Cirrus@Austlit

'I want to begin with an Acknowledgement of Country. This article was written on the unceded lands of the Nyoongar people of Beeliar boodja. I acknowledge their connection to the land, waters and culture, and wish to pay my respect to the Elders and storytellers, past, present and emerging.' (Introduction)

'In this essay, the author, using second person, considers the path her deaf body has taken to become a writer and an academic. She contrasts the strictures of the neoliberal university with the creativity that comes from deafness; a creativity that has fostered a generative movement between the disciplines of literary studies and creative writing. She considers the importance of combining the study of Australian literature with the study of creative writing and concludes by dwelling upon an architectural ethos that is predicated upon the care of deaf learners – DeafSpace.' (Publication abstract)

'Kershaw and Nicholson ask whether “research in theatre and performance does
anything different than what goes on in other ‘fields’ where humans desire to better
understand why on Earth they are here” (2011, p. 14). This paper responds to this
question by charting the development of a new verbatim and site-specific play, Barbara
York Main: In Her Own Words and describes the fluid, collective and reflexive
processes inherent in the creation and performance of the work. It suggests that as
creators, actors and audience members interact with and haunt the script, archive and
site, playwriting as research results – not solely in a fixed script or critique, but in a
palimpsest of writing and performance. Finally, this paper asks how the open-ended,
documented assemblage of script/s, data and understandings, arising from playwriting
as research, might be collated and made available for interpretations and imaginings in
new contexts.' (Publication abstract)

'Perspectives on ekphrasis theory are advancing cognitive approaches. Despite this, the science of the brain’s default mode network rarely emerges in cognitive literary studies or ekphrasis discussion. When left unfocused, the brain in its default mode tends to ruminate on the past, speculate about the future, daydream about unlikely events and analyse the meaning of what others might say or think. The memory-imagination system, also referred to as “mental time travel”, helps us construct simulations of past, future and/or fictional events. This essay proposes an understanding of ekphrasis which engages activities of mental time travel and simulation to help render experience in the minds of readers/writers. This paper does not venture into the neuroscience debate, but rather, it explores the brain’s default mode in the contexts of ekphrasis criticism and cognitive literary studies. I refer to Jessica Au’s novella Cold Enough for Snow (2022) to illustrate examples of ekphrasis writing which – through the depiction of art, objects and images (imagined or real) – engages the systems of mental time travel and simulation to interpret complexities of the world and help render perceptual experiences in the narrative imagining.' (Publication abstract)

'We live in an age captivated by, and captive to, science and technology. Since the time of Vitruvius and Leonardo in the European Renaissance, science and technology serve as a source of imagery and metaphor for art, and directly influence the shaping of artefacts. It’s impossible for me not to mention Michel Serres, who has traced themes across disciplines such as literature, philosophy, science and art, combining, for example William Turner’s turbulent paintings, Jules Michelet’s broad historical canvasses, Emile Zola’s naturalistic portraits and Sadi Carnot’s thermodynamics. And, before Serres, Gaston Bachelard, a scientist, made contributions in the fields of poetics and the philosophy of science, venturing into explorations of the creative mind.' 

(Introduction)

'In the recent NSW floods our local council ran out of “Road Closed” signs. On side roads farmers painted their own on sheets of tin. Only the main highway to town was interpolated with an official yellow sign in the middle of the bitumen. When the waters subsided, no-one took the sign down. On swerving around the barricade every morning I was acutely conscious of breaking a code. I was surprised at how much power the words exerted – in ignoring the sign I transgressed the norms of its legibility. In John Kinsella’s new book Legibility: An Antifascist Poetics, published in the Palgrave series “Modern and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics”, Kinsella employs the term “legibility” to refer to more than just the “readability” of a text. Whether a text is “legible” he argues is contingent upon the reader being versed in the customs, conventions and codes inherent to its creation. His interest is pragmatic – understanding the structures and systems intrinsic to the creation of “signs and inscriptions” of ruling discourses “is pivotal to the ability to resist them” (p. 15).' (Introduction)

'Adelle Sefton-Rowston’s book Polities and Poetics – Race Relations and Reconciliation in Australian Literature is based upon her doctoral thesis and examines the role of language in bringing about social change. The author, a senior lecturer at Charles Darwin University, builds her argument through close textual readings of what she labels “reconciliatory literature” (p. 9).' (Introduction)