Queensland University of Technology Queensland University of Technology i(A40299 works by) (Organisation) assertion (a.k.a. QUT)
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1 y separately published work icon Exploring Digital Media Ecologies of Young Adult Fiction: Teen Readers and Online Participatory Culture Amy Schoonens , Kelvin Grove : 2024 28229332 2024 single work thesis This thesis examined digital media ecologies of young adult fiction in contemporary book culture. It explores how young people engage with reading and books via digital platforms through case studies of Australian fiction (Illuminae, The Boy Who Steals Houses and House of Hollow), and through drawing on survey responses and focus group discussions with Australian teen readers. The project explores how teen reading intersects with popular social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and YouTube and other digital forms such as blogs and review sites. The research demonstrates the importance of understanding and fostering digital media engagement to encourage recreational reading among teens.
1 y separately published work icon I’m With Muriel : Applying a Persona-Centred Songwriting Technique to the Creation of a New Australian Musical Keir Nuttall , Brisbane : 2021 26506838 2021 single work thesis

'This thesis aims to contribute a new approach to songwriting centred on the notion of persona. While issues of persona are often treated in relation to performance (sometimes in the context of image or stage act), it is a concept that has not been explored explicitly in a songwriting technique. My applied model of persona-centred songwriting draws upon Auslander’s (2004b) notion of musical persona, focused on performance, and extends that to the process of songwriting. This investigation was driven by a desire to resolve the tension between authenticity discourses prevalent in popular music, centred around notions of individual self-expression, and the commercial reality of sustaining a career as a songwriter, centred around notions of finance and income. I show that using the concept of persona to frame the songwriting process allows the songwriter to write music that feels expressive while still meeting practical commercial considerations. In the thesis, I treat persona as a process arising from performance, from interactions between performers, songs, and audiences. I argue that songwriting is better understood as a process of performance than solely as an expressive act, at least in commercial contexts. The thesis is therefore situated in the terrain between performance and creativity studies, particularly those exploring Csikszentmihalyi’s (2014b) theories of creativity. My applied model is informed by theory that asserts social acts are performance-centred, that creativity is a social act, and therefore that songwriting is an act of performance.

'The thesis is methodologically qualitative, combining action research, participant observation, and Schön’s (1983) model of reflective practice. I apply, and thereby test, the persona-centred songwriting technique in the professional field by creating new work for an Australian musical theatre show, Muriel’s Wedding the Musical. This PhD is a practice-based study, 70% of which consists of the creative works for Muriel’s Wedding the Musical, and 7 the remaining 30% being the exegetical component. The persona-centred songwriting method demonstrated here will be of benefit to songwriters who might apply it to improve the volume of their creative output and, where required, cultivate a critical approach and practical strategies that address binary oppositions between commercial and artistic discourses.'

Source: Abstract.

1 y separately published work icon Reading Our Way : An Indigenous-centred Model for Engaging with Australian Indigenous Literature Eugenia Flynn , Kelvin Grove : 2021 23964231 2021 single work thesis

'Indigenous writers’ works have been subjugated in a context of power and domination by many historical publishing frameworks. However, through the act of writing many Indigenous writers assert their sovereign power and make clear interventions designed to challenge the status quo. This thesis argues for the further shifting of power from the majority non-Indigenous Australian literary sector to Indigenous writers and their communities through the development of an expansive model for reading Australian Indigenous literature.

'Using a theoretical framework of Indigenous ways of being, knowing and doing this thesis proposes a reading method based on Indigenous paradigms, constituted by Indigenous ontologies, epistemologies and axiologies. The proposed reading method is then operationalised in the reading of five texts written by Australian Indigenous women and non-binary writers: We Are Going by Oodgeroo Noonuccal (1964), Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington (1996), Carpentaria by Alexis Wright (2006), Heat and Light by Ellen van Neerven (2014), and The Yield by Tara June Winch (2019). New understandings and knowledges are derived from the works, derived from reading with responsibility and accountability to family, kin and community, reading for songlines and relations in the text, and reading with Indigenous notions of time and with the understanding that Indigenous literature is knowledge.

