The Centre for Australian Literary Cultures (CALC) aims to foster and promote the study of Australian literature and literary cultures and to enhance the rich intellectual environment for studying Australian literature at the Australian National University.
 

Australian Literary Studies at ANU

As the national university, ANU has a specific and established commitment to excellence in the study of Australian literature. This commitment began with the tenure of renowned Australian authors including poet A. D. Hope, who worked as an English Professor at ANU until retirement in 1968, and literary critic, novelist, and poet, R.F. Brissenden, who published widely on Australian literature and was the first literary editor of The Australian. ANU in this period was the focal point for the Canberra circle of poets, which included Hope and Brissenden along with Judith Wright, Rosemary Dobson, and other esteemed Australian authors. 

The current cohort of talented researchers, writers, teachers, and graduate students in Australian literary studies at ANU continues this proud tradition. Currently, the School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics at ANU has the largest cohort of researchers in Australian literary studies. ANU also hosts two major academic journals in Australian literary and the interdisciplinary humanities: Australian Literary Studies and Australian Humanities Review; and is home to a vibrant community of postgraduate researchers in Australian literature, and the strongest suite of standalone undergraduate Australian Literature courses in the country.

ANU regularly hosts prominent Australian writers, with recent fellows including Melissa Lucashenko, Gail Jones and Gabriel Carey, respectively, winners of the Miles Franklin Award and the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Literary Fiction and Non-Fiction. The University has also fostered innovation and public engagement in Australian literary studies by supporting impactful, public-facing research projects in Australian literature such as Professor Bode’s To Be Continued database of fiction in historical Australian newspapers, and Dr Lamond’s Australian Common Reader database and work with the Stella Count.