·¬ÇÑÉçÇø

The Roderick Centre for Australian Literature and Creative Writing invites you to attend a free masterclass organised for HDR students and faculty whose research, teaching, or HDR supervision may be enriched by it.

Those of you advising or recruiting PhD students with interests in literature, regions, Australian studies, and/or Indigenous perspectives, or who may be engaged in teaching writing or creative-practice research, especially in creative writing, will find this event invaluable. Please note we are planning to record the masterclass for viewing at a later date as a teaching resource.

While a separate invite has been sent to HDRs with details of coursework credit, we warmly encourage you to forward to any students, potential students, or staff who may benefit from attending.

Masterclass: Literary and Critical Regionalisms

Friday 21 June 2024

9.00am – 11.30am

A1.125 Cairns or via Zoom

Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android: 

Password: 553450

This masterclass will be delivered online by distinguished poet, critic and scholar in the field of Australian literature - Emeritus Professor Philip Mead.

Join us at this dynamic and stimulating event to strengthen your understanding and application of literary regionalism in teaching and research. Whether you are considering a PhD, already in a doctoral project, or an early- to mid-career researcher, this class is for you.

The masterclass will comprise presentations by our Visiting Scholar, timely breaks, and a substantial Q&A session.

Topics will include:

• Perspectives on Australian literary regionalism, including Tasmania
• Western Australia
• The Tropical North
• Indigenous perspectives

Wednesday 17 July
Throughout Wednesday - Participants arriving in Cairns.

5:30pm, ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø Cairns, City Campus
Pre-Symposium Regional Stakeholders’ Meeting
With thanks to chair: .

Day 1: Thursday 18 July

Attendees make way to symposium venue.

9:00 - 9:25am, Cairns Institute
Registrations at the Cairns Institute, Building D3, ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø Cairns, Smithfield campus

9:30 - 9:50am, Cairns Institute Boardroom
Session 1 -  Opening
(·¬ÇÑÉçÇø) and  (ANU)
Acknowledgement of Country
Program introduction, rationale and overview
Housekeeping

9:50 - 10:40am, Cairns Institute Boardroom
Session 2 – Keynote
, Director, Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry, University of Arizona
Chair:  (·¬ÇÑÉçÇø)
Password: 497634

10:45 - 11:45am, Cairns Institute Boardroom
Session 3 – Panel: Community Arts – Not a Luxury (especially in the regions)
Chair: Dr Tully Barnett (Flinders)
, Townsville Galleries Director
, Regional Manager, Regional Arts Services Network Cairns
, Chair of Regional Arts Australia and Director Tasmania?
Regional arts practitioners  and ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø
Session presented in person  (Password: 563977)

11:45am - 12:15pm, Lunch Break

12:15 - 1:40pm, Cairns Institute Boardroom
Session 4  - Writing the regions
Chair: Dr Nicole Crowe (·¬ÇÑÉçÇø)
12:15 – 12:30,  (Federation) Fostering Creative Ecologies for Students and Community
12:30 – 12:45, (·¬ÇÑÉçÇø) ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø connects with Cairns Tropical Writers Festival 2024
12:45 – 1:00, (CDU) Supporting Community Initiatives: Prison Writing
1:00 – 1:15, Supporting Regional First Nations Writers through FNAWN
1:15 – 1:40, Discussion
This session will be recorded.

1:45 - 2:45pm, Cairns Institute Boardroom
Session 5 - Spotlight Session: Transdisciplinary futures and the place of the regions
Chair:  (·¬ÇÑÉçÇø)
(Monash)
Transdisciplinary futures: working creatively in the 21st C university for cross-unit collaborations.
Presentation followed by moderated Q&A and open questions
This session will be recorded.