'The results of these readings are compared with the history of critical reception across four areas of the Australian literary sector, inclusive of the Australian media, published scholarly work, and the Australian literary and Indigenous literary industries. Differences and similarities confirm that reading from within Indigenous research paradigms results in a reorientation of Australian Indigenous literature across the literary sector. From this process, an Indigenous-centred reading approach is documented and an Indigenous-centred model for reading Australian Indigenous literature is further synthesised.

'The thesis builds on the work of Indigenous scholars such as Anita Heiss, Sandra Phillips, Jeanine Leane and Alexis Wright and makes a critical intervention within the Australian literary sector and especially the academy. The developed model places power back into the hands of Indigenous writers and readers, storytellers and storyreceivers and provides expansive ways of reading and a productive tension through which new knowledge can be produced for the benefit of Indigenous writers and their communities.'

Source: QUT ePrints.

1 y separately published work icon Veronica Literary Magazine 2016 Brisbane : Queensland University of Technology , 2016-2018 27947436 2016 periodical 'Veronica was a Brisbane-based online literary magazine, started in 2016 by creative writing students from QUT. We published mostly fiction, memoir and poetry. ​The magazine closed in 2018 after its creators moved on to new projects.' (https://veronicalitmag.weebly.com/about.html
1 y separately published work icon Young Adult Dystopian Fiction in the Postnatural Age Belinda Moore , Kelvin Grove : Queensland University of Technology , 2016 10880106 2016 single work thesis

This creative works thesis comprises an exegesis and a novel. Both explore the ways that a postnatural perspective can shape the reading and writing of young adult dystopian fiction. Approaching literature from a postnatural perspective can highlight a connection between shifts in a novel's key terms and the development of the protagonist towards understanding their world as an interconnected ecosystem. Through its grounding in ecocriticism and children's literature criticism, this research investigates the contributions a postnatural perspective offers young adult dystopian fiction generally, and specifically, in the development of the novel When the Cloud Hit the Kellys.

1 1 y separately published work icon Children's Literature and the Environment Kerry Mallan (lead researcher), Amy Cross (lead researcher), Cherie Allan (researcher), St Lucia : AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource , 2015-2018 15827524 2015 website bibliography

This Research Exhibition identifies children's literature across different forms and genres in Australia where discussions of environmental waste, climate change, species endangerment, ecocitizenship, and the effects of globalisation on the environment are major concerns.The Exhibition provides a space for researchers and students to access and engage with bibliographical data on a range of literary and critical texts that provide various environmental perspectives of contemporary Australian children’s literature.

1 y separately published work icon Sing Fox to Me : An Investigation into the 'Use' of Down Syndrome in both the Down Syndrome and Gothic Novel Sarah Kanake , Kelvin Grove : 2014 13337387 2014 single work thesis

'This project investigates the current borders around and within, what I have in this exegesis termed, "the Down Syndrome novel", using a close reading analysis of literary texts containing characters with Down syndrome and contextualised by theoretical works drawn from both disability and literary theory. This practice-led thesis introduces and discusses select fictional characters with Down syndrome from numerous genres, revealing them as highly contained, or "boundaried", spoken for, and generally used for narrative conflict rather than included as individuals with agency and a legitimate, autonomous voice and narrative point of view. In reframing the Australian landscape as "disabled" this exegesis illustrates that the Australian Gothic novel can shift, and sometimes even remove, the boundary around characters with intellectual disabilities, allowing a space where the stories of characters with Down syndrome can emerge.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

