University of Queensland, 10-11 February 2011

Hosted by the School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Queensland

Keynote speaker: Emeritus Professor Ros Pesman, author of Duty Free: Australian Women Abroad and co-editor of Australians in Italy: Contemporary Lives and Impressions and The Oxford Book of Australian Travel Writing.

If myths of national identity have focused on travel to Australia (‘discovery’, invasion/settlement, transportation, migration), it is worth noting that travel from Australia has been a significant phenomenon for just as long. From Yolngu people accompanying Macassan fisherman to the islands of Indonesia, from those First Fleeters who made the return journey ‘home’ to Europe, to today’s travellers, tourists and expatriates, residents of Australia have left its shores for a multitude of destinations and reasons and in very different roles. Descendants of migrants and refugees, soldiers, nurses, artists, authors, brides, chaperones, utopians, sportspeople, students, teachers, backpackers, cruise-ship travellers, journalists, IT professionals: some have sought to rejoin family, others to escape it; some have sought renown, others have been head-hunted.We invite papers that explore the conference theme from a variety of disciplinary perspectives including: auto/biography, travel writing, history, language learning, intercultural communication, sociology, tourism, literary/cultural studies.

Possible topics might include:

• analyses of fiction, memoirs, letters, diaries, interviews relating to travel by Australians
• patterns of travel/writing, configurations of gender and desire at different times, in different places
• Aboriginal travel to various destinations and its purposes
• the search for Utopia and its construction by Australians
• contemporary discourses displacing the ‘cultural cringe’ of the 1960s as the motivation for travel
• reflections on Australia from an overseas vantage point
• Australian experiences in non-English speaking territory, language-learning memoirs, the relation between language and cultural identity
• the extent to which belonging is sought in the destination culture, accommodation to local cultures
• representations of particular cultures by Australians
• New Zealand travel/expatriate experiences (this might form a panel broadening the conference theme to Australasians Abroad)

Abstracts of 250 words or panel proposals (3 x 20 minute papers on a common theme with an abstract for each) with full contact details should be sent by 31 August 2010 to Dr Juliana de Nooy at: j.denooy@uq.edu.au.

Other keynote speakers will be confirmed shortly. Conference registration will open in October 2010 and will include earlybird registration fees. Participation by postgraduate students is particularly welcome.

Further details will be posted, as they become available, on the conference website.