Anglos Abroad: Memoirs of Immersion in a Foreign Language and Culture. A study of Anglophone narratives of language immersion offers a significant intellectual resource for thinking about ways in which Australian non-immigrant selves are shaped by culture and language: an issue with important implications for just practises within a wide range of national institutions and agencies, including education, immigration and social work. It thus contributes to the priority goal of strengthening Austral ....Anglos Abroad: Memoirs of Immersion in a Foreign Language and Culture. A study of Anglophone narratives of language immersion offers a significant intellectual resource for thinking about ways in which Australian non-immigrant selves are shaped by culture and language: an issue with important implications for just practises within a wide range of national institutions and agencies, including education, immigration and social work. It thus contributes to the priority goal of strengthening Australia's social and economic fabric (Research Priority 2). It also contributes to enhancing our capacity to interpret and engage with our region and the world through a greater understanding of other languages and cultures (Research Priority 4).Read moreRead less
Exploration and Nation: the Cultural Impact of Exploration Literature from the Cook Voyages to the 'Novara' Circumnavigation. This comparative analysis of the cultural impact of the Cook voyages and the lavishly state-sponsored "Novara" expedition will improve our understanding of the international entanglements that affected the course of our history. Examining the broad cultural impact of publications about Pacific exploration will offer valuable new insights into the cross-fertilisations betw ....Exploration and Nation: the Cultural Impact of Exploration Literature from the Cook Voyages to the 'Novara' Circumnavigation. This comparative analysis of the cultural impact of the Cook voyages and the lavishly state-sponsored "Novara" expedition will improve our understanding of the international entanglements that affected the course of our history. Examining the broad cultural impact of publications about Pacific exploration will offer valuable new insights into the cross-fertilisations between colonisation and the formation of 19th-century nation states. A detailed study of how European nations employed the publication industry in their competition for colonial control will illuminate the conflicts over the boundaries of nation and empire and enhance the understanding of prominent issues in Australian humanities research.Read moreRead less
Hannah Arendt, Émigré Intellectuals, and the Ethos of World Literature. My project will bring an inspiring movement of ethical resistance to the dehumanising forces of fascism, nationalism, and parochialism to the Australian public's attention. It will help ensure that Australia, a nation that now successfully exports its literature to the world, is also at the centre of a fruitful dialogue about methods of research and interpretation appropriate to the study of the world's literatures. It will ....Hannah Arendt, Émigré Intellectuals, and the Ethos of World Literature. My project will bring an inspiring movement of ethical resistance to the dehumanising forces of fascism, nationalism, and parochialism to the Australian public's attention. It will help ensure that Australia, a nation that now successfully exports its literature to the world, is also at the centre of a fruitful dialogue about methods of research and interpretation appropriate to the study of the world's literatures. It will address the relative paucity of the historiography and theory of comparative literature in Australian Universities and suggest the educational and moral value of comparative literature studies for future generations of Australian students.Read moreRead less
Future fables: literature, evolution and artificial intelligence. The future of AI is a site of considerable philosophical and cultural anxiety in the West. Given the future of AI is currently only available to publics through literary or fictional tropes, it is vital that we investigate the historical evolution of these literary or fictional tropes of AI to understand its future direction. This project aims to understand (1) how the post-Darwinian literary imagination has shaped our current anx ....Future fables: literature, evolution and artificial intelligence. The future of AI is a site of considerable philosophical and cultural anxiety in the West. Given the future of AI is currently only available to publics through literary or fictional tropes, it is vital that we investigate the historical evolution of these literary or fictional tropes of AI to understand its future direction. This project aims to understand (1) how the post-Darwinian literary imagination has shaped our current anxieties about AI and (2) how literary and scientific writers after Darwin rethink the future of the human species by imagining the co-evolution of humans, animals and machines. Expected outcomes of the project include conceptual resources to understand the human-nonhuman relation and the future of AI.Read moreRead less