1 y separately published work icon Asian-Australian Children's Literature : Interviews with Seven Authors Michelle Dicinoski , Michelle Dicinoski (editor), Queensland University of Technology , 2012 Z1878611 2012 selected work interview 'This collection of interviews brings together seven Australian children's authors whose work has often featured Asian settings, or focused on Asian or Asian-Australian characters. The authors in question—Kirsty Murray, Sally Rippin, Steve Tolbert, Allan Baillie, Gabrielle Wang, Rosanne Hawke, and Christopher Cheng—were each asked several questions about their work, particularly with regard to setting. Some authors were also asked about the relationships between their own experiences of travel or migration and their writing' (Source: overview).
1 4 y separately published work icon Asian-Australian Children's Literature and Publishing Kerry Mallan (lead researcher), Martin Borchert (lead researcher), Deborah Henderson (lead researcher), Amy Cross (researcher), St Lucia : AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource , 2011-2014 Z1796670 2011-2012 website bibliography The Asian-Australian Children's Literature and Publishing project investigates and records details of Australian children's literature that is set in Asia and/or that represents Asian-Australian cultures and experiences, and literature that is published in selected Asian languages.
1 y separately published work icon The Candidate : A Novella and Examination of Australian Gothic Crime Fiction Jasmine Davies , Kelvin Grove : 2010 Z1791655 2010 single work thesis 'Australia is a land without haunted castles or subterranean corridors, without ancient graveyards or decaying monasteries, a land whose climate is rarely gloomy. Yet, the literary landscape is splattered with shades of the Gothic genre. This Gothic heritage is especially evident within elements of nineteenth century Australian sensation fiction. Australian crime fiction in the twentieth century, in keeping with this lineage, repeatedly employs elements of the Gothic, adapting and appropriating these conventions for literary effect. I believe that a 'mélange' of historical Gothic crime traditions could produce an exciting new mode of Gothic crime writing in the Australian context. As such, I have written a contemporary literary experiment in a Gothic crime 'hybrid' style: this novella forms my creative practice. The accompanying exegesis is a critical study of a selection of Australian literary works that exhibit the characteristics of both Gothic and crime genres. Through an analysis of these creative works, this study argues that the interlacing of Gothic traditions with crime writing conventions has been a noteworthy practice in Australian fiction during both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and these literary tropes are interwoven in the writing of 'The Candidate', a Gothic crime novella.'
Source: Author's abstract
1 y separately published work icon "Surviving" Adolescence : Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Transformations In Young Adult Fiction Anna Whateley , Kelvin Grove : 2010 Z1761971 2010 single work thesis

'This study, entitled "Surviving" Adolescence: Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic transformations in young adult fiction", analyses how discourses surrounding the apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic are represented in selected young adult fiction published between 1997 and 2009. The term ―apocalypse‖ is used by current theorists to refer to an uncovering or disclosure (most often a truth), and post-apocalypse means to be after a disclosure, after a revelation, or after catastrophe.

'This study offers a double reading of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic discourses, and the dialectical tensions that are inherent in, and arise from, these discourses. Drawing on the current scholarship of children‘s and young adult literature this thesis uses post-structural theoretical perspectives to develop a framework and methodology for conducting a close textual analysis of exclusion, un-differentiation, prophecy, and simulacra of death. The combined theoretical perspectives and methodology offer new contributions to young adult fiction scholarship.

'This thesis finds that rather than conceiving adolescence as the endurance of a passing phase of a young person‘s life, there is a new trend emerging in young adult fiction that treats adolescence as a space of transformation essential to the survival of the young adult, and his/her community.'

Source: QUT ePrints.

1 y separately published work icon Playing With Picturebooks : Postmodernism and the Postmodernesque Cherie Allan , Kelvin Grove : 2010 Z1761205 2010 single work thesis

The thesis traces the influence of postmodernism on picturebooks. Through a review of current scholarship on both postmodernism and postmodern literature it examines the multiple ways in which picturebooks have responded to the influence of postmodernism. The thesis is predominantly located in the field of Cultural and Literary Studies, which informs the ways in which children's literature is positioned within contemporary culture and how it responds to the influences which shape its production and reception. Cultural and Literary Studies also offers a useful theoretical frame for analysing issues of textuality, ideology, and originality, as well as social and political comment in the focus texts.

