New Electronic Archives for Australian Literature. Information capacity in Australian literary studies has been dramatically expanded by national investment in electronic archives, while trends in the discipline increasingly demand empirical support for claims about literary history and literary value. At the same time, research about Australian literature remains primarily theoretical, insufficiently informed by newly available data. This project aims to further enrich the new data sets, and to ....New Electronic Archives for Australian Literature. Information capacity in Australian literary studies has been dramatically expanded by national investment in electronic archives, while trends in the discipline increasingly demand empirical support for claims about literary history and literary value. At the same time, research about Australian literature remains primarily theoretical, insufficiently informed by newly available data. This project aims to further enrich the new data sets, and to use them in an innovative return to the classical issues in Australian literary criticism and history. It will provide demonstration applications of data in new electronic archives.Read moreRead less
Our Island Home: The shifting map of Australian literature. This project will provide the first full-length study of the ways Australia's unique status as an island continent has shaped its national literature. Understanding this relationship will re-define the borders of its literature in three ways: it will establish new connections within the national literature between the literature of the mainland and surrounding islands; it will identify why certain regions such as the continental interio ....Our Island Home: The shifting map of Australian literature. This project will provide the first full-length study of the ways Australia's unique status as an island continent has shaped its national literature. Understanding this relationship will re-define the borders of its literature in three ways: it will establish new connections within the national literature between the literature of the mainland and surrounding islands; it will identify why certain regions such as the continental interior and outlying islands capture the literary imagination at particular times; it will bring to light ways for Australian literature to position itself within the shifting geographies of globalised modernity. Read moreRead less
Australian Fiction 1989 to 2005, and its National and Global Infrastructures. This project is a systematic analysis of Australian fiction published between 1989 and 2005: after the Australian Bicentenary and into the new millenium. It will look in particular at the relationship between national literary culture and globalisation. It examines the cultural, social, educational, political and economic aspects of this literary field, and accounts for its production and distribution, as well as the w ....Australian Fiction 1989 to 2005, and its National and Global Infrastructures. This project is a systematic analysis of Australian fiction published between 1989 and 2005: after the Australian Bicentenary and into the new millenium. It will look in particular at the relationship between national literary culture and globalisation. It examines the cultural, social, educational, political and economic aspects of this literary field, and accounts for its production and distribution, as well as the ways in which it is evaluated and put to use. It will be the first study of its kind, an analysis of contemporary Australian literary production in the fullest sense.Read moreRead less
Cities of Words: Women's cultures of reading and writing in colonial Melbourne and beyond. This project will promote community awareness of the honour bestowed upon Melbourne and Australia by the United Nations, by uncovering the foundations of Melbourne's literary cultures and situating them nationally and internationally. By showing that Melbourne has ever been a city of words it will provide impetus for present and future literary activity, and enhance the understanding of the cultural life o ....Cities of Words: Women's cultures of reading and writing in colonial Melbourne and beyond. This project will promote community awareness of the honour bestowed upon Melbourne and Australia by the United Nations, by uncovering the foundations of Melbourne's literary cultures and situating them nationally and internationally. By showing that Melbourne has ever been a city of words it will provide impetus for present and future literary activity, and enhance the understanding of the cultural life of the city and the country. It takes part in an international conversation about the transcultural importance of books, reading and writing, staking a claim for Melbourne, and Australia, in the global exchange of ideas.Read moreRead less
The Reading Culture of Interwar Australia. This project - an historical study of reading in Australia between the Wars (1920-1940) - will provide a basis for revaluing reading, and reasserting its role in English teaching and in the broader Australian community as a creative, educative and pleasurable activity in its own right. It also contributes to the ongoing process of recovering the international dimension present (but often overlooked) in much of Australia's early history. Finally, it will ....The Reading Culture of Interwar Australia. This project - an historical study of reading in Australia between the Wars (1920-1940) - will provide a basis for revaluing reading, and reasserting its role in English teaching and in the broader Australian community as a creative, educative and pleasurable activity in its own right. It also contributes to the ongoing process of recovering the international dimension present (but often overlooked) in much of Australia's early history. Finally, it will generate a wealth of reading-experience data for use in establishing an Australian Reading Experience Database, a major new resource - only the second of its kind in the world - for national and international research on the history of reading in Australia.Read moreRead less
