Project Type: Academic works (page 1 of 1)

I hold a BA (Hons, Australian Literature) from the University of Sydney (1993), an MA (English, Creative Writing) from the University of Melbourne (2005) and a PhD from Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne (2010). I also completed a year of post-doctoral research at Blekinge Tekniska Högskolan, Karlskrona, Sweden (2011).

19 November 2012

ELMCIP Anthology of European Electronic Literature (2012)

In 2011, I moved to Karlskrona in Blekinge, Sweden, to take up a 12-month  post-doctoral researcher position with the ELMCIP project team based at Blekinge Tekniska Högskola (BTH).

ELMCIP stands for Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice, a 3-year collaborative research project which ran from 2010 to 2013, funded by the Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA) JRP for Creativity and Innovation.

ELMCIP involved seven European academic research partners and one non-academic partner who investigated how creative communities of practitioners form within a transnational and transcultural context in a globalized and distributed communication environment.

A screenshot from the ELMCIP Anthology of European Electronic Literature homepage.

Focusing on the electronic literature community in Europe as a model of networked creativity and innovation in practice, ELMCIP studied the formation and interactions of that community and also helped further electronic literature research and practice in Europe.

The ELMCIP Anthology of European Electronic Literature was an output from the ELMCIP researchers based at Blekinge Tekniska Högskola (Blekinge Institute of Technology) in Sweden, namely Maria Engberg, Talan Memmott and myself.

The anthology is intended to provide educators, students and the general public with a free curricular resource of electronic literary works produced in Europe. It consists of hypertext works, video art, pedagogical materials on electronic literature and references.

ELMCIP also includes an online Knowledge Base mapping the ongoing field of electronic literature. 

You can view the anthology online. A special, limited edition USB-stick version was also produced.

Go!
3 June 2010

Bonfire of the Vanity Presses (2010)

My PhD thesis, entitled Bonfire of the Vanity Presses: Self-Publishing in the Field of Australian Poetry, was approved in 2010, and was undertaken at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia between 2005 and 2009.

Here’s the abstract:

This thesis explores the practice of self-publishing in the field of Australian poetry. Self-publishing today can be seen as part of a long tradition of alternative publishing. Despite changes in the technologies of self-publishing, including the continuing reinvention of non-book publishing activities, poetry remains an area of the arts where the self-published book contains both symbolic and social capital. Rather than offering a basic defence of self-publishing or a textual analysis of self-published works, the Exegesis ‘reimagines’ self-publishing within what Bourdieu might term the ‘field’ of Australian poetry. The thesis also incorporates an Artefact composed of published, self-published and privately-published books. Despite technological changes in the way books are published, it argues that non-mainstream print publishing forms such as the chapbook still play a significant role in fostering innovation in poetic forms. In doing so it seeks a more sophisticated understanding of the literary field, and the role of books as signifiers of prestige within that field.

The artefact consists of six chapbooks: The Happy Farang (2000); 8 poems (2002); Re: (2005); Abendland (2006); Dead Poem Office (2007); and Morgenland (2007).

The thesis also includes a section on the making of We Will Disappear (2007).

Access Bonfire of the Vanity Presses (2010) online
1 December 2005 / 0 Comments

Southern Review 38.1 (2005)

In 2005, Denise Meredyth and I, wearing our Swinburne hats, co-edited a special issue of Southern Review: Communication, Politics & Culture.

Southern Review is a fully-refereed interdisciplinary journal of communication, politics and culture published by RMIT University, Melbourne.

The theme of the issue was Online Archives and Virtual Collections and it contains our editorial, nine articles and four book reviews.

One of the articles is about my experiences as an editor of Cordite, entitled “That Wicked CIA Technology: Archiving An Online Literary Journal”. Here’s the abstract:

This paper explores issues associated with the maintenance and archiving of a Melbourne-based online poetry journal, Cordite Poetry Review. I reflect upon the pitfalls of online production from the perspectives of editor, writer and researcher. The paper argues that an archiving strategy aimed at satisfying these three perspectives will only succeed if it incorporates both traditional and non-traditional media. Various options are explored in the context of present efforts to permanently archive the journal. While thus addressed primarily to editors of literary journals, the paper has wider application for organisations and creators involved in similar voluntary activities across the arts.

8 October 2004

Marzipan: A Confection (2004)

Marzipan: A Confection is the title of my Master of Arts (Research) Thesis in Creative Writing, undertaken at the University of Melbourne between 2002 and 2004.

The Thesis, a 30,000 word novella, describes the invention of marzipan in a fictional German town during a famine in the 1400s.

The central narrative is preceded by a section entitled Method, which documents a history of Marzipan and my own creative involvement with this peculiar subject matter over the past 10 years.

The narrative itself is broken into four Parts, corresponding to three relatively undisputed ingredients of Marzipan (namely Eggs, Almonds and Sugar) and a Secret ingredient. Each Part is composed of one or more Chapters.

The narrative is followed by a short Notes section detailing the original models for each of the Characters and a list of Sources.

I began writing the story of Marzipan in the mid-1990s, the first results of which were published as ‘A Brief History of Marzipan’ in New England Review (University of New England, 1999).

A second piece, ‘The Invention of Marzipan’, a partly-confected essay, was published in Antithesis (University of Melbourne, 2004).

1 December 1993 / 0 Comments

Bruce Beaver and Rainer Maria Rilke (1993)

As part of my Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Sydney I completed an Honours year in Australian Literature in 1993.

In addition to coursework, I completed a 15,000 word thesis, entitled Bruce Beaver and Rainer Maria Rilke.

Australian poet Bruce Beaver (1928–2004) conveniently signposted his fascination with the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) in his published poetic output, with individual poems across several collections addressing elements of Rilke’s art.

This thesis examines the nature of the Rilkean strain in Beaver’s work by means of analysis of both poets’ work. Specifically, it proposes a link between Beaver’s Rilkean spirit and the use of oceanic imagery in his poetry.

Part I analyses Rilke’s New Poems (1907) and The Duino Elegies (1922), together with Beaver’s Letters to Live Poets (1969).

Part II expands on Beaver’s use of the ocean, particularly in the context of the void, or gaps, in his poetry, with an emphasis on the poems in Lauds and Plaints (1974).

Beaver’s and Rilke’s concepts of the artist are also explored in order to gauge the extent and significance of Beaver’s ocean of poetry.

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This is [d/dn], the home of David Prater, a writer and editor currently living in the third person.

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