Eliza Haywood and Daniel Defoe: gender, genre and nation in the Eighteenth-Century novel. This is the first study of the significant, but unaccounted for, parallels between Defoe and Haywood's careers. This research provides a new perspective on the origins of the eighteenth-century novel by challenging the binary of realism and romance that organises its critical history and interrogating the relation between novel and nation.
Anglo-Saxon literary patronage: origins and development. Literature in English began more than a thousand years ago with the Anglo-Saxons, whose greatest work, the epic poem 'Beowulf', marked the transition from an oral poetic tradition to written literature. This project is the first to examine the relationship between patrons and writers in the creation of the earliest English literature and its books.
Romantic Literary Celebrity and the Emergence of Modern Literary Culture, 1798-1910. This project will produce the first full-length study of Romantic literary celebrity (1798-1910). It will argue that a new form of literary fame emerged in the Romantic era, which required developed cultural and media markets. Romantic literary fame helped shape modern institutions of literary production and reception around tensions between popular cultures of celebrity and publicity and high-cultural concepts ....Romantic Literary Celebrity and the Emergence of Modern Literary Culture, 1798-1910. This project will produce the first full-length study of Romantic literary celebrity (1798-1910). It will argue that a new form of literary fame emerged in the Romantic era, which required developed cultural and media markets. Romantic literary fame helped shape modern institutions of literary production and reception around tensions between popular cultures of celebrity and publicity and high-cultural concepts of the literary artist. Using cultural history and cultural theory, the project examines transformations in the history of literary celebrity from its emergence to the modernist period by analysing intersections between literary culture and wider structures of sociability and sexuality.Read moreRead less
Linguistic individuation in the plays of Shakespeare and his peers, 1576-1599. The question of how differently each speaker or writer uses language is important in everything from plagiarism to the definition of artistic genius. The project makes Shakespearean drama before 1600 a definitive test case of this wider problem of individuality in language. Australians are inheritors of the Western tradition of individual self-determination and self-expression; the project will help clarify one of the ....Linguistic individuation in the plays of Shakespeare and his peers, 1576-1599. The question of how differently each speaker or writer uses language is important in everything from plagiarism to the definition of artistic genius. The project makes Shakespearean drama before 1600 a definitive test case of this wider problem of individuality in language. Australians are inheritors of the Western tradition of individual self-determination and self-expression; the project will help clarify one of the main assumptions behind this tradition. Australia is also an inheritor of the English-language culture of which Shakespeare is a key element, and the project will enrich the understanding of this culture through new light on his beginnings.Read moreRead less
Journalism on the Move: The Special Correspondent and Victorian Print Culture. This project brings the 'special correspondent' into critical focus as an important journalistic role in Victorian print culture and thereby recovers a significant part of Australia's cultural inheritance. Two of the 'specials' who form a focus for my study visited Australia and wrote about it; and the nineteenth-century debates that surrounded their highly popular, descriptive style of journalism continue today in co ....Journalism on the Move: The Special Correspondent and Victorian Print Culture. This project brings the 'special correspondent' into critical focus as an important journalistic role in Victorian print culture and thereby recovers a significant part of Australia's cultural inheritance. Two of the 'specials' who form a focus for my study visited Australia and wrote about it; and the nineteenth-century debates that surrounded their highly popular, descriptive style of journalism continue today in controversies surrounding the relationship between fact and fiction in Australian print culture. My project will bring these hitherto neglected connections to light and strengthen Australia's standing within the expanding international field of research in Victorian periodicals and newspapers.Read moreRead less
Shakespeare, the Early Modern Theatre and Computational Stylistics. The investigators aim to answer some central questions in Shakespearean drama through a collaborative study combining computational and traditional methods. They will explore areas not hitherto studied with computational means, such as the nature of collaboration in the drama writing of the period, and intertextual relations between source material and plays, as well as long-standing questions in authorship and dating. Statistic ....Shakespeare, the Early Modern Theatre and Computational Stylistics. The investigators aim to answer some central questions in Shakespearean drama through a collaborative study combining computational and traditional methods. They will explore areas not hitherto studied with computational means, such as the nature of collaboration in the drama writing of the period, and intertextual relations between source material and plays, as well as long-standing questions in authorship and dating. Statistical and corpus-based results will be aligned with scholarly-critical evidence to provide findings of exceptional authority, and to establish a new paradigm for humanities research. The main outcome will be a jointly authored book.Read moreRead less