The thesis makes a significant contribution to the development of an understanding of the place of the postmodern picturebook within the cultural context of postmodernism. It adds to the field of children's literature research through an awareness of the (continuing) evolution of the postmodern picturebook particularly as the current scholarship on the postmodernism picturebook does not engage with the changing form and significance of the postmodern picturebook to the same extent as this thesis.

The study is significant from a methodological perspective as it draws on a wide range of theoretical perspectives across literary studies, visual semiotics, philosophy, cultural studies, and history to develop a tripartite methodological framework that utilises the methods of postclassical narratology, semiotics, and metafictive strategies to carry out the textual analysis of the focus texts.

Children's texts have a tradition of being both resistant and compliant. Its resistance has made a space for the development of the postmodern picturebook; its compliance is evident in its tendency to take a route around a truly radical or iconoclastic position. The thesis posits that children's postmodern picturebooks adopt what suits their form and purposes by drawing from and reflecting on some influences of postmodernism while disregarding those that seem irrelevant to its direction. Furthermore, the thesis identifies a shift in the focus of a number of postmodern picturebooks produced since the turn of the twenty-first century. This trend has seen a shift from texts which interrogate discourses of liberal humanism to those that engage with aspects of postmodernity. These texts, postmodernesque picturebooks, offer contradictory perspectives on aspects of society emanating from the rise in global trends mentioned above.