2:45 - 3:30pm, Cairns Institute Boardroom
Session 6 – Roundtable: Critical regionalism and literary studies
Chair: Assoc. Prof.  (·¬ÇÑÉçÇø)
(ANU)
(RMIT) via Zoom
(Deakin) via Zoom
Session presented in person  (Password: 619882)

4:00 - 5:00pm, Cairns Institute Lobby
Roderick Centre Launch Celebration
Welcome to Country - Aunty Jeanette Singleton
Welcome from the Director
RCALC Vision - and Assoc. Prof. 
Poetry Reading –  (Chair of First Nations Australia Writers Network, FNAWN), reading from new poetry collection Fitzroy North
Deadly Poets Project – , Research fellow, Jawun Research Centre (formerly the Centre for Indigenous Health Equity) CQU
Reading/Launch of In Hot Water: The Battle for the Great Barrier Reef (Affirm, 2024)

6:30pm Vivo, Palm Cove
Symposium Dinner - optional
Venue:  Palm Cove 49 Williams Esplanade
(Pre-booked. Outdoor large table, adjacent to hotel Mantra Amphora)
Participants to pay for themselves

Day 2: Friday 19 July

6:30am, Palm Beach
Optional Beachwalk at Palm Beach
Meet in Front of Vivo for prompt 6:30am departure.

9:00 - 9:40am, Cairns Institute Boardroom
Session 7 - Spotlight Session
Valuing Cultural Infrastructure and the Regions
(ANU)

9:40 - 11:05am, Cairns Institute Boardroom
Session 8 - Humanities in the Regions Post the Universities Accord: The State of the Sector
Chair: Assoc. Prof.  (·¬ÇÑÉçÇø)
9:40 - 9:55,  (CQU)
9:55 - 10:05, Dr  and  (SCU)
10:05 - 10:20, Dr  (Uni SA)
10:20 - 10:35, Dr  and Jade Croft (·¬ÇÑÉçÇø)
10:35 - 10:50, Dr  and Prof.  (Flinders)
10:50 - 11:05, Dr  (CDU)

11:05 - 11:15am, Coffee Break, biscuits and fruit

11:15 - 12:00pm, Cairns Institute Boardroom
Session 9 – Keynote
Final reflections and ways forward for creative and critical regionalism
Chair:  (ANU)
(UNE)
30 min presentation followed by open discussion.
This session will be recorded.

12:00 - 12:30pm, Cairns Institute Boardroom
Session 10 - Further Reflections: Next Steps toward Community Impact
(ANU) and  (·¬ÇÑÉçÇø)

Working Lunch

12:45 - 2:45pm, Cairns Institute Boardroom
Session 11 - Breakout Working Groups
Chairs:  (ANU) and  (·¬ÇÑÉçÇø))
Humanities in the Regions group and Critical Regionalism group will hold separate workshops in this final session to reflect within their communities of practice on the previous program and their ongoing work.

3:00pm, Program concludes. All participants depart.

The Roderick Centre for Australian Literature and Creative Writing at ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø is thrilled to invite applications for its 2024 Writers at the Reef Residency.

The residency is open to published or emerging authors who have a current project to work on during their stay.

This year’s residency invites writers of any genre with environmental themes, including but not limited to writing on nature, conservation, islands, oceans, beaches, Sea Country, ecosystems, sustainability, and island communities—or which may resonate in particular with Magnetic Island and its natural, social, or cultural history and habitat.

Writers who took part in the 2022 Writers on the Reef residency are ineligible to apply.

When does the residency take place?

From the 17-23 October 2024, 4 writers will be in residence at beautiful waterfront  in Horseshoe Bay, Magnetic Island.

About Magnetic Island

Magnetic Island is located eight kilometres off the coast of Townsville in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. A popular holiday destination it boasts stunning beaches and walks through the dry tropics national park. The island is easy to access from the Townsville Airport with taxis and a shuttle bus available to take visitors to the Breakwater Ferry Terminal. Ferries leave roughly every hour and the trip takes approximately 20 minutes. Visitors disembarking on the island will find public busses to transport them to the four inhabited bays of Picnic, Nelly, Arcadia and Horseshoe.

The following is expected of participants before, during or on completion of the event:

• A brief on-camera interview to document the residency
• A 500 word blog post about the residency
• Agree to the use of your name and likeness for the purposes of publicising the residency program.
• Participation in a small workshop / reading event on Zoom, with a small audience of ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø students and community
• Acknowledge support from ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø and the Roderick Centre in any published work that ensues from the residency.
• Participate in interviews or other media opportunities about the event and your work related to the event.

