An active scholar and performing musician, Dr. Campbell has spent over a decade working in community arts and conservatory settings. At SFU, he teaches courses spanning practitioner inquiry, environmental and land-based education, curriculum theory, and creative musicianship and music education. Methodologically, he is deeply engaged in collaborative qualitative research, frequently employing duoethnography and arts-informed heuristics to explore pedagogical practices. Beyond his teaching and research, he serves as an editor for the Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education, co-director of the arts organization New Curriculum Group, and is a co-editor of the philosophy webzine Philosophasters.org.
school PhD Supervision Status: Open to Co-supervision Only
Research
Selected Publications
See: Google Scholar Profile, for a full list of publications and citations.
- Campbell, C., & Olteanu, A. (2023). The Challenge of Postdigital Literacy: Extending Multimodality and Social Semiotics for a New Age. Postdigital Science and Education, 1-23.
- Campbell, C. (2023). ‘What do we talk about when we talk about climate change?’: meaningful environmental education, beyond the info dump. Journal of Philosophy of Education, qhad020.
- Campbell, C., & Lilburn, T. (2023). ‘How to be here?’, dialoging into climate-change: an interview with Tim Lilburn. Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education, 1(2), 6.
- Bai, H., Scott, C., Campbell, C. L., & Patel, J. (2023). EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION: Contemplative and Holistic Education as Inside-Out Work for Healing, Peace, Justice, and Equity. Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education, 1(2), 11.
- Campbell, C. (2022). Embracing the Learning Turn: The ecological context of learning. Biosemiotics, 15(3), 469-481.
- Campbell, C., Lacković, N., & Olteanu, A. (2021). A “strong” approach to sustainability literacy: Embodied ecology and media. Philosophies, 6(1), 14.
- Campbell, Cary (Ed.). "Peirce and learning theory: Special section introduction" Chinese Semiotic Studies, 17(1), 2021, 143-152. https://doi.org/10.1515/css-2021-0007.
- Campbell, C., Olteanu, A., & Kull, K. (2019). Learning and knowing as semiosis: Extending the conceptual apparatus of semiotics. Sign systems studies, 47(3/4), 352-381.
- Campbell, C. (2019). Educating semiosis: Foundational concepts for an ecological edusemiotic. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 38, 291-317.
- Campbell, C. (2018). In search of our beginnings: Locating ‘firstness’ in arts education in the service of advocacy. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 19(13).
- Campbell, C. (2018). Returning ‘learning’ to education: Toward an ecological conception of learning and teaching. Σημειωτκή-Sign Systems Studies, 46(4), 538-568.
- Campbell, C. (2018). Educating openness: Umberto Eco’s poetics of openness as a pedagogical value. Signs and Society, 6(2), 305-331.
- Olteanu, A., & Campbell, C. (2018). A short introduction to edusemiotics. Chinese Semiotic Studies, 14(2), 245-260.
- Campbell, C. (2017). Learning that reflects the living: Aligning anticipation and edusemiotics. Public Journal of Semiotics, 8(1), 1-25.
- Campbell, C. (2016). Indexical ways of knowing: An inquiry into the indexical sign and how to educate for novelty. Philosophical Inquiry in Education, 24(1), 15-36.
Keywords
philosophy, curriculum & theory; pedagogy & environment; music, cognition & sound studies; qualitative and ethnographic methods.
Awards and Scholarships
- Fund for International Research in Education (FIRE; Internal SFU Grant), (2023).
Proposal: “Transdisciplinary Pathways in Higher Education Research and Education” - SSHRC Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Doctoral Scholarship (2020)
- SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship:
Proposal: “Educating through semiosis: conceptualizing the learning process as edusemiotics with young music learners” (2016-2020) - DORA International Visiting Scholar Award, Department of Semiotics, University of Tartu, Estonia (2019)