Celebrating the work of Luise Hercus: a memorial colloquium
Other
Luise Hercus AM, FAHA (1926-2018) was one of the great linguists of Australia. This colloquium brings together her colleagues from many disciplines, linguistics, ethnography, history, music and Asian Studies to honour her work. Trained in Romance philology and in Sanskrit and Middle…
Writing and Political Change
Seminar
In an era in which protestors against Donald Trump dress as characters from a Margaret Atwood novel, literature suddenly seems more implicated than ever before in the political process. But how effective is literature in effecting, or preparing for, political change? Can contemporary writing have…
Writing Sex and Gender
Seminar
In the era of #MeToo and the same sex marriage plebiscite, how has writing on gender, sex, and sexual orientation changed? How do sexism and racism interact, and what are their effects on emerging and established writers from different communities? What can contemporary writers do to address…
Moving Women: The Touring Actress as Vector of Political Change
Seminar
In 1869, one year before the first women’s suffrage bill was presented in the British parliament, John Stuart Mill published his treatise on the subjection of women. One of the lynch-pins of his argument for an end to the legal subordination of women is work. In it he recommends that ‘the present…
Tania Evans ‘Cripples and Bastards and Broken Things’:Negotiating Masculinity through Fantasy Genre Conventions in A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones
Seminar
Hegemonic models of masculinity that are based upon violence, domination, and invulnerability are recognised by scholars as damaging for the individuals who enact them as well as the societies in which they are situated. In both the ‘real’ world and the cultural texts that reflect and shape it,…
Unexpected Intimacy: William Forsythe’s Alignigung (2016) and German Integration
Seminar
William Forsythe continues to embark on new aesthetic territory by exploring choreographic objects—not necessarily related to a body ‘but rather an alternative site for the understanding of potential instigation and organization of action to reside’. Exploring this concept, his screendance…
Unconscious Self‐Appraisals in Literary Works
Seminar
Ezra Pound struck a pencil through the lines in The Waste Land manuscript that referred to thewriting of bad poetry. Similarly, his mentee Hemingway cut a description of poor novel‐writingfrom The Sun also Rises. In both cases, it was a character in the text (Fresca, Jake) who wasdescribed…