A symposium and book launch celebrating the publication of The Salt Companion to John Tranter (edited by Rod Mengham) & Starlight: 150 Poems (John Tranter).

Speakers: John Tranter, Professor Philip Mead (University of Western Australia) and Dr Kate Lilley (University of Sydney).

Wed 22 September
5:30 for 6pm
John Woolley Common Room
Science Road
The University of Sydney

See here for more information.

THE LONG TWENTIETH CENTURY

SHARP Brisbane

28-30 April 2011

The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

The twentieth century began in the midst of one print revolution and ended in the midst of another. This conference aims to bring together research on topics in book history, publishing studies, media studies and histories of reading from across the “long twentieth century”-from the closing decades of the nineteenth century to the opening decade of the twenty-first. It will look back from the digital age to the print and broadcast revolutions of the twentieth century, and examine the diverse experiences of print modernity across the globe.

Dramatic developments in publishing in the late nineteenth century coincided with equally dramatic changes in the nature of authorship, reading practices, print markets, education, and the international trade in books. The rapid expansion of print culture was central to the transnational experience of modernity, and deeply enmeshed in the rise of distinctively modern forms of entertainment, consumption and communication. Perhaps only now do we find a comparable moment of change and challenge. The digital age has signaled a new print revolution. Once again, the international trade in print and intellectual property is at stake in a globalised market and mediascape. Once again, publishing, reading and writing find themselves refigured by powerful new technologies, and previously unimagined forms of communication and entertainment. Once again, the language of crisis is all about us, as the complexion of the book is renewed amidst new cultural forms and formations.

The Long Twentieth Century seeks proposals for 20-minute papers and 90-minute panel sessions on any aspect of book history or print culture studies addressing the conference theme. Possible topics include:

• “Modern books” and “modern readers”-print cultures and modernity
• The print diaspora-colonial and postcolonial book and readers
• Asian modernities-print and digital revolutions in Japan, China, India and beyond
• From print technologies to reading devices-transformations of the book
• Print and screen cultures-aesthetics, adaptation, convergence
• High, popular and middlebrow cultures-the democratization of book talk
• Bestseller lists, literary prizes, and “modern classics”-new definitions of literary value
• Books and government-policy, piracy and intellectual property
• The “business of books”-globalization and changing industry structures
• Institutions and instruction-histories of literary education
• Redefining periodical cultures-newspapers, magazines, blogs and digital time
• Transformations in the “world republic of letters”-cultures, careers, corporations
• “Deprovincializing Europe”-local, national, transnational histories of books and reading
• Web archives and libraries-the ideal of a universal library and the politics of digital reproduction

Papers addressing book history in Asia, Africa, and post-colonial cultures are especially welcomed, alongside those addressing Anglo-American, European, and Australasian contexts.

Please submit abstracts to the conference conveners at UQSHARP2011@gmail.com by 1 November 2010.

See here for a pdf version of the call for papers.

Friday 10 September 2010, 7pm - 9 pm

You are invited to the first Melbourne Salon at the Alliance Française de Melbourne.

Speakers:

Jean-François Vernay is a Franco-Australian essayist based in New Caledonia, who specialises in Australian literature. Jean-François will be speaking about his latest book Panorama du roman australien:  des origines à nos jours 1831-2007 (Hermann Press, 2009), which he describes as “a labour of love” which took 10 years of research. This first survey of Australian fiction aims to give European readers an overview of Australian literature, and is now available in English as The Great Australian Novel - A Panorama (published by Brolga, 2010).

In an article in The Age last year, Jean-François is quoted as saying that his aim in the book was to engage the reader in a kind of conversation. “I wanted to adopt a sort of casual tone. … I wrote the essay using the tone of a novel, which makes it entertaining, I hope, rather than just a collection of literary facts.”

As the founding editor of the journal Correspondances océaniennes, Jean-François has also published numerous articles and book reviews on contemporary Australian fiction, and has been promoting Australian culture for over a decade. His first book Water From the Moon: Illusion and Reality in the Works of Australian Novelist Christopher Koch (Cambria Press, 2007) has been critically acclaimed in Australia.

Elaine Lewis founded the Australian Bookshop in Paris in 1996 to promote Australian writers. Between 1996 and 2001 she organised more than 70 readings for visiting Australian authors, artists and musicians. During this time, Elaine’s work included writing freelance articles for French magazines and speaking to groups of French people interested in Australian writing. Her book Left Bank Waltz: the Australian Bookshop in Paris was commissioned and published by Random House Australia in 2006.

Elaine’s love of the French language led her to commence translating poetry from France, Belgium, and Canada; her translations have been published in France. She is currently committee member of the Franco-Anglais Poetry Festival Association (a translation festival held annually in Paris since 1977), AALITRA (the Australian Association for Literary Translation), the Melbourne PEN Centre, and Deputy Editor of ‘Explorations’, the journal of ISFAR (Institute for the Study of French Australian Relations).

Chair: Kerry Mullan is coordinator of French Studies at RMIT University. The Melbourne Salon is a joint venture between RMIT, ISFAR and the Alliance Française de Melbourne; it aims to create a place where curious and open-minded people can engage in French-Australian cross-cultural dialogues.

Please join us for what promises to be a very special inaugural Melbourne Salon.

Cover charge $22 payable on the night (includes cheese and wine)

Bookings essential.  RSVP: kerry.mullan@rmit.edu.au. Numbers strictly limited.

Dear ASAL 2010 delegates

We are writing to invite conference presenters to submit papers for the JASAL Special Issue on Archive Madness. Papers need to be submitted to JASAL by 10 January 2010.

Postgraduate students who wish to submit their essays to the A.D. Hope prize should follow the same process and include details of their postgraduate status with their essays.

The JASAL site should be consulted for information regarding submission.

We are very excited about this publication given the wonderful work presented at the conference.

Best wishes

Monash University Centre for Postcolonial Writing, School of English, Communications and Performance Studies presents “Writers and their World Seminar Series”

All seminars will be held on Mondays in the ECPS library W707, Building 11, Clayton Campus, from 2.00-3.00pm, followed by a light afternoon tea.

For more information download a pdf about the seminar series here.