Research by Cathy Cole
A multi-modal compendium of Australian writing
$150,000 CAL
Dr Catherine Cole (UTS) Dr Lyn Gallaher (ABC)
The 2-year project will promote Australian writers and writing including indigenous writers, writers of non English-speaking backgrounds and emerging writers.
The project will be available free on the web and through other archives (such as libraries). It will make a major contribution to the ways in which Australian writing is studied, promoted, discussed and made accessible to local and international readers and researchers. Interviews, essays and discussion will be broadcast on The Book Show, used in universities and podcast on the web. Images will be recorded as well as sound, and DVDs similar to UTS's Writers on Writing will be produced. Without the support of CAL this project would be beyond the ABC's and UTS's stretched resources.
The project's on-line, refereed journal will be the site where writers and writing are examined and will offer an e-site where reader feedback/involvement will take place. As well as offering writers and academics a place in which to widely engage with literary and academic debate about writing, this e-journal will offer some quite playful moments - setting up writing exercises about Australian writers and writing, examining writing about Australia from other countries' writers. Blogs will offer ABC listeners, journal readers and DVD watchers an opportunity to engage with ideas in a host of ways including in direct discourse with experts in a particular field.
All the material will offer new ways to promote Australian writers to the wider reading and writing public, and will be useful to publishers, journalists, festival organisers and to writing and Australian Studies programs in Australian and international universities.Beyond Khe San: Australia's Literary Engagement with Vietnam
The project explores the ways in which Australia has engaged with Vietnam since 1963 with its first commitment of troops to the Vietnam War. It will examine the manner in which Australian writers and cultural practitioners have represented Vietnam in their texts as a focus of conflict, migration, protest, tourism, and post-colonial/post-war transformation. The project will draw on the multiplicity of Australian voices through which Vietnam was discovered and defined including the diasporic texts of Australian Vietnamese writers, the works of ex-service personnel, those of anti-Vietnam protesters, as well as imagined and ficto-critical narratives. It will explore post-war Vietnam, a country unknown to most Australians prior to Australia's military engagement, through a series of publications, exchanges and seminars/conferences. In particular, the project will examine and redefine the ways in which Australian cultural discourse has been shaped by its engagement with Vietnam.