Cross-Cultural Lives: a Study of Narratives by Migrants Between Languages. This project examines recent autobiographies of non-English-speaking migrants to Australia and investigates ways in which immigrants into a new language are challenged to become different persons, and how particular individuals respond to this challenge. It combines the disciplines of literary, cultural and ethnic studies to address issues profoundly affecting Australia as a multi-ethnic society. It seeks to identify some ....Cross-Cultural Lives: a Study of Narratives by Migrants Between Languages. This project examines recent autobiographies of non-English-speaking migrants to Australia and investigates ways in which immigrants into a new language are challenged to become different persons, and how particular individuals respond to this challenge. It combines the disciplines of literary, cultural and ethnic studies to address issues profoundly affecting Australia as a multi-ethnic society. It seeks to identify some essential prerequisites for cross-culturally sensitive education programs, taking into account an individual's need for psychological and linguistic continuity. At the same time it opens a new theoretical perspective for literary and cross-cultural studies, based on close study of life-writing by migrants.Read moreRead less
Kadare post Communism: Albania, the Balkans and Europe in the Work of Ismail Kadare, 1990-2008. Albanians make up a small but important segment of multicultural Australia. Through the work of Albania's greatest writer and intellectual, Ismail Kadare, we can come to a better understanding of Albanians, their history and culture, and hence of Australia as a multicultural entity. Moreover traditionally Islamic Albania, with its Ottoman history and culture, is seeking inclusion into the European Uni ....Kadare post Communism: Albania, the Balkans and Europe in the Work of Ismail Kadare, 1990-2008. Albanians make up a small but important segment of multicultural Australia. Through the work of Albania's greatest writer and intellectual, Ismail Kadare, we can come to a better understanding of Albanians, their history and culture, and hence of Australia as a multicultural entity. Moreover traditionally Islamic Albania, with its Ottoman history and culture, is seeking inclusion into the European Union, Australia's major partner in trade, tourism, education and culture. Kadare's post-communist works on the subjects of Europe, Islam, Muslims and the West, and Balkan politics and history provide a valuable lesson on the interrelationships of politics, culture and patriotism in a global context for contemporary Australia.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE150101612
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$334,746.00
Summary
The republic of feeling: Literary friendship between women, 1750-1830. This project will investigate a rare archive of letters and manuscript materials to examine forms of literary friendship between women in the eighteenth century. This was a period of unprecedented globalisation: letter-based networks stretched across continents. Such connections were conceived in terms of a modern Republic of Letters, an idealised fraternity of scholars and writers who set aside differences in order to foster ....The republic of feeling: Literary friendship between women, 1750-1830. This project will investigate a rare archive of letters and manuscript materials to examine forms of literary friendship between women in the eighteenth century. This was a period of unprecedented globalisation: letter-based networks stretched across continents. Such connections were conceived in terms of a modern Republic of Letters, an idealised fraternity of scholars and writers who set aside differences in order to foster the exchange of information and ideas. This study of fresh manuscript materials will assist in exploring the history of English-speaking intellectual networks and international exchange in early modernity and the place of women within them. The project is located within the long history of global, material and intellectual exchanges in which European Australia was settled. Looking to the past, the project simultaneously contributes to contemporary debates over the possibilities and pitfalls of cultural ‘cosmopolitanism’ as a mode of transnational exchange.Read moreRead less
Local canons: institutional authority and the category of the literary in Australian secondary-school English syllabuses, 1901-2001. Does literature still have a role to play in contemporary Australian culture and society? Is there any national benefit from the study of Shakespeare? Patrick White? Is literary study irrelevant, and out of touch with contemporary culture? These are contentious and important questions. This research, in seeking a deeper and more detailed understanding of the variab ....Local canons: institutional authority and the category of the literary in Australian secondary-school English syllabuses, 1901-2001. Does literature still have a role to play in contemporary Australian culture and society? Is there any national benefit from the study of Shakespeare? Patrick White? Is literary study irrelevant, and out of touch with contemporary culture? These are contentious and important questions. This research, in seeking a deeper and more detailed understanding of the variability of the category of literature in Australian school education over the past century, promises to make an important contribution to long-standing and still vital national and international debates over the canon: debates that tell us a great deal about our region and the world.Read moreRead less
A critical study of the works of V.S. Naipaul. This project aims to study V.S. Naipaul, whose books defy the protocols of post-colonial theory. Literature students have met Naipaul’s books with outright denigration and unnerving silence, leading to an absence of serious engagement with the genesis of his works and their relationship to post-colonial criticism. This project will emphasise post-colonial texts rather than post-colonial theory and criticism. It will use the Naipaul Tulsa archive to ....A critical study of the works of V.S. Naipaul. This project aims to study V.S. Naipaul, whose books defy the protocols of post-colonial theory. Literature students have met Naipaul’s books with outright denigration and unnerving silence, leading to an absence of serious engagement with the genesis of his works and their relationship to post-colonial criticism. This project will emphasise post-colonial texts rather than post-colonial theory and criticism. It will use the Naipaul Tulsa archive to uncover the difficulty in the material itself. A close reading of textual variants, their transmission and reception is expected to show a post-colonial writer's struggle with form, aesthetics and ideology.Read moreRead less
