NEER Research Cluster

Australasian Medievalism

MEMBERS

Dr Louise D'Arcens (Wollongong) - Coordinator
Professor Geraldine Barnes (Sydney)
Professor John M. Ganim (California, Riverside)
Dr Karen Hall (ECR, UWA)
Associate Professor Andrew Lynch (UWA)
Dr Hilary Maddocks (Fellow, State Library of Victoria)
Dr Jenna Mead (Tasmania)
Christopher Menz (Art Gallery of South Australia)
Dr Melissa Raine (ECR)
Professor Stephanie Trigg (Melbourne)
Dr Helen Dell (Melbourne)

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

The function of the group is to develop and co-ordinate joint research activities in the area of Australian and New Zealand medievalism.

EVENTS (INCLUDING MEETINGS AND WORKSHOPS)

February 2007: Inaugural meeting of the Research Cluster.

Conferences and symposia:
November 2006: Cluster member Trigg co-organised the 2-day symposium "Cultural Translations", at the University of Melbourne. Cluster members Lynch, Barnes, and D'Arcens delivered invited papers at this symposium, and members Dell and Mead attended.

February 2007: Cluster members participated collaboratively in two sessions of the ANZAMEMS biennial conference, University of Adelaide. One of these, in which D'Arcens delivered a paper, was dedicated to medievalism in Australian poetry and photography, and the other featured cluster member Trigg's collaborative work on medievalism with Tom Prendergast.

July 2007: Cluster coordinator D'Arcens organised two circulated paper panels at the NEER Inaugural Conference at UWA, Perth. One of these was on medieval inheritances in Australian religious life, and the other was on theorising medievalism today. Cluster members Lynch, Trigg, D'Arcens, Dell, and Mead all delivered papers in these panels.

December 2007: Cluster member Jenna Mead organised the "Time and Temporalities" conference at the University of Tasmania. This conference featured Carolyn Dinshaw as its invited international speaker, and showcased papers on medieval, medievalist, Australian, and theoretical topics. Cluster members Mead, Trigg, Dell, and Hall delivered papers at this conference.

July 2008: The cluster was strongly represented in four invited panels at the International Medieval Congress, Leeds. One session on Australian medievalism was organised and chaired by Andrew Lynch, and D'Arcens delivered a paper. Cluster members Trigg, Ganim, and Dell also delivered papers in sessions on medievalism, while members Lynch and D'Arcens were panel members for the roundtable on the future of medievalism.

November 2008: Cluster member Ganim is organising and hosting the conference "Medievalism in International and Postcolonial Perspectives" at the University of California, Riverside. This conference is the first of two attached to the ARC Discovery project on Medievalism in Australian Cultural Memory. Cluster members Ganim, Trigg, Lynch, and D'Arcens will be delivering papers at this conference.

December 2008: For the ANZAMEMS conference to be held at the University of Tasmania, cluster member Lynch has organised a session on Arthurianism in Australian literature, in which he will deliver a paper, and D'Arcens has organised a session on medievalism in Australian fantasy fiction. D'Arcens and Trigg are also delivering papers in a session on Bruce Holsinger's recent work on medievalism and poststructural theory. D'Arcens has requested the organisation of a reading by Australian medievalist fantasy writer Kim Wilkins, and the organisation of an open discussion panel on medievalism in computer games and e-culture.

PUBLICATIONS

Members Trigg, Mead, Dell, and D'Arcens have had the papers produced for the "Theorising Medievalism Today" session accepted for publication in Parergon 25.2, 2008.

Members Lynch and D'Arcens have published journal articles on Australian medievalism in the 2008 La Trobe Journal issue devoted to the Middle Ages in Australia.

Member D'Arcens has had a proposal for a book, Old Songs in the Timeless Land: Medievalism in Nineteenth-Century Australian Literature, accepted for the NEER/UWA Long Histories series, to be submitted in 2008.

Member D'Arcens has three additional publications on Australian medievalism forthcoming in 2008:

"The Past is Another Country: Forms of Australian Medievalism", Medievalismo/s. De la disciplina y otros espacios imaginados, ed. Cesar Dominguez. Special Issue, Revista de poetica medieval 20 (2008).

"Most gentle indeed but most virile: The Pacifist Medievalism of G. A. Wood", in Medievalism and the Post/colonial Perspective: Historical Foundations to Global Politics, eds Kathleen Davis and Nadia Altschul. (Johns Hopkins University Press)

"'She ensample was by good techynge': Hermeine Ulrich and Chaucer under Capricorn", Philologie im Netz, Beiheft (special issue) on "Early Women Scholars of Chaucer", edited by Richard Utz.

GRANTS APPLIED FOR

Cluster member Trigg has been nominated for an Australasian Teaching and Learning Council (formerly Carrick Institute) award for teaching excellence, the results of which will be announced later in 2008. If successful, the funding attached to this award will be used to develop a project on teaching the Middle Ages in Australia. This project will involve a number of Cluster members.

Cluster coordinator D'Arcens will be submitting an application for funding to the Australian Academy of Humanities/British Academy joint projects grant scheme, along with Dr Chris Jones of the Institute for Mediaeval Studies at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. The project for which funding is sought is a comparative study of Anglo-Saxonism in nineteenth-century British and Australian poetry. If successful, this project will involve exchange visits between Australia and Scotland, and will bring cluster members and St Andrews medievalism scholars into closer collaborative contact.

GRANTS ACHIEVED

November 2006: Cluster members Trigg, Lynch, and D'Arcens were awarded a Near-Miss Grant from the University of Melbourne, for their ARC Discovery Grant project "Medievalism, Colonialism and the Nation: Australia's Transformations of its Medieval Legacy". Amount awarded: $14,457.

September 2007: Cluster members Trigg, Lynch, D'Arcens, and Ganim were awarded an ARC Discovery Project grant: "Medievalism in Australian Cultural Memory". Amount awarded: 2008: $94,747; 2009: $81,306; 2010: $75,086; 2011: $90,324.

November 2007: Cluster member Ganim was awarded a University of California Humanities Research Initiative award to support the conference "Medievalism in International and Colonial Perspectives", to be held at the University of California Riverside in November 2008. Cluster members Trigg, Ganim, Lynch, and D' Arcens will be delivering papers at this conference. Amount awarded: US$8000.

August 2008: Cluster coordinator D'Arcens was awarded a University of Wollongong Internationalisation grant to support the symposium "Medievalism in Postcolonial Cultural Memory", to be held at Wollongong in February 2010. This will be the second conference attached to the ARC Discovery project on "Medievalism in Australian Cultural Memory". Cluster members D'Arcens, Trigg, Lynch, Ganim, and Mead will deliver papers at this symposium. Amount awarded $8000.

OTHER ACTIVITIES

October 2008: NEER Postgraduate Training Seminar (PATS): "Medievalism in Contemporary Media: Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to Film, Television, Computer Games and Internet Studies". Organised and chaired by Cluster Co-ordinator D'Arcens. Cluster member Trigg also attended and facilitated, and Cluster member Dell was an ECR participant.

Cluster member Trigg's blog "Humanities Researcher", begun in July 2006, has regularly included posts on Australian medievalism, on teaching medieval literature in Australia, and on Australian research events focused on the Middle Ages.