A Generic Study of Colette's Short Writing. The study uses "genre" as a key to a literary-historical account of Colette's short writing in its cultural context. The corpus is generically ambiguous, since it first appeared as "articles" in magazines and was later collected in volumes, thus acquiring a more "literary" status as "essays". Taking into account both the conditions of publication and the rhetoric of these pieces, I shall investigate the network of cultural relations in which they parti ....A Generic Study of Colette's Short Writing. The study uses "genre" as a key to a literary-historical account of Colette's short writing in its cultural context. The corpus is generically ambiguous, since it first appeared as "articles" in magazines and was later collected in volumes, thus acquiring a more "literary" status as "essays". Taking into account both the conditions of publication and the rhetoric of these pieces, I shall investigate the network of cultural relations in which they participate, and their command of their readership. This will show how Colette made a place for "women's knowledge" in public culture and what that place was.Read moreRead less
The Making of the Australian Middlebrow: Nationalism, Modernity and Middlebrow Culture in Australia. This project aims to investigate the history of middlebrow cultural values and institutions in 20th-century Australia. It will be the first such study, and will build on recent major international work on the middlebrow. Reading Australian cultural history through the concept of the middlebrow will revise familar assumptions about literature, nationalism and modernity in Australia. The study will ....The Making of the Australian Middlebrow: Nationalism, Modernity and Middlebrow Culture in Australia. This project aims to investigate the history of middlebrow cultural values and institutions in 20th-century Australia. It will be the first such study, and will build on recent major international work on the middlebrow. Reading Australian cultural history through the concept of the middlebrow will revise familar assumptions about literature, nationalism and modernity in Australia. The study will examine the rich archive of Australian magazines, newspaper review pages, writer and reader associations and publishing records. It will engage theoretically with contemporary theories of popular culture and modernity. The outcome will be a monograph on middlebrow culture in Australia.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
New Electronic Archives for Australian Literature. Information capacity in Australian literary studies has been dramatically expanded by national investment in electronic archives, while trends in the discipline increasingly demand empirical support for claims about literary history and literary value. At the same time, research about Australian literature remains primarily theoretical, insufficiently informed by newly available data. This project aims to further enrich the new data sets, and to ....New Electronic Archives for Australian Literature. Information capacity in Australian literary studies has been dramatically expanded by national investment in electronic archives, while trends in the discipline increasingly demand empirical support for claims about literary history and literary value. At the same time, research about Australian literature remains primarily theoretical, insufficiently informed by newly available data. This project aims to further enrich the new data sets, and to use them in an innovative return to the classical issues in Australian literary criticism and history. It will provide demonstration applications of data in new electronic archives.Read moreRead less
Secularisation and British literature, 1600-1800. This project uses a new model of European secularisation, to develop an innovative account of British literary history in the 17th and 18th centuries. It shows that important literary movements and genres in the period knew no opposition between religion and secularity, thereby enabling a more nuanced understanding of secularisation.
Letters between Vance and Nettie Palmer, 1909-1959: The Complete Correspondence. Nettie and Vance Palmer were two highly influential national figures, of considerable significance in literary and cultural circles especially in the inter-war period. This project, the preparation of Collected Letters, will considerably extend knowledge of their public contribution to cultural production in Australia and also of their private lives. It will provide a vital reference tool for historians, literary ....Letters between Vance and Nettie Palmer, 1909-1959: The Complete Correspondence. Nettie and Vance Palmer were two highly influential national figures, of considerable significance in literary and cultural circles especially in the inter-war period. This project, the preparation of Collected Letters, will considerably extend knowledge of their public contribution to cultural production in Australia and also of their private lives. It will provide a vital reference tool for historians, literary critics, biographers and scholars as well as be entertaining and compelling for the general reader. As a highly innovative example of the genre of the edited letter, in retrieving these writings of two gifted individuals, Australia's cultural heritage will be enriched.Read moreRead less
The Reading Culture of Interwar Australia. This project - an historical study of reading in Australia between the Wars (1920-1940) - will provide a basis for revaluing reading, and reasserting its role in English teaching and in the broader Australian community as a creative, educative and pleasurable activity in its own right. It also contributes to the ongoing process of recovering the international dimension present (but often overlooked) in much of Australia's early history. Finally, it will ....The Reading Culture of Interwar Australia. This project - an historical study of reading in Australia between the Wars (1920-1940) - will provide a basis for revaluing reading, and reasserting its role in English teaching and in the broader Australian community as a creative, educative and pleasurable activity in its own right. It also contributes to the ongoing process of recovering the international dimension present (but often overlooked) in much of Australia's early history. Finally, it will generate a wealth of reading-experience data for use in establishing an Australian Reading Experience Database, a major new resource - only the second of its kind in the world - for national and international research on the history of reading in 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 Cultural Impact of Irregular Marriage in the Age of British Colonialism, 1660-c.1860. Marriage has always been central to our understanding of relations between literature, society and culture. This project significantly revises that understanding by focussing on the irregular marriage practices which thrived in Britain and its colonies from 1660 to c.1860. It demonstrates, for instance, how the novel genre became respectable partly by marginalising irregular marriages; how Gretna Green we ....The Cultural Impact of Irregular Marriage in the Age of British Colonialism, 1660-c.1860. Marriage has always been central to our understanding of relations between literature, society and culture. This project significantly revises that understanding by focussing on the irregular marriage practices which thrived in Britain and its colonies from 1660 to c.1860. It demonstrates, for instance, how the novel genre became respectable partly by marginalising irregular marriages; how Gretna Green weddings came to typify modern romance in drama and fiction; and how marriage regulations underpinned literary portrayals of civil society in the Australian penal colony. It will deliver a groundbreaking monograph which accounts for marriage's role in modern literary culture in new terms.Read moreRead less
Games and decisions with bounded rationality: theory and economic implications. This project will develop concepts and tools for decision making in complex environments, where it is impossible to fully characterise the possible outcomes and factors that may affect them. A central goal will be to integrate heuristic rules such as the precautionary principle with the more formal approach adopted in benefit-cost analysis.