Reverse Diaspora: Australian Expatriate Writers in Britain since the 1830s. The changing relations between Australia and Britain are explored in this project through writers of literature and drama. Reverse Diaspora explores the aspirations, problems and achievements of eighty expatriate Australians who have chosen to live and work in Britain since the early nineteenth century. From one point of view they represent a 'brain drain'; from another they are exporters of Australian ideas, experience ....Reverse Diaspora: Australian Expatriate Writers in Britain since the 1830s. The changing relations between Australia and Britain are explored in this project through writers of literature and drama. Reverse Diaspora explores the aspirations, problems and achievements of eighty expatriate Australians who have chosen to live and work in Britain since the early nineteenth century. From one point of view they represent a 'brain drain'; from another they are exporters of Australian ideas, experience and talent. This study will increase knowledge and understanding of the lives, creative achievements and public impact of Australians abroad. It will enhance Australians' capacity to interpret their national culture in their region and the world.Read moreRead less
A History of the Uses of Imagination and Authority in Australia, 1870-1919. This project is designed as the third and final stage of a process of connected research on the subject of European settlement in Australia. The work will focus especially on themes of oral and literary communication and the resulting sense of place and community. Prevailing attitudes to and uses of authority will be a central theme. The project will also draw together much recent work on the period leading up to the ....A History of the Uses of Imagination and Authority in Australia, 1870-1919. This project is designed as the third and final stage of a process of connected research on the subject of European settlement in Australia. The work will focus especially on themes of oral and literary communication and the resulting sense of place and community. Prevailing attitudes to and uses of authority will be a central theme. The project will also draw together much recent work on the period leading up to the federation of the Australian colonies, federation itself and World War One and in the process will explore continuities with earlier periods of Australian history.Read moreRead less
Reconceptualising Heritage Collections: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Museum Collections and Documentation. Museums worldwide are responding to technical advances in digital media. Collection databases and their availability on the World Wide Web are part of this initiative. The potential scope for collections documentation has been transformed by digital technologies, but in reality this has not been matched by the quality of information held in databases - its relationship to current knowled ....Reconceptualising Heritage Collections: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Museum Collections and Documentation. Museums worldwide are responding to technical advances in digital media. Collection databases and their availability on the World Wide Web are part of this initiative. The potential scope for collections documentation has been transformed by digital technologies, but in reality this has not been matched by the quality of information held in databases - its relationship to current knowledge, the needs of online users and new interdisciplinary approaches to material culture research. This project will reconceptualise museum collections acquisition, documentation practices, create a new multidisciplinary multimedia knowledge structure and reform museum practice to address these issues to greatly enhance the value of collections.Read moreRead less
Faith into Words: the entanglement of religion, politics and poetry in the work of Vincent Buckley. This project will explore poetry of Vincent Buckley, which is grounded in a conception of a God incarnate in the world and its people that impacted directly on Australia's secular culture and politics, and continues to offer to both secular and religious readers a way towards an inclusive human community.
Evaluating the Australian Popular Fiction Archive: A Definitive Critical History and Bibliography of Early to Late Colonial Genre Writing. This project analyses and evaluates Australian popular or genre fiction from the early to the late colonial period: from around the 1840s to the beginning of World War Two. It will chart a comprehensive history of colonial Australian genre fiction for the first time, producing two critical monographs and an online bibliography and digital archive which will f ....Evaluating the Australian Popular Fiction Archive: A Definitive Critical History and Bibliography of Early to Late Colonial Genre Writing. This project analyses and evaluates Australian popular or genre fiction from the early to the late colonial period: from around the 1840s to the beginning of World War Two. It will chart a comprehensive history of colonial Australian genre fiction for the first time, producing two critical monographs and an online bibliography and digital archive which will function as major reading, research and teaching resources. Understanding colonial popular fiction as a field of writing that expressed colonial sensibilities and performed colonial predicaments, this project will also demonstrate the formative role it played in the task of settlement and nation building.Read moreRead less
Cities of Words: Women's cultures of reading and writing in colonial Melbourne and beyond. This project will promote community awareness of the honour bestowed upon Melbourne and Australia by the United Nations, by uncovering the foundations of Melbourne's literary cultures and situating them nationally and internationally. By showing that Melbourne has ever been a city of words it will provide impetus for present and future literary activity, and enhance the understanding of the cultural life o ....Cities of Words: Women's cultures of reading and writing in colonial Melbourne and beyond. This project will promote community awareness of the honour bestowed upon Melbourne and Australia by the United Nations, by uncovering the foundations of Melbourne's literary cultures and situating them nationally and internationally. By showing that Melbourne has ever been a city of words it will provide impetus for present and future literary activity, and enhance the understanding of the cultural life of the city and the country. It takes part in an international conversation about the transcultural importance of books, reading and writing, staking a claim for Melbourne, and Australia, in the global exchange of ideas.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
A Social History of Australian English. This is a study of the development of attitudes towards Australian English in the period 1788 to 2000. It will demonstrate the significance of the growth of Australian English as a marker of national identity in the nineteenth century, the suppression of Australian English in the first half of the twentieth century, and the acceptance of Australian English in the second half of the twentieth century. The completed study, in the form of a book, will lead to ....A Social History of Australian English. This is a study of the development of attitudes towards Australian English in the period 1788 to 2000. It will demonstrate the significance of the growth of Australian English as a marker of national identity in the nineteenth century, the suppression of Australian English in the first half of the twentieth century, and the acceptance of Australian English in the second half of the twentieth century. The completed study, in the form of a book, will lead to a new understanding of the role Australian English has played in Australia's social, political, and cultural history.
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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 travel writing in Australian colonial history. Travel writing is a key mechanism by which readers learn about other peoples and cultures, a genre that is crucial to the formation of identities, ideologies, and ideas. Australian travel writing provided foundational texts for those emigrating to the colony. This project positions Australian texts within an international comparative sphere. It will advance the understanding of colonial culture in Australia, and of the perceptions and val ....A study of travel writing in Australian colonial history. Travel writing is a key mechanism by which readers learn about other peoples and cultures, a genre that is crucial to the formation of identities, ideologies, and ideas. Australian travel writing provided foundational texts for those emigrating to the colony. This project positions Australian texts within an international comparative sphere. It will advance the understanding of colonial culture in Australia, and of the perceptions and values of those who settled colonial Australia. It will make available to Australian and international students and researchers a rich archive of texts that have not been previously mapped. Australians are keenly interested in travel and its literature, and this project brings colonial travel texts to public attention.Read moreRead less