1 y separately published work icon Tango Femme : Placing The Lesbian Centre Stage Merrilee Moss , Brisbane : 2009 Z1853397 2009 single work thesis 'The play "Tango Femme" places the lesbian centre stage by creating characters, narrative and drama in the world of same-sex dancing. The accompanying exegesis examines the problems and issues associated with creating lesbian characters in theatre, using a synthesized, practice led methodology. During the process of imagining, constructing and writing my case study play, I have investigated lesbian theatre productions and companies in order to make sense of my personal experiences in the theatre world. I have also reflected on the lesbian as represented in mainstream theatre and popular culture. Through journal writing and contemplation, I have sought to identify difficulties inherent in writing this type of play, using my own journey as a focus. My study illuminates the historical and sociological circumstances in the eighties and nineties in Australia and concludes that as a lesbian playwright I was caught between a rock and a hard place: the rock being lesbian theatre on a community level, as defined and attended primarily by separatist lesbians, and the hard place being mainstream theatre, located within the dominant, heteronormative discourse.' Merrilee Moss.
1 y separately published work icon Indig-curious : What Are the Challenges for Non Aboriginal Theatre Practitioners in Accessing and Interpreting Aboriginal Themes? Jane Harrison , Brisbane : 2009 Z1804486 2009 single work thesis How do non-Indigenous theatre practitioners, especially actors, access and incorporate Aboriginal themes in the plays they create or perform in? Will it ever be acceptable for a non-Aboriginal actor to play an Aboriginal role? In literature there are clear protocols for writing Aboriginal characters and themes. In the visual arts and in dance, non-Indigenous practitioners might 'reference' Aboriginal themes, but what about in theatre performance? This research embodies one cultural dilemma in a creative project and exegesis: exploring the complex issues which emerge when an Aboriginal playwright is commissioned to write an 'Aboriginal themed' play for two non-Aboriginal actors. [Author's abstract]
1 y separately published work icon Reading The Environment : Narrative Constructions Of Ecological Subjectivities In Australian Children's Literature Geraldine Massey , Kelvin Grove : 2009 Z1792849 2009 single work thesis Ways in which humans engage with the environment have always provided a rich source of material for writers and illustrators of Australian children's literature. Currently, readers are confronted with a multiplicity of complex, competing and/or complementing networks of ideas, theories and emotions that provide narratives about human engagement with the environment at a particular historical moment. This study examines how a representative sample of Australian texts (19 picture books and 4 novels for children and young adults published between 1995 and 2006) constructs fictional ecological subjects in the texts, and offers readers ecological subject positions inscribed with contemporary environmental ideologies. The conceptual framework developed in this study identifies three ideologically grounded positions that humans may assume when engaging with the environment. None of these positions clearly exists independently of any other, nor are they internally homogeneous. Nevertheless they can be categorised as: (i) human dominion over the environment with little regard for environmental degradation (unrestrained anthropocentrism); (ii) human consideration for the environment driven by understandings that humans need the environment to survive (restrained anthropocentrism); and (iii) human deference towards the environment guided by understandings that humans are no more important than the environment (ecocentrism). iv The transdisciplinary methodological approach to textual analysis used in this thesis draws on ecocriticism, narrative theories, visual semiotics, ecofeminism and postcolonialism to discuss the difficulties and contradictions in the construction of the positions offered. Each chapter of textual analysis focuses on the construction of subjectivities in relation to one of the positions identified in the conceptual framework. According to the analysis undertaken, the focus texts convey the subtleties and complexities of human engagement with the environment and advocate ways of viewing and responding to contemporary unease about the environment. The study concludes that these ways of viewing and responding conform to and/or challenge dominant socio-cultural and political-economic opinions regarding the environment. This study, the first extended work of its kind, makes an original contribution to ecocritical study of Australian children's literature. By undertaking a comprehensive analysis of how texts for children represent human engagement with the environment at a time when important environmental concerns pose significant threats to human existence, Massey contributes new knowledge to an area of children's literature research that to date has been significantly under-represented.
1 y separately published work icon 'Fair Dinkum Personal Grooming' : Male Beauty Culture and Men's Magazines in the Twentieth Century Jennifer Burton , Brisbane : 2008 Z1828834 2008 single work thesis Burton analyses the representation of grooming in Australian men's lifestyle magazines to explore the emergence of new masculine subjectivities constructed around narcissism and the adoption of previously feminine-coded products and practices which may indicate important shifts in the cultural meanings of Australian masculinity. However, in order to talk about 'new' subjectivities and 'shifts' in masculine behaviours and cultural ideals, then it is imperative to demonstrate 'old' practices and ideologies, and so while the thesis is concerned with discourses of grooming and models of masculinity presented in the new genre of men's lifestyle titles which appeared on the Australian market in the late 1990s, it frames this discussion with detailed analyses of previously unexplored Australian men's general interest magazines from the 1930s ... This thesis is centrally concerned with the role of men's lifestyle magazines and magazine representations of masculinity in the 'cultural economy' of mediated male grooming cultures.
(From author's abstract)
1 6 y separately published work icon Children's Literature Digital Resources Kerry Mallan (lead researcher), Martin Borchert (lead researcher), Carolyn Young (lead researcher), Annette Patterson (lead researcher), Amy Cross (researcher), St Lucia : AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource , 2008 Z1796665 2008 website archive bibliography

Children's Literature Digital Resources, or, CLDR is a full text digital repository of Australian children’s literature from 1830 to 1945. Users can read online the complete texts of a selection of early Australian children’s literature, both popular and rare.

Over 500 texts can be read online, complete with their original illustrations and marginalia. While the CLDR is an invaluable tool for researchers of Australian children's literature, it is also an enjoyable resource for readers.