A textual and critical study of Charlotte Brontë. This project aims to reinterpret Charlotte Brontë’s original novels, which are stranger, more unsettling, and more artistically and socially challenging than the available editions lead readers to believe. This strangeness, so apparent in her manuscripts, is moderated in all print versions of the novels because Brontë’s punctuation was radically altered by the printers who altered them for the first editions, with profound effects on the novels a ....A textual and critical study of Charlotte Brontë. This project aims to reinterpret Charlotte Brontë’s original novels, which are stranger, more unsettling, and more artistically and socially challenging than the available editions lead readers to believe. This strangeness, so apparent in her manuscripts, is moderated in all print versions of the novels because Brontë’s punctuation was radically altered by the printers who altered them for the first editions, with profound effects on the novels and their interpretation. This project will restore the original versions in a new scholarly print/digital edition, reproduce them along with the print versions in an innovative online critical archive of Brontë texts and contexts and analyse them in a book-length reinterpretation of the novels. In collaboration with prestigious international cultural institutions including The British Library, Morgan Library and Brontë Parsonage Museum, this project will create new ways for the general public to engage closely with some of the most important and least accessible documents of western literary heritage.
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Mission texts and the representation of Africa in America 1870-1914. Australia is now firmly linked to America in cultural and political terms. This project helps us to understand how American attitudes to overseas expansion came about in the period when America was expanding its control on its own continent and in the world at large. Explanations of this to date have neglected to examine the role of religious organisations and texts in promoting the ideas of other peoples and cultures which fo ....Mission texts and the representation of Africa in America 1870-1914. Australia is now firmly linked to America in cultural and political terms. This project helps us to understand how American attitudes to overseas expansion came about in the period when America was expanding its control on its own continent and in the world at large. Explanations of this to date have neglected to examine the role of religious organisations and texts in promoting the ideas of other peoples and cultures which formed America's modern attitude to the world beyond its shores. As religion becomes increasingly recognised as a powerful factor in identity politics this project helps us to understand the roots of this connection and apply the knowledge to our current situation.Read moreRead less
Keats's Anatomy of Melancholy: Poems (1820) as a unified volume. The primary aim of this proposal is to research and publish the first sustained critical study of John Keats's important collection of poems, 'Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes, And Other Poems' (1820). Considered as a volume in its own right, the collection exhibits principles of thematic and aesthetic unity as yet unnoticed. Whereas other books on Keats's poetry invariably deal with individual poems in the chronological order ....Keats's Anatomy of Melancholy: Poems (1820) as a unified volume. The primary aim of this proposal is to research and publish the first sustained critical study of John Keats's important collection of poems, 'Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes, And Other Poems' (1820). Considered as a volume in its own right, the collection exhibits principles of thematic and aesthetic unity as yet unnoticed. Whereas other books on Keats's poetry invariably deal with individual poems in the chronological order of their composition, this project aims to focus on Keats's shaping of the contents into a considered structure, grounded in themes that create a unified whole and provide a new context for the individual poems.Read moreRead less
Australian literature after Mabo. This project explores how property law concepts shape literary visions of the land in Australia, and how cultural stories about land shape property law. The project is especially interested in identifying how the recognition of native title in Australian law is anticipated and then reflected in Australian Literature.
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE110100198
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$600,000.00
Summary
Digital humanities practice in Australian literary studies: data development, structural enhancement and open access innovation - AustLit phase 4. AustLit is a comprehensive digital resource providing quality, searchable information for researchers, teachers, students and the general public in the broadly defined areas of Australian literature and print culture. This new phase of the database will support enhanced content creation and research capacity and will allow AustLit to change to a compl ....Digital humanities practice in Australian literary studies: data development, structural enhancement and open access innovation - AustLit phase 4. AustLit is a comprehensive digital resource providing quality, searchable information for researchers, teachers, students and the general public in the broadly defined areas of Australian literature and print culture. This new phase of the database will support enhanced content creation and research capacity and will allow AustLit to change to a completely open access platform.Read moreRead less