The early woman writer, 1530-1660. This project aims to provide a literary history of women’s textual practice in the English Renaissance. This project will examine the scope, content and purpose of early modern women’s writing to make new discoveries about reading, writing and book use in the period when book production and distribution was first appearing on a larger scale. It uses digital technologies to create open-access digital forms of this writing to extend access to it, and also to furt ....The early woman writer, 1530-1660. This project aims to provide a literary history of women’s textual practice in the English Renaissance. This project will examine the scope, content and purpose of early modern women’s writing to make new discoveries about reading, writing and book use in the period when book production and distribution was first appearing on a larger scale. It uses digital technologies to create open-access digital forms of this writing to extend access to it, and also to further Australia’s position in both cutting edge digital scholarship and scholarship on the early modern period.
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Future fables: literature, evolution and artificial intelligence. The future of AI is a site of considerable philosophical and cultural anxiety in the West. Given the future of AI is currently only available to publics through literary or fictional tropes, it is vital that we investigate the historical evolution of these literary or fictional tropes of AI to understand its future direction. This project aims to understand (1) how the post-Darwinian literary imagination has shaped our current anx ....Future fables: literature, evolution and artificial intelligence. The future of AI is a site of considerable philosophical and cultural anxiety in the West. Given the future of AI is currently only available to publics through literary or fictional tropes, it is vital that we investigate the historical evolution of these literary or fictional tropes of AI to understand its future direction. This project aims to understand (1) how the post-Darwinian literary imagination has shaped our current anxieties about AI and (2) how literary and scientific writers after Darwin rethink the future of the human species by imagining the co-evolution of humans, animals and machines. Expected outcomes of the project include conceptual resources to understand the human-nonhuman relation and the future of AI.Read moreRead less
Literature and Science in the Early Middle Ages. This project aims to investigate the interplay between early medieval science and the literary imagination. The project focuses on Anglo-Saxon England, which provides a fully developed and well-preserved vernacular literary record, beside a learned Latin literary culture. It aims to investigate an important reciprocal relationship at a transitional moment in Western culture: the ways scientific learning influenced the early medieval literary imagi ....Literature and Science in the Early Middle Ages. This project aims to investigate the interplay between early medieval science and the literary imagination. The project focuses on Anglo-Saxon England, which provides a fully developed and well-preserved vernacular literary record, beside a learned Latin literary culture. It aims to investigate an important reciprocal relationship at a transitional moment in Western culture: the ways scientific learning influenced the early medieval literary imagination, and how the literary imagination influenced early medieval science. Study of the relationship between science and literature provides an insight into how people have understood the world around them and their relationship with it, interpreted in the light of inherited knowledge and the imagination.Read moreRead less
Noise, Technology, Literature. 21st century life is pervaded by fears of sensory and information overload, the deafening interference of data generated by a digitalised global economy, as well as the literal noise of everyday life. These fears transcend national boundaries, connecting the experiences of contemporary Australians to a common global experience. It is this inter-connected trans-national history of the profound impact of noise on our lives that this project will begin to chart. Stre ....Noise, Technology, Literature. 21st century life is pervaded by fears of sensory and information overload, the deafening interference of data generated by a digitalised global economy, as well as the literal noise of everyday life. These fears transcend national boundaries, connecting the experiences of contemporary Australians to a common global experience. It is this inter-connected trans-national history of the profound impact of noise on our lives that this project will begin to chart. Stretching back to the nineteenth century and into the present, this project is necessarily collaborative and ambitious in its engagement not only with ideas of noise as they are discussed within the confines of academia but also in the broader community. Read moreRead less
Comic medievalism and the modern world. This project will study comic depictions of the Middle Ages, examining how they reflect views about the past and the present. It will produce new knowledge about how this historical humour intersects with, and contributes to, ongoing debates about progress, social changed and cultural tolerance, which are vital to Australian public life.
