2016

I've kept this blog, on and off, since 2006. In 2015 I used it to chart daily encounters, images, thoughts and feelings about volcanic basalt/bluestone in Melbourne and Victoria, especially in the first part of the year. I plan to write a book provisionally titled Bluestone: An Emotional History, about human uses of and feelings for bluestone. But I am also working on quite a few other projects and a big grant application, especially now I am on research leave. I'm working mostly from home, then, for six months, and will need online sociability for company!


Friday, January 08, 2010

Another January event for medievalism

I mentioned, a while back, a day forum at the University of Western Australia. It is really a satellite of this upcoming event, the second symposium of our four-year ARC discovery grant. It's going to be one of those small concentrated affairs, but we're tossing up various plans for publication, so this is really just to give a foretaste of what happens when medievalists and Australianists get together. Think of us on the beautiful Wollongong campus, having walked along the beach in the morning...


Medievalism, Colonialism, Nationalism
An ARC-sponsored symposium
University of Wollongong
January 18-20, 2010
 
Venue: UOW Unicentre, Function Room 2



MONDAY JANUARY 18, 2010

10am-12pm: Teaching the Middle Ages

A Teaching Roundtable convened by Stephanie Trigg
 
12pm-1pm: Lunch

Medievalism, Colonialism, Nationalism

1pm-3pm: The Politics of Medievalism

John Ganim, University of California (Riverside)

“Cosmopolitanism and/or Medievalism”

Jenna Mead, University of Western Australia

“Medievalism as a Pretext for Conservatism”


3pm-3.30pm: Afternoon tea


3.30pm-4.30pm: Telling the Story of Medievalism

David Matthews, University of Manchester:

“The Viral Past: Can the History of Medievalism be Written?”


TUESDAY JANUARY 19, 2010

 
9am-11am: Medievalism and the Premodern Pasts of Britain

Anke Bernau, University of Manchester

“The Return of the Repressed: Albina, Sixteenth-Century Historiography, and Wolf Hall

Chris Jones, University of St. Andrews

“‘Quhen Alexander our king was deid’: An Origin Myth for Scots Poetic Tradition”


11am-11.30am: Morning Tea


11:30am-1.30pm: The Medievalism of Randolph Stow

Melanie Duckworth, University of Leeds

“Grievous Music: Randolph Stow’s Antipodean Middle Ages”

Andrew Lynch, University of Western Australia

“Going ‘home’ by the Middle Ages: Randolph Stow’s The Girl Green as Elderflower and Visitants


1.30pm-2.30pm: Lunch


2.30-4.30pm: The Limits of the Medieval in 20thC Australian Fiction

Nicholas Birns, New School University

“Jack Lindsay, Patrick White, and Australia’s Twentieth-Century Byzantium”

Peter Otto, University of Melbourne

“‘Are we the future of the Past?’: Gothic Pasts and Gothic Futures in David Malouf’s An Imaginary Life


7pm: Conference Dinner: Ha Long Bay, 52 Crown St, Wollongong. (02) 4225 0338



WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 2010


9-11am: Ideologies of Medievalism: Australian Women Writers

Michael Ackland, James Cook University

“Dreaming of the Middle Ages: The Place of the ‘Mittel-alterlich’ and Socialist Awareness in Christina Stead’s Vision of Australian Destiny”

Louise D’Arcens, University of Wollongong

Meta-medievalism and the Future of the Past in the ‘Australian Girl’ Novel

11am-11.30am: Morning Tea

11.30am-1.30pm: Performative Medievalisms

Seeta Chaganti, University of California (Davis)

“Memory, History, and Motion in Nineteenth-Century Medievalism”

Stephanie Trigg, University of Melbourne

“The Traditional, the Quaint, and the Medieval in Australian Parliamentary Practice”


1.30pm-2pm: Lunch


2pm-4pm: Medievalism in Australian Fantasy Writing

Clare Bradford, Deakin University

“The Return of the Fairy: Medievalist Fantasy for the Young”

Kim Wilkins, University of Queensland

“Sovereignty, Feudalism, Fantasy: The Guilty Pleasures of Australian Popular Medievalism”



4.30pm: shuttle to collect those travelling back to Sydney Airport

4 comments:

Elisabeth said...

I love conferences like this one you describe, only the ones I go to would have different contents and contexts.

The last one I enjoyed at Flinders University in Adelaide last September was called the 'The story of the story'.

The only down side of such conferences is that after a few days of intense discussion and meeting wonderful people is the sadness of goodbyes. So often we do not get to meet again. That part of it I hate.

If only all these people had blogs to keep an ongoing form of contact on line. Only it might not work out like that in reality.

This old world is a new world said...

There are so few medievalists in Australia, at least, that we tend to keep in pretty good contact, but I know what you mean.

When these intense conferences are over, I usually need to go to ground for a day or two, with sheer exhaustion. This one has the luxury of discussion time equal to the length of the papers...

Bavardess said...

That looks like a fascinating conference, so I hope you get the chance to blog about some of it. I'm particularly intrigued by the papers on Meta-medievalism and the Future of the Past in the ‘Australian Girl’ Novel and “The Traditional, the Quaint, and the Medieval in Australian Parliamentary Practice”. Enjoy!

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