Participants also need to:

• Observe the protocols of Villa Kembali.
• Leave the accommodation and amenities in good order.
• Be sensitive to each other’s needs and presence with regard to noise and focus on a writing project

What participants can expect

• A mostly self-paced residency in an inspiring location with access to long walks (to Radical Bay, Balding Bay, the Forts), easy bus access to the rest of the island, nearby cafes, access to nearby rental watercraft
• A tour of the turtle hospital and koala hospital
• Generous accommodation with private room and shared bathroom and kitchen
• Breakfast and lunch provisions daily
• Dinner daily (a mix of provided dinners and restaurant meals provided every evening at 7pm)
• The stimulating company of like-minded writers
• Support from your hosts Drs Victoria Kuttainen and Nicole Crowe as requested

The successful applicants are required to cover their own travel/transport to and from the residency.

How to apply

Applicants should submit the following by August 9, 2024:

• Your CV including a list of published works and the publisher of each (if the list is extensive, just the last two years is enough).
• A ten-page sample of current or past work.
• A short explanation of what you would like to work on during your residency, what you would like to achieve that week, and how it aligns with any of the above environmental themes.
• A statement about why this time away would be beneficial to you and your work.

Applications will be reviewed by a juried panel and outcomes advised by September 13.

Please submit all application materials to nicole.crowe@jcu.edu.au with the subject heading "Application: Writers on the Reef".

Incomplete applications will not be assessed.

This talk, delivered by Emeritus Professor Philip Mead, is a personal perspective on the current state of Australian literary studies, both as project in its own right and as a subset of the larger field of literary studies.

The study of Australian literature had an understandably national focus at its outset and that’s been both an asset and a liability. There’s always been a tension between valuing writing by Australian writers and the effects of ‘nationalism’. The same is true today, though in different and important ways.

Literature in Australia has had to create a space for itself that started off with a readership and a publishing industry to support that readership. Then came an at times fierce struggle for recognition in both the school and university curricula. Both sectors have had to negotiate continued and multi-factored pressures. And all along there has been a complicated and dynamic two-way relationship with a globalised publishing industry, writers’ careers, and literary culture in Australia and overseas.

Australian literary studies has been shaped by crises in both its own development and in the history of literary studies at universities. It is facing new challenges at the moment, new perspectives on national literatures, changing educational practices, and constant institutional restructuring.

So how does it look? Should we be encouraged or anxious about the future of Australian literary studies?

Emeritus Professor Philip Mead is the inaugural visiting fellow at the Roderick Centre for Australian Literature and Creative Writing. Professor Mead was the Chair of Australian Literature at the University of Western Australia, a position he held from 2009 until 2018. He is a distinguished scholar and poet and was the Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser Chair of Australian Studies at Harvard University, 2015–2016. A strong and continuing advocate for Australian literary studies, his research is conducted at the intersections of national and transnational literary studies, cultural history and theory, poetics, literary education, literary regionalism, and digital humanities.

Thursday 27 June 4–5:30pm via Zoom

Please register in advance for this meeting:

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Each third Thursday of the month the Roderick Centre facilitates 'The Penultimates', a writers' group for writers serious about developing craft and providing feedback on one another's work. The group is for published as well as unpublished writers of non-academic work and offers a safe space for writers to share drafts (both good and bad), struggles, tears, and laughter.

This year the Roderick Centre hosted a panel featuring Cairns writers Dr Elizabeth Smyth (Roderick Centre staff and ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø PhD alumni), Dr Louise Henry (·¬ÇÑÉçÇø PhD Alumni), and Dr Gillian Long (·¬ÇÑÉçÇø PhD Alumni) to discuss the question, 'How does a writer craft a novel set in the Wet Tropics?'

Elizabeth Smyth uses magic realism to explore human relationships with nature, Louise Henry draws on family history and historical artefacts to link the past and present, and Gillian Long employs an immigrant perspective to examine class and ideological issues of the 1930s. It was a conversation about techniques, problems, ethics, culture, and place.

Nine fellowships are available, with three in-person residency fellowships and six virtual fellowships, to writers living in regional and remote parts of Australia. Participants will be selected from across Australia, with at least one fellowship place to be reserved for a First Nations writer, and at least two fellowships to be reserved for writers from regional Queensland.

This is the only national literary program in Australia specifically for regional and remote writers.

