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
"The Whole Map of the Balkans": Ethnicity, National Identity and Empire in the Work of Ismail Kadare. The Albanian intellectual, Ismail Kadare, foreshadowed the re-valorization of ethnic identity as a socio-political category under late 20th century communism. While Kadare's novels and essays deal primarily with his native Albania, they also represent the emergence more broadly of ethnicity as a factor in the literature of Eastern and South-Eastern European socialism. The project will explore in ...."The Whole Map of the Balkans": Ethnicity, National Identity and Empire in the Work of Ismail Kadare. The Albanian intellectual, Ismail Kadare, foreshadowed the re-valorization of ethnic identity as a socio-political category under late 20th century communism. While Kadare's novels and essays deal primarily with his native Albania, they also represent the emergence more broadly of ethnicity as a factor in the literature of Eastern and South-Eastern European socialism. The project will explore in depth the relationship between ethnicity, ideology and socialist literary culture that underpins Kadare's work, providing the first detailed analytical and critical study in English, and locating Kadare in the context of the major lines of contemporary European thought regarding ethnicity and ethnic identity.Read moreRead less
Monumental Shakespeare: a transcultural investigation of commemoration in 20th-century Australia and England. Shakespeare represents a key conduit of Anglo-Australian cultural definition. This first internationally collaborative investigation of the popular, political and scholarly influences at work in the desire to commemorate Shakespeare in the 20th century - beginning with the tercentenary of his death in 1916 - will produce new knowledge about the embedding of Shakespeare into English and A ....Monumental Shakespeare: a transcultural investigation of commemoration in 20th-century Australia and England. Shakespeare represents a key conduit of Anglo-Australian cultural definition. This first internationally collaborative investigation of the popular, political and scholarly influences at work in the desire to commemorate Shakespeare in the 20th century - beginning with the tercentenary of his death in 1916 - will produce new knowledge about the embedding of Shakespeare into English and Australian cultural foundations. This transcultural investigation of the ways in which very different memorials - the National Theatre (London) and Sydney's Shakespeare Place - emerged from debates over appropriate forms for memorialisation will provide new understandings of the reproduction of Shakespearean heritage across nations, hemispheres and cities.Read moreRead less