William Faulkner Between Cinema and Literature. Literature continues to react and adapt to an ever-more complex media environment, but there is still little in the way of detailed critical study to specify the strategies and tactics of literary survival in an audio-visual era. By attending to the unique and indicative case of William Faulkner, who wrote simultaneously for the films and the serious literary market, this project will develop a new critical model for understanding literature's ada ....William Faulkner Between Cinema and Literature. Literature continues to react and adapt to an ever-more complex media environment, but there is still little in the way of detailed critical study to specify the strategies and tactics of literary survival in an audio-visual era. By attending to the unique and indicative case of William Faulkner, who wrote simultaneously for the films and the serious literary market, this project will develop a new critical model for understanding literature's adaptation to a complex media environment. It will shed significant intellectual light on the present and future states of literary survival in advanced industrial nations like Australia. Read moreRead less
Alien Selves: The Representation of Self-harm in Literature. The phenomenon of self-harm is receiving increasing attention from medical researchers and practitioners, as well as the media. A marker of the increased visibility of self-harm in western cultures is its representation in literature, although this topic has had very little consideration to date. The current project aims to identify and analyse practices of self-harm in contemporary fiction, mainly Australian, focussing on gender and g ....Alien Selves: The Representation of Self-harm in Literature. The phenomenon of self-harm is receiving increasing attention from medical researchers and practitioners, as well as the media. A marker of the increased visibility of self-harm in western cultures is its representation in literature, although this topic has had very little consideration to date. The current project aims to identify and analyse practices of self-harm in contemporary fiction, mainly Australian, focussing on gender and genitalia. It will develop new theoretical approaches to the body and subjectivity as represented in literature, and will engage with both studies of body modification, and medical discourses on practices of self-harm.Read moreRead less
The discourse of the South: the Mediterranean, South America and the Pacific in nineteenth-century British and American literature. The project investigates styles and traditions of English writing about southern Europe in the nineteenth century, and their influence on broader imaginative geographies. It tests the hypothesis that a paradigmatic north-south encounter, developed in British and American writing on the Mediterranean, created a 'discourse of the South' which shaped Anglo-American rep ....The discourse of the South: the Mediterranean, South America and the Pacific in nineteenth-century British and American literature. The project investigates styles and traditions of English writing about southern Europe in the nineteenth century, and their influence on broader imaginative geographies. It tests the hypothesis that a paradigmatic north-south encounter, developed in British and American writing on the Mediterranean, created a 'discourse of the South' which shaped Anglo-American representations of Latin America and the Pacific. It asks whether the discourse of the South, as a model for understanding geocultural difference, is more applicable to certain post-colonial contexts than the Orientalist paradigm, which dominates current thinking about differences of place and race in literature.Read moreRead less