The Double Revolution : Decline and Renewal in French Narrative Art from Celine to Godard. This study will offer new insight into contemporary France - and increased knowledge of the ongoing development of a major world culture is a significant benefit in itself. France's long-standing status as a great centre of civilisation makes it a vital focal point for understanding the implications of global change. Australia's cultural connections to Europe remain crucial to the continuing construction o ....The Double Revolution : Decline and Renewal in French Narrative Art from Celine to Godard. This study will offer new insight into contemporary France - and increased knowledge of the ongoing development of a major world culture is a significant benefit in itself. France's long-standing status as a great centre of civilisation makes it a vital focal point for understanding the implications of global change. Australia's cultural connections to Europe remain crucial to the continuing construction of our own identity, and in this context too, the French example is highly salient. The study will also constitute a valuable Australian contribution to world research, enhancing the nation's already solid international reputation in French studies.
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Jean Rhys: Her Literary Career. In recent decades Jean Rhys (1890-1979) has become an iconic (post) colonial modernist author. With fresh major archival finds, close work on manuscript materials, and new scholarship on location, this project will reposition her literary career. Innovative approaches to Rhys’s affiliations with other writers and artists and her interest in popular cultures feature in the research methodology. The project addresses the ways that the reception of Rhys’s fiction ove ....Jean Rhys: Her Literary Career. In recent decades Jean Rhys (1890-1979) has become an iconic (post) colonial modernist author. With fresh major archival finds, close work on manuscript materials, and new scholarship on location, this project will reposition her literary career. Innovative approaches to Rhys’s affiliations with other writers and artists and her interest in popular cultures feature in the research methodology. The project addresses the ways that the reception of Rhys’s fiction over time and across cultures may be read, creative engagements with Rhys, and biographical responsibility. Projected publications include a scholarly monograph; articles; a digital knowledge site; and contributions to an international collaborative project on interculturality. Read moreRead less
Folio Shakespeare texts and their Quarto and Octavo antecedents. This project aims to use statistical methods to assess different versions of Shakepeare’s plays. The Shakespeare First Folio is the most important source for the texts of Shakespeare's plays, but the dates of some Folio and rival versions, and the nature of their transmission from an original manuscript, are disputed. There is uncertainty whether some highly divergent versions represent authorial revisions, or adaptations for readi ....Folio Shakespeare texts and their Quarto and Octavo antecedents. This project aims to use statistical methods to assess different versions of Shakepeare’s plays. The Shakespeare First Folio is the most important source for the texts of Shakespeare's plays, but the dates of some Folio and rival versions, and the nature of their transmission from an original manuscript, are disputed. There is uncertainty whether some highly divergent versions represent authorial revisions, or adaptations for reading, or for touring, or simply corruption through careless copying. This project plans to conduct a statistical analysis of the language of the 18 plays that appear both in the Folio and in previous Quarto versions, focusing on patterns of word use and orthography, to provide a better understanding of the Folio and new evidence about the texts of individual plays.Read moreRead less
Enduring diversity: a history of multilingualism in Italy. This project will question several assumptions which have shaped the official histories of language as well as the language policies of several major European countries. This will be a useful contribution to debates on social policy in a country like Australia with its varied migrant populations, since the place of languages other than English often arises in debates on education, immigration and provision of social services at State and ....Enduring diversity: a history of multilingualism in Italy. This project will question several assumptions which have shaped the official histories of language as well as the language policies of several major European countries. This will be a useful contribution to debates on social policy in a country like Australia with its varied migrant populations, since the place of languages other than English often arises in debates on education, immigration and provision of social services at State and Federal level. Italian is still the most widely spoken language in Australia after English, and a new understanding of the history of language in Italy will contribute to a deeper awareness of the realities and problems of migrants and their descendants here.Read moreRead less
Literary romanticism and the media of romantic love: a cultural history, 1774-1840. This project will produce a groundbreaking cultural history of romantic love that analyses romantic love not as a feeling but as a code of communication. Correlating the democratisation of that code with the emergence of Romanticism, it will advance Romanticism Studies by examining how literary Romanticism mediates the culture of romantic love.
Metaphor and Mind: Literary Texts, Cultural Transmission, and How We Think about the Mind. This project will make a significant contribution to national and international research on both literary language and the mind. Its wide applicability will boost Australia's international reputation in interdisciplinary research. The project is also of more general public interest in that it probes why, despite major advances in scientific understanding, we are as likely as Chaucer and Shakespeare were to ....Metaphor and Mind: Literary Texts, Cultural Transmission, and How We Think about the Mind. This project will make a significant contribution to national and international research on both literary language and the mind. Its wide applicability will boost Australia's international reputation in interdisciplinary research. The project is also of more general public interest in that it probes why, despite major advances in scientific understanding, we are as likely as Chaucer and Shakespeare were to describe the mind as 'wandering' or as a compartmentalised storehouse. In providing a new perspective to the study of the mind and metaphor, this project will reposition current debate about language use and cultural memory and contribute to knowledge of fundamental, wide-ranging relevance. Read moreRead less
New transnationalisms: Australia's multilingual literary heritage. This project will record, analyse and theorise Australian literary activity in four key languages other than English: Arabic, Chinese, Spanish and Vietnamese. The outcomes will significantly increase knowledge of the transnational dimensions of Australian writing in these languages and wider access to this writing through bilingual anthologies.
Modernism and the British secret state. The purpose of the project is to explore interactions between modernist culture and intelligence agencies such as Military Intelligence, Section 5. It opens an exciting new field for modernist scholarship, and the resulting book will make an important contribution to the broader understanding of the process of government surveillance and its impact upon literature and culture.
Technology, identity and human relations: the posthuman subject in children's literature, television and film, 1950-2010. This project will produce a pioneering study of technology as represented in children's literature, television and film from 1950-2010, exploring how these narratives seek to legitimise particular ideologies about the relationship between technology, identity and social relationships.
Locating science fiction. The project will devise and develop a new 'cultural materialist' paradigm for science fiction studies and apply it to a case study of science fictional representations of catastrophe, especially nuclear war, plague and extreme climate change.