This program is presented in partnership with the Roderick Centre for Australian Literature and Creative Writing (RCALC). Newly established in 2024 thanks to a generous bequest from the late Colin and Margaret Roderick, the Centre aims to foster the reading and writing of Australian literature in all its forms, and to encourage the study of Australian literature and literary cultures.

In-person residency fellowships will include:

• A two-week residency at Varuna, with full board and accommodation including a prepared evening meal
• Uninterrupted time to write in your own private studio, and the companionship of your fellow writers.
• Reimbursement of all travel expenses from anywhere in Australia, including airfares and transfers.
• $600 towards other expenses. Each writer will be able to use this expenses budget to fit their individual needs.

The virtual residency program will include:

• Two one-hour online sessions (one-on-one) with a Varuna writing consultant.

• Two online Q&A sessions with published writers experienced in their craft.
• Daily facilitated professional networking opportunities throughout the week, including the opportunity to share work, talk about process, and receive feedback.

Virtual residency participants need to allow at least two hours at specific times every day for programmed sessions, with the expectation that participants will spend at least three hours dedicated writing time each day.

Applicants will be asked to specify their preference between an in-person and virtual residency. All applicants shortlisted for an in-person residency who are unsuccessful will be offered a virtual residency as a second option.

Applications are now closed

The Roderick Centre for Australian Literature and Creative Writing is delighted to announce a new grant program that reflects the desire of the Centre to align our research with ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø areas of strength in the environment, health and wellbeing, and First Nations perspectives.

These grants are open to all academics at ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø to apply, by partnering with anyone in the Centre to ensure your project has a focus on narrative, storytelling, and literature, broadly conceived.

$6000 is available for partner projects that work to form new cross-disciplinary research groups or support partnerships that work with and  extend beyond ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø English faculty or Centre staff.

Proposals that align with and advance research and understanding of the way creative writing and literary studies can promote understanding of and promote engagement with the following themes will be highly ranked:

• The Environment and/or the Region
• Wellbeing
• First Nations Perspectives

If you are interested in initiating such a partner project, or know someone who may be, we invite you to consider developing or co-creating a partnership application (attached) and extend our welcome to contact the RCALC Program Advisor Nicole.Crowe@jcu.edu.au for further information and contact details.

Application form here

The Roderick Centre for Australian Literature and Creative Writing seeks expressions of interest (EOIs) from researchers in the field of Australian literary studies to participate in a series of Roderick Visiting Fellowships. The Roderick Visiting Fellowship Program aims to attract outstanding researchers in the field of Australian literary studies to make a positive contribution to the research culture of the ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø. This contribution should include conducting one masterclass, as well as presenting seminars or delivering public-facing guest lectures.

Expressions of interest should align with research themes that acknowledge ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø’s position in the tropical world by addressing one or more of the following themes: ecosystems, conservation and climate change; industry and economy; peoples and societies; health, medicine and biosecurity. Within these broad themes, the Roderick Centre has a particular interest in the Environment (e.g. Reef, Rainforest, Tropics); Empowering Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People; and Medicine - Mental Health/ Wellbeing.

Roderick Visiting Fellows will join the centre for thirty (30) days. The Fellowship is valued at up to $20,000 which includes travel, accommodation, and administrative expenses plus a stipend to cover incidentals while staying at ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø.

Eligibility

The fellowships are available to any scholar from Australia or overseas who is actively working in the field of Australian literary studies.

Your expression of interest should include:

• Curriculum Vitae (CV), including details of degrees and qualifications; relevant positions held in the past five years; a list of publications, presentations, and achievements relevant to the application.
• Fellowship Proposal: In no more than two pages, indicate the ways in which you will contribute to the University research culture by drawing on your experience and track record. The proposal should also indicate a schedule for the visit to ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø. We are initially seeking scholars who could be in residence from 15 July 2024 to coincide with the launch of the Roderick Centre. Other periods in 2024 and 2025 are welcome.
• Two referee reports: The referee reports should address your experience and research capabilities, and an assessment of the value and viability of the fellowship proposal.

Selection

• EOIs will be considered by the Director and leaders of the Roderick Centre for Australian Literature and Creative Writing, as well as independent assessors.
• EOIs will be assessed against your track record (relative to opportunity) and standing in the field, and also the strength of the proposal.
• Preference will be given to EOIs that clearly align with ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø’s research themes.