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
Pilot study: sourcing basaltic stone artefacts in Hawaii by uranium-series and argon-argon (39Ar-40Ar) dating. This project will develop breakthrough methodology for fingerprinting stone artefacts from Hawaii to reconstruct historic development of Pacific Island societies. Major outcomes will address National Research Priority Goal - Understanding our region and the world, through better understanding of societal development in our geographic neighbourhood.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE140100254
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$395,205.00
Summary
The oldest rock art in Asia and the early human occupation of island Southeast Asia. Recent research revealed that humans were producing rock paintings on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi at least 39 thousand years ago (and possibly up to 46 thousand years ago). The rock art, therefore, is essentially contemporaneous with the earliest cave art in Europe and may be the world's oldest, given the arrival of Homo sapiens in Australia at least 50 thousand years ago. This project will further investi ....The oldest rock art in Asia and the early human occupation of island Southeast Asia. Recent research revealed that humans were producing rock paintings on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi at least 39 thousand years ago (and possibly up to 46 thousand years ago). The rock art, therefore, is essentially contemporaneous with the earliest cave art in Europe and may be the world's oldest, given the arrival of Homo sapiens in Australia at least 50 thousand years ago. This project will further investigate the early rock art of Sulawesi as well as other key Indonesian islands located along likely migration routes from Borneo to New Guinea. The results will have major implications for our understanding of the cultural behaviour and dispersal of the earliest modern humans to colonise Southeast Asia and Australia.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE130100046
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$374,575.00
Summary
Foundations of Island Southeast Asian maritime interaction: unravelling cause and consequence for the transformation of past societies. The successful spread of Neolithic innovations across the world was one of the most important transformations in human history. This project combines the geochemical and technological analysis of stone tools to track the evolution of maritime colonisation in Island Southeast Asia, the foundation for the success of agriculture in this region.
The Nakanai Caves Cultural Heritage Project. This project aims to document and integrate the natural and cultural values of the Nakanai Caves in East New Britain, Papua New Guinea, in preparation for a cultural landscape World Heritage nomination. The project’s novel methodology incorporates community knowledge with archaeological and anthropological evidence to link natural and cultural values and define the landscape from local perspectives. Local input into the research will be prioritised. B ....The Nakanai Caves Cultural Heritage Project. This project aims to document and integrate the natural and cultural values of the Nakanai Caves in East New Britain, Papua New Guinea, in preparation for a cultural landscape World Heritage nomination. The project’s novel methodology incorporates community knowledge with archaeological and anthropological evidence to link natural and cultural values and define the landscape from local perspectives. Local input into the research will be prioritised. By emphasising local participation and management of World Heritage listing processes the project aims to address an identified gap in World Heritage methodologies. This project allows for a subtle, nuanced definition of cultural landscapes under the World Heritage Convention.Read moreRead less
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
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE0238930
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$350,000.00
Summary
Austlit: The Australian Literature Gateway - Enhancement Stage Two. The Austlit: The Australian Literature Gateway Enhancement Stage Two Project will deliver enhanced functionality for researchers using the integrated resource discovery service developed in 2000 and 2001. In 2002, the Gateway will add new bibliographic, biographical and full text sources to the service, and map rich literary relationships based on this data, supporting the development of new research questions on the place of th ....Austlit: The Australian Literature Gateway - Enhancement Stage Two. The Austlit: The Australian Literature Gateway Enhancement Stage Two Project will deliver enhanced functionality for researchers using the integrated resource discovery service developed in 2000 and 2001. In 2002, the Gateway will add new bibliographic, biographical and full text sources to the service, and map rich literary relationships based on this data, supporting the development of new research questions on the place of the national literature in Australian culture. The Gateway's technical infrastructure will be developed to offer a sophisticated browsing interface, customised services to support specific research, and broader interoperability with other services, including flexible education and portal services.Read moreRead less