Wild Man from Borneo: species, race, representation. This project addresses the representation of species boundaries in Western accounts of the orangutan in the 19th and 20th centuries. Darwinian theory raised the possibility that animals could ?evolve?. Orangutans seemed ?closest? to humans and therefore raised key questions about the border between humans and animals. These questions were addressed in a vast range of scientific, popular, imaginative and juvenile literature. Even when ecolo ....Wild Man from Borneo: species, race, representation. This project addresses the representation of species boundaries in Western accounts of the orangutan in the 19th and 20th centuries. Darwinian theory raised the possibility that animals could ?evolve?. Orangutans seemed ?closest? to humans and therefore raised key questions about the border between humans and animals. These questions were addressed in a vast range of scientific, popular, imaginative and juvenile literature. Even when ecological models of the environment shifted attention from evolutionary potential to ecological role, orangutans retained a special status as ?sentinel? species. This project will produce a monograph examining the construction, maintenance and erosion of ideas of species boundaries.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
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE120102604
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$375,000.00
Summary
The Sri Lankan Malays: Islam, literature, and Diaspora across the Indian Ocean. This project on Sri Lanka's Malays will expand our knowledge of the history of trans-local Islam in our region in the period preceding the nation state. Knowing more about mobility, migration, and displacement during an earlier era will help us conceptualise these pressing contemporary issues.
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
An Open University: Public lecturing in the Romantic period. This project aims to investigate and account for an under-researched and radically underestimated aspect of our intellectual and literary culture, the public lecture, focusing specifically on public lecturing in the Romantic period and on the lecture institutions that sprang up in the early nineteenth century. It will examine, amongst other things, the role public lectures played in the (self-) education of women and the development o ....An Open University: Public lecturing in the Romantic period. This project aims to investigate and account for an under-researched and radically underestimated aspect of our intellectual and literary culture, the public lecture, focusing specifically on public lecturing in the Romantic period and on the lecture institutions that sprang up in the early nineteenth century. It will examine, amongst other things, the role public lectures played in the (self-) education of women and the development of 'English' as a discipline. The first ever comprehensive study of an extensive pedagogical practice that was also a popular diversion. This project will position public lecturing in the history of education and the knowledge economy of the early nineteenth century.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
ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions. Emotions change over time; yet the long-term causes and consequences of changing emotional experiences and expressions remain largely unknown. This Centre will revolutionize research in the Humanities and Creative Arts by initiating innovative research collaborations across many disciplines to account for long-term changes and continuities in emotional regimes in Europe 1100-1800. For the first time we will fully analyse the social, cultural ....ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions. Emotions change over time; yet the long-term causes and consequences of changing emotional experiences and expressions remain largely unknown. This Centre will revolutionize research in the Humanities and Creative Arts by initiating innovative research collaborations across many disciplines to account for long-term changes and continuities in emotional regimes in Europe 1100-1800. For the first time we will fully analyse the social, cultural and political effects of mass emotional events. Links with cultural industry partners in art, drama and music will enable reflective performance research on communication of emotions, and illuminate the Western cultural foundations of emotions in modern Australia.Read moreRead less
The emotional register of liberal culture in the long nineteenth century. This project aims to advance our understanding of liberal culture, a concept central to the humanities and to modern social and political discourse. It will address the problem of liberalism's perceived rationalism by investigating the role of emotion as a core characteristic of liberal culture during its formation and subsequent development over the course of the long nineteenth century. The project will focus on periodic ....The emotional register of liberal culture in the long nineteenth century. This project aims to advance our understanding of liberal culture, a concept central to the humanities and to modern social and political discourse. It will address the problem of liberalism's perceived rationalism by investigating the role of emotion as a core characteristic of liberal culture during its formation and subsequent development over the course of the long nineteenth century. The project will focus on periodicals as a vital medium for the cultivation and dissemination of progressive liberal ideas and values, as well as for the expression and discussion of the emotions. The project will benefit scholars in political, literary, and cultural studies and contribute to current debates in Australia about liberal culture and its sustainability.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.