1 y separately published work icon The T'En Exiles : An Exploration of Discrimination and Persecution in High Fantasy Novels Rowena Cory Daniells , 2007 Z1665741 2007 single work thesis High Fantasy is extremely popular, with publication and sales of High Fantasy titles outnumbering Science Fiction for thirty years, yet Fantasy is less respected by reviewers of the Speculative Fiction genre. One reason for this is that High Fantasy often fails to adequately address culturally or politically significant issues. Respected Science Fiction writers, such as Octavia Butler, on the other hand, use the issues such as discrimination and persecution on the basis of race and gender. In my exegesis I explore the ways in which High Fantasy has explored the problems of discrimination and persecution. In my novel, The T'En Exiles, I create a world populated by differently abled races. The 'ordinary' people resent and fear the gifted people, who are less numerous and marginalised. Among the gifted there are those who are aware of mystical powers and those who can manipulate them; because of this a strict hierarchy has evolved. There is also a divide between the genders because the power of the females is expressed differently to that of the males. In The T'En Exiles I use the device of cognitive estrangement, a technique common in both Fantasy and Science Fiction, to examine discrimination and persecution. In particular in terms of how it affects individuals. In the exegesis I examine the ways in which issues of discrimination and persecution are dealt with in contemporary High Fantasy and Science Fiction, and the ways in which a more comprehensive and sensitive treatment of these issues in High Fantasy can address some concerns about the marginalisation of the sub-genre. (Source: Author's abstract)
1 y separately published work icon White Writing Black : Issues of Authorship and Authenticity in Non-Indigenous Representations of Australian Aboriginal Fictional Characters Linda Miley , Brisbane : 2006 Z1666958 2006 single work thesis

'This creative practice-led thesis is in two parts - a novella entitled "Leaning into the Light" and an exegesis dealing with issues for creative writers who are non-Indigenous engaging with Indigenous characters and inter-cultural relationships. The novella is based on a woman's tale of a cross cultural friendship and is set in a Queensland Cape York Aboriginal community over a period of fifteen years. "Leaning into the Light" is for the most part set in the late 1960s, and as such tracks some of the social and personal cost of colonisation through its depiction of Indigenous and non"Leaning into the Light" creates an imaginary space of intercultural relationships that is nevertheless grounded in a particular experience of a 'real' place and time where Indigenous and non-Indigenous subjectivities collide and communicate.

The exegesis is principally concerned with issues of non-Indigenous representation of indigeneity, an area of enquiry and scholarship that is being increasingly theorized and debated in contemporary cultural and literary studies. In this field, two questions raised by Fee (in Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin, 1995) are key concerns in the exegesis. How do we determine who is a member of the Aboriginal minority group, and can majority members speak for this minority? The intensification of interest around these issues follows a period of debate in the 1990s which in turn was spawned by the "unprecedented politicisation of {Australian} history" (Collins and Davis, 2004, p.5) following the important Mabo decision which overturned the "nation's founding doctrine of terra nullius" (ibid, p.2). These debates questioned whether or not non-Aboriginal authors could legitimately include Aboriginal themes and characters in their work (Huggins, 1994; Wheatley, 1994, Griffiths, et al in Tiffin and Lawson, 1994), and covered important political and ethical considerations, at the heart of which were issues of representation and authenticity. Moreover, there were concerns about non-Indigenous authors competing for important symbolic and publishing space with Indigenous authors. In the writing of Leaning into the Light, these issues became pivotal to the representation of character and situation and as such constitute the key points of analysis in the exegesis.' Source: http://eprints.qut.edu.au/16485/ (Sighted 04/02/2010).

1 y separately published work icon The Space Between : Representing 'Youth' on the Contemporary Australian Stage Richard Jordan , Kelvin Grove : 2005 Z1844104 2005 single work thesis 'Young characters throughout the history of Australian theatre have traditionally been represented as tragic, transient, and dangerous; discourses which have defined and limited their construction. 'Youth' itself is a concept which has been invented and perpetuated within Western Art and Media for much of the twentieth century and beyond, creating an exclusive 'space' for young people: a space between childhood and a standard human being. This thesis seeks to explore the implications of this space, as well as contextualise a new creative work - the stage play like, dead - within the canon of Australian theatre texts which portray young characters. like, dead will be shown to be a work which reappropriates clichéd youthful discourses through the use of irony, humour, and a sense of postmodern 'performativity' among its characters. In so doing it will demonstrate an alternative approach to representing young people on the Australian stage, by enhancing the constructedness of traditional images of 'youth' and pursuing the creation of young characters which are not solely defined by the term.'
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