About Research Higher Degree Seminar

This Special 2-Hour Seminar will focus on the research of four postgraduate students:

  1. “music made from old bones”: Questioning the Gothic in Alexis Wright’s The Swan Book
    Populated as it is by ghosts, doppelgängers and “sky-trains of diseased bats” Alexis Wright’s latest novel The Swan Book (2013) can be classified as a Gothic text. However, this relationship should not go unquestioned. This presentation will trace Wright’s selection, subversion and transformation of Gothic tropes in order to build on Katryn Althans existing scholarship on Aboriginal Gothic literature and explore Wright’s complicated and political interactions with the European Gothic tradition.
    • Jean Skeat is a post-graduate student of English Literature at the University of Queensland. She is currently researching representations of otherness and political poetics in Alexis Wright’s The Swan Book (2013).

  2. Alcohol Culture in Australia
    Muirs' thesis examines the events that lead to her younger brother’s accidental death and the effect it had on her family. Her brother was a problem drinker and the accident was caused by his intoxication. The work tries to understand the drinking culture in Australia including