Books before printing: discovering technologies and culture from manuscripts to e-Books. This project identifies textual technologies before printing and tracks book-culture from manuscripts to e-books producing a smarter model for technological change, recasting methods of inquiry and initiating new international collaborations. Outcomes will provide digital access to rare and valuable medieval books and two new book-length studies.
Modernism and the Early Middle Ages. This project aims to understand how Modernist writers engaged with early mediaeval thought and texts.Literary Modernism draws heavily on medieval literature and thought, particularly Anglo-Saxon poetry, the Provençal poetry of the Troubadours, and Dante’s Divina Commedia – but little attention has been paid to their influence on Modernist writers. This project will use the transmission of late classical thought and such textual practices as linear commentarie ....Modernism and the Early Middle Ages. This project aims to understand how Modernist writers engaged with early mediaeval thought and texts.Literary Modernism draws heavily on medieval literature and thought, particularly Anglo-Saxon poetry, the Provençal poetry of the Troubadours, and Dante’s Divina Commedia – but little attention has been paid to their influence on Modernist writers. This project will use the transmission of late classical thought and such textual practices as linear commentaries and glossatory techniques to study Modernism and the High Middle Ages. The project expects to provide a foundation for and counterpart to the newly vibrant field of Modernism and the High Middle Ages.Read moreRead less
Strategic Friendship: Anglo-German Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific Region. This project aims to investigate the untold history of Anglo-German cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region through hitherto neglected German archival materials. These materials point to thriving and thick webs of mutual assistance in cultural, scientific, economic, military and political affairs that successfully weakened local sovereignty but ended abruptly with World War One. The project expects to produce a new history ....Strategic Friendship: Anglo-German Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific Region. This project aims to investigate the untold history of Anglo-German cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region through hitherto neglected German archival materials. These materials point to thriving and thick webs of mutual assistance in cultural, scientific, economic, military and political affairs that successfully weakened local sovereignty but ended abruptly with World War One. The project expects to produce a new history challenging century-long Anglophone understandings of Anglo-German antagonism in the Asia-Pacific region. Its benefits include providing new knowledge of the history of great power relations in the Asia-Pacific region and establishing an improved historical framework for understanding strategic cooperation in our region.Read moreRead less
How to Feel Safe at the End of the World. This project aims to provide the first history of how early modern families created conditions to feel safe in times of crisis, revealing how ideas of safety, security and hope for the future were conceived and put into practice. Its innovative research focus explores how histories, personal and national, inform psychosocial conditions of safety and security for families and build resilience within the next generation. Expected outcomes highlight the rol ....How to Feel Safe at the End of the World. This project aims to provide the first history of how early modern families created conditions to feel safe in times of crisis, revealing how ideas of safety, security and hope for the future were conceived and put into practice. Its innovative research focus explores how histories, personal and national, inform psychosocial conditions of safety and security for families and build resilience within the next generation. Expected outcomes highlight the role of families as agents of historical change and help parents, teachers, children and youth to manage anxiety, build hope and improve life opportunities. This historical perspective on a contemporary problem has the benefit of supporting families struggling with today's changing world.Read moreRead less
Sephardic Jews and the Untold Mediterranean. The objective of this project is to bring Sephardic Jewish traders and their networks into mainstream history of the late 18th and early 19th century Mediterranean region. In the Mediterranean, Christianity met Islam, imperial trajectories were tested and adapted, and national identities were formed in competition with others. Sephardic Jewish traders were central to these processes. This project seeks to create transformative narratives of the histor ....Sephardic Jews and the Untold Mediterranean. The objective of this project is to bring Sephardic Jewish traders and their networks into mainstream history of the late 18th and early 19th century Mediterranean region. In the Mediterranean, Christianity met Islam, imperial trajectories were tested and adapted, and national identities were formed in competition with others. Sephardic Jewish traders were central to these processes. This project seeks to create transformative narratives of the histories of imperialism, Jewish traders, and the Mediterranean: it links early-modern Sephardic Jewish networks with the place of Jews in colonial systems, and imperialism with the colonial world. In this way, it may deepen our understanding of the imperial stories behind recent globalisation.Read moreRead less