Research Seminar: Reading Walkabout
Associate Professor Anna Johnston
Friday 9 September
Room 601, Michie Building (#9)
3pm - 4pm
Walkabout (1934-74) was an extremely popular magazine that sought to introduce armchair readers to remote Australian regions and the Asia-Pacific, and to encourage them, through travel, to develop a sense of belonging and place. Lavishly illustrated with black and white photographs, and featuring some of the most interesting mid-century writers across a variety of fields, Walkabout addressed a diverse range of topics: geology; flora and fauna; the outback and its people; the Pacific region; and a distinctively Australian modernity. The magazine also played a central role in mid-century Australian cultural life, publishing and featuring key writers and inculcating a community of engaged and informed general readers. This paper focusses on the literary culture of Walkabout within the broader context of the magazine.
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Join us for a drink, after the seminar, at St Lucy’s
Bio:
Anna Johnston is an ARC Future Fellow in the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, and Associate Professor in English Literature in the School of Communication and Arts. A graduate of the University of Queensland, Anna has worked at the University of Tasmania, where she was Director of the Centre for Colonialism and Its Aftermath (2013-16) and an ARC Queen Elizabeth II Research Fellow (2007-14). In 2014-15, Anna was Visiting Professor of Australian Studies at the University of Tokyo. She has published widely in the field of colonial and postcolonial studies, focussing on literary and cultural history: her most recent monograph is The Paper War: Morality, Print Culture, and Power in Colonial New South Wales (UWA Press 2011). She has particular interests in settler colonialism, travel writing, and missionary writing and empire.
About Research Seminar and Workshop Series
School of Communication and Arts Research Seminar Series
The research seminar and workshop series occur each semester, each with a different topic and guest speaker from UQ or otherwise.
Friday, 4 August Hybrid: Online via Zoom and in person at the | After the Future: Heat, Collapse, and Exhausting the “Future of Work” | Dr Luke Munn |
Friday, 25 August Hybrid: Online via Zoom and in person at the | Promoting children’s environmental responsibility in the EFL classroom | Dr Valentina Adami |
Friday, 1 September Hybrid: Online via Zoom and in person at the | Portraying Asian-diasporic identity beyond the limits of the literary label Asian-Australian | Catriona Arthy and Olivia De Zilva |
Friday, 8 September Hybrid: Online via Zoom and in person at the | Exploring Digital Humanities through the Lens of Journalism: A Case Study of Reader Comment Analysis | Dr Lujain Shafeeq |
Friday, 15 September Hybrid: Online via Zoom and in person at the | Carly-Jay Metcalfe and Bianca Millroy | |
Friday, 22 September Hybrid: Online via Zoom and in person at the | Coping with eco-anxiety: A guided journal trial | Dr Ans Vercammen and Dr Skye Doherty |