The world novel, distant suffering and humanitarian sensibility after 1989. As war and terror flicker across our televisions, writers like Rushdie, McEwan and Hosseini have turned the novel into a global form, expressing a new humanitarian ethic. This project explores the makings of these World Novels across sites of ongoing global conflict, and traces their plea for sympathy back to the novel's beginnings, in the eighteenth-century.
Transnational Coetzee: Revisioning World Literature through the Margins. The reputation of J. M. Coetzee has undergone a dramatic global upsurge in the past 15 years, coinciding with his relocation to Australia and subsequent adoption of citizenship in 2002. This project aims to explore the proposition that the writings of the South African-born Coetzee possess profound and abiding transnational qualities, and then map the global shifts that this work has undergone in the new century. By examin ....Transnational Coetzee: Revisioning World Literature through the Margins. The reputation of J. M. Coetzee has undergone a dramatic global upsurge in the past 15 years, coinciding with his relocation to Australia and subsequent adoption of citizenship in 2002. This project aims to explore the proposition that the writings of the South African-born Coetzee possess profound and abiding transnational qualities, and then map the global shifts that this work has undergone in the new century. By examining these aspects through Coetzee's position in his adopted country, the project seeks to re-examine notions of Australian nationality and the parameters of its literary, cultural and political identity, moving them beyond an insular, border-defined understanding towards a wider international frame.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE160100238
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$313,000.00
Summary
Georgiana Molloy, Life Writing and Environment in 1830s Western Australia. This project aims to use ecobiography, a mode of life-writing that details the relationship of a person with their environment, to prompt a reconsideration of the anthropocentric relationship between humans and non-humans in a settler colony. Through analysis of archival and contemporary writing on the environment of 1830s south-west Western Australia, it aims to illuminate interactions between botanist Georgiana Molloy, ....Georgiana Molloy, Life Writing and Environment in 1830s Western Australia. This project aims to use ecobiography, a mode of life-writing that details the relationship of a person with their environment, to prompt a reconsideration of the anthropocentric relationship between humans and non-humans in a settler colony. Through analysis of archival and contemporary writing on the environment of 1830s south-west Western Australia, it aims to illuminate interactions between botanist Georgiana Molloy, the Noongar people and plants. The resulting monograph will be designed to demonstrate how syntheses of the sciences and humanities can respond creatively to environmental deterioration. The project also intends to contribute to recent scholarship on Aboriginal agency and land management practices.Read moreRead less
Romantic India and Indian Romantics: British Romanticism and colonial modernity in India, 1780-1840. This project turns to British Romanticism and to Anglophone texts of early-19th century Bengal to arrive at a deeper understanding of the complex intertwining of literature with the histories of colonialism, of Indian modernity, and an emergent Indian nationalism. In giving Romantic literature an Indian dimension, the project also rethinks the Englishness of Romanticism in a new context. Texts to ....Romantic India and Indian Romantics: British Romanticism and colonial modernity in India, 1780-1840. This project turns to British Romanticism and to Anglophone texts of early-19th century Bengal to arrive at a deeper understanding of the complex intertwining of literature with the histories of colonialism, of Indian modernity, and an emergent Indian nationalism. In giving Romantic literature an Indian dimension, the project also rethinks the Englishness of Romanticism in a new context. Texts to be highlighted are those which traverse national borders in imaginative acts of sympathy and dialogue, including exchanges between the Christian West and the Muslim/Hindu East. Outcomes will include a higher profile for Indian studies through innovative scholarship and public engagement.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE150100329
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$331,720.00
Summary
A Global Comparative Study of Contemporary Iranian Literature. This project will be the first comparative study examining Iranian literatures and their circulation on a global scale, in Iran and in the Iranian diaspora in Australia, the United States of America and Western Europe. It aims to explore how literature circulates in a globalised world and how national and global literary practices are connected. The Iranian example is significant as a case study of a rich culture affected by politica ....A Global Comparative Study of Contemporary Iranian Literature. This project will be the first comparative study examining Iranian literatures and their circulation on a global scale, in Iran and in the Iranian diaspora in Australia, the United States of America and Western Europe. It aims to explore how literature circulates in a globalised world and how national and global literary practices are connected. The Iranian example is significant as a case study of a rich culture affected by political change, decentralisation and diasporic spread.Read moreRead less
Future thinking: utopianism in post-colonial literatures. This project examines the critical function of creative writers around the world in their society's imagination of the future. It investigates post-colonial literatures from a wide range of countries and regions to show the prevalence and power of hope, of ideas of liberation, self-determination and future possibility.
Precarious Borders: The Nation-State and the Arab Diaspora Novel. This project aims to shed new light on diaspora voices in debates about the formation and narration of nations to argue for a more inclusive view of the nation and to challenge the dominance of canonical literature in these debates. Arab writing is closely tied to its diaspora, making it particularly significant for probing how fiction registers the transformative effects of migration on our grasp of the nation. Spanning four dias ....Precarious Borders: The Nation-State and the Arab Diaspora Novel. This project aims to shed new light on diaspora voices in debates about the formation and narration of nations to argue for a more inclusive view of the nation and to challenge the dominance of canonical literature in these debates. Arab writing is closely tied to its diaspora, making it particularly significant for probing how fiction registers the transformative effects of migration on our grasp of the nation. Spanning four diaspora sites and a century of writing, potential outcomes include a diaspora-focused approach to reassess the nation from a transnational perspective, a new awareness of the value of diaspora writers’ engagement with the nation, and the vital repositioning of Arab-Australian writing in this field of world literature.Read moreRead less