Mary Wroth: A Contextual Biography and Electronic Edition. This project will result in the biography of a remarkable early modern woman: Lady Mary Wroth. Wroth was an extremely talented writer who produced a huge prose romance, poetry and a pastoral play, and the project will also involve the production of an electronic edition of her writing. No biography of Wroth exists, and the contextual biography which I will write will offer many insights into early Jacobean society and culture. As a whole ....Mary Wroth: A Contextual Biography and Electronic Edition. This project will result in the biography of a remarkable early modern woman: Lady Mary Wroth. Wroth was an extremely talented writer who produced a huge prose romance, poetry and a pastoral play, and the project will also involve the production of an electronic edition of her writing. No biography of Wroth exists, and the contextual biography which I will write will offer many insights into early Jacobean society and culture. As a whole, the project will enhance Australia's strong research contribution to the key area of early modern studies.Read moreRead less
A study of the impact of human agency in Shakespeare on Western culture and society. The project is important to the international reputation of English Literature scholarship and to the continuing development of Shakespearean studies in Australia. It will augment a growing area of research, the study of Early Modern Europe, that has achieved critical mass in this country, as reflected by the establishment in 2005 of the ARC Network for Early European Research. The project will contribute to o ....A study of the impact of human agency in Shakespeare on Western culture and society. The project is important to the international reputation of English Literature scholarship and to the continuing development of Shakespearean studies in Australia. It will augment a growing area of research, the study of Early Modern Europe, that has achieved critical mass in this country, as reflected by the establishment in 2005 of the ARC Network for Early European Research. The project will contribute to our knowledge of the history of the ideal of personal and collective autonomy or self-determination, an ideal absolutely central to Australian culture. Grasping the rich genealogy and historical context of this formative and essential ideal is vital to understanding our national identity.Read moreRead less
Complexions of Empire: racial ideology, West Indian slavery and British romanticism. The aim is to undertake a major interdisciplinary study of British culture and colonialism in the 18th century, with a particular focus on identity formation, the development of racial ideology, and the rhetoric of abolitionism. By focussing on the representation of the West Indies and West Indian social identity and customs, in the context of social conditions in England, the project will advance our current un ....Complexions of Empire: racial ideology, West Indian slavery and British romanticism. The aim is to undertake a major interdisciplinary study of British culture and colonialism in the 18th century, with a particular focus on identity formation, the development of racial ideology, and the rhetoric of abolitionism. By focussing on the representation of the West Indies and West Indian social identity and customs, in the context of social conditions in England, the project will advance our current understanding of the dynamic of metropolitan/colonial relations.Read moreRead less
War, Literary Culture and Masculinity in Romantic Period Britain, 1750-1850. The Romantic period represents a formative moment in the history of Australia and my reconsideration of Romantic culture and war has relevance for understanding this history. Australia's own experience of war first originated with the frontier wars of 1788-1838. My research into British Romantic military and naval war writing will provide key insights into the military culture that dominated this formative moment of Aus ....War, Literary Culture and Masculinity in Romantic Period Britain, 1750-1850. The Romantic period represents a formative moment in the history of Australia and my reconsideration of Romantic culture and war has relevance for understanding this history. Australia's own experience of war first originated with the frontier wars of 1788-1838. My research into British Romantic military and naval war writing will provide key insights into the military culture that dominated this formative moment of Australian military history. War has, more broadly, been pivotal in the formation of Australian nationhood and identity. My project will contribute to our understanding of the role of war in Australian culture by providing fresh insight into the historical role of war writing in constructing modern forms of identity.Read moreRead less