Globalising Masculine Ideals: Chinese Men in Australia since 1980. This project explores how masculinity is constructed in present-day Australia amongst the Chinese diaspora and how these constructions have been and are being transformed. It follows from my recent research on the wen-wu (cultural attainment - martial valour) dyad as a Chinese masculinity ideal. My hypothesis in this project is that the traditional stereotypes continue their influence among the Chinese diaspora, but with salient ....Globalising Masculine Ideals: Chinese Men in Australia since 1980. This project explores how masculinity is constructed in present-day Australia amongst the Chinese diaspora and how these constructions have been and are being transformed. It follows from my recent research on the wen-wu (cultural attainment - martial valour) dyad as a Chinese masculinity ideal. My hypothesis in this project is that the traditional stereotypes continue their influence among the Chinese diaspora, but with salient modifications. The traditional primacy of wen is being contested when wen-wu is transplanted onto the Australian context. The findings, to be published as a book and articles, will shed new light on the evolving Chinese masculine identity.Read moreRead less
Gender, sexuality and class as represented in the literature associated with adultery trials in Britain c.1760-1830. Using an interdisciplinary methodology, this project will examine the texts relating to trials for adultery in Britain c.1760-1830. While they have been examined by historians of divorce, the trials have not been studied in their own right. They illuminate issues of gender and sexuality; the history of the book; Georgian architecture, domesticity and household structures; urban c ....Gender, sexuality and class as represented in the literature associated with adultery trials in Britain c.1760-1830. Using an interdisciplinary methodology, this project will examine the texts relating to trials for adultery in Britain c.1760-1830. While they have been examined by historians of divorce, the trials have not been studied in their own right. They illuminate issues of gender and sexuality; the history of the book; Georgian architecture, domesticity and household structures; urban culture, particularly leisure and sociability; master-servant relations; and class relations, particularly the impact of the rise of professional groups. The project will investigate the meanings of adultery as a contribution to the histories of sexuality, the public sphere and gender.Read moreRead less
The world novel, distant suffering and humanitarian sensibility after 1989. As war and terror flicker across our televisions, writers like Rushdie, McEwan and Hosseini have turned the novel into a global form, expressing a new humanitarian ethic. This project explores the makings of these World Novels across sites of ongoing global conflict, and traces their plea for sympathy back to the novel's beginnings, in the eighteenth-century.
Early modern women and the poetry of complaint, 1540-1660. This project aims to discover how early modern women used the widespread, powerful and diverse mode of complaint to voice expressions of protest and loss during the English Renaissance. The project will highlight women’s roles as writers, patrons and textual producers and consumers of the mode of complaint. The project expects to uncover how the imagined voices of the disempowered shaped the literary and political cultures of early moder ....Early modern women and the poetry of complaint, 1540-1660. This project aims to discover how early modern women used the widespread, powerful and diverse mode of complaint to voice expressions of protest and loss during the English Renaissance. The project will highlight women’s roles as writers, patrons and textual producers and consumers of the mode of complaint. The project expects to uncover how the imagined voices of the disempowered shaped the literary and political cultures of early modern England. Reconceptualising a mode in Renaissance literature will benefit Australia's standing at the forefront of research in early modern studies.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
The early woman writer, 1530-1660. This project aims to provide a literary history of women’s textual practice in the English Renaissance. This project will examine the scope, content and purpose of early modern women’s writing to make new discoveries about reading, writing and book use in the period when book production and distribution was first appearing on a larger scale. It uses digital technologies to create open-access digital forms of this writing to extend access to it, and also to furt ....The early woman writer, 1530-1660. This project aims to provide a literary history of women’s textual practice in the English Renaissance. This project will examine the scope, content and purpose of early modern women’s writing to make new discoveries about reading, writing and book use in the period when book production and distribution was first appearing on a larger scale. It uses digital technologies to create open-access digital forms of this writing to extend access to it, and also to further Australia’s position in both cutting edge digital scholarship and scholarship on the early modern period.
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