Letters between Vance and Nettie Palmer, 1909-1959: The Complete Correspondence. Nettie and Vance Palmer were two highly influential national figures, of considerable significance in literary and cultural circles especially in the inter-war period. This project, the preparation of Collected Letters, will considerably extend knowledge of their public contribution to cultural production in Australia and also of their private lives. It will provide a vital reference tool for historians, literary ....Letters between Vance and Nettie Palmer, 1909-1959: The Complete Correspondence. Nettie and Vance Palmer were two highly influential national figures, of considerable significance in literary and cultural circles especially in the inter-war period. This project, the preparation of Collected Letters, will considerably extend knowledge of their public contribution to cultural production in Australia and also of their private lives. It will provide a vital reference tool for historians, literary critics, biographers and scholars as well as be entertaining and compelling for the general reader. As a highly innovative example of the genre of the edited letter, in retrieving these writings of two gifted individuals, Australia's cultural heritage will be enriched.Read moreRead less
Faith into Words: the entanglement of religion, politics and poetry in the work of Vincent Buckley. This project will explore poetry of Vincent Buckley, which is grounded in a conception of a God incarnate in the world and its people that impacted directly on Australia's secular culture and politics, and continues to offer to both secular and religious readers a way towards an inclusive human community.
Evaluating the Australian Popular Fiction Archive: A Definitive Critical History and Bibliography of Early to Late Colonial Genre Writing. This project analyses and evaluates Australian popular or genre fiction from the early to the late colonial period: from around the 1840s to the beginning of World War Two. It will chart a comprehensive history of colonial Australian genre fiction for the first time, producing two critical monographs and an online bibliography and digital archive which will f ....Evaluating the Australian Popular Fiction Archive: A Definitive Critical History and Bibliography of Early to Late Colonial Genre Writing. This project analyses and evaluates Australian popular or genre fiction from the early to the late colonial period: from around the 1840s to the beginning of World War Two. It will chart a comprehensive history of colonial Australian genre fiction for the first time, producing two critical monographs and an online bibliography and digital archive which will function as major reading, research and teaching resources. Understanding colonial popular fiction as a field of writing that expressed colonial sensibilities and performed colonial predicaments, this project will also demonstrate the formative role it played in the task of settlement and nation building.Read moreRead less
The Making of the Australian Middlebrow: Nationalism, Modernity and Middlebrow Culture in Australia. This project aims to investigate the history of middlebrow cultural values and institutions in 20th-century Australia. It will be the first such study, and will build on recent major international work on the middlebrow. Reading Australian cultural history through the concept of the middlebrow will revise familar assumptions about literature, nationalism and modernity in Australia. The study will ....The Making of the Australian Middlebrow: Nationalism, Modernity and Middlebrow Culture in Australia. This project aims to investigate the history of middlebrow cultural values and institutions in 20th-century Australia. It will be the first such study, and will build on recent major international work on the middlebrow. Reading Australian cultural history through the concept of the middlebrow will revise familar assumptions about literature, nationalism and modernity in Australia. The study will examine the rich archive of Australian magazines, newspaper review pages, writer and reader associations and publishing records. It will engage theoretically with contemporary theories of popular culture and modernity. The outcome will be a monograph on middlebrow culture in Australia.Read moreRead less
Lost Generation: Women Writers and Postwar Modernity. This project will restore a 'lost generation' of Australian women writers to, and reconfigure the meanings of, literary culture in the post-World War 2 years. 1945-65 is a key period of Australian cultural development that is under-researched but over-laden with stereotypes, which still frame and restrict our understanding of it. A fuller and more complex picture of Australian modernity and modernism will be gained by placing women centrally ....Lost Generation: Women Writers and Postwar Modernity. This project will restore a 'lost generation' of Australian women writers to, and reconfigure the meanings of, literary culture in the post-World War 2 years. 1945-65 is a key period of Australian cultural development that is under-researched but over-laden with stereotypes, which still frame and restrict our understanding of it. A fuller and more complex picture of Australian modernity and modernism will be gained by placing women centrally in the picture, and by placing the Australian case within the international field. Such an enhanced understanding of the past is essential for us to have a more productive and harmonious future, and to play a significant role internationally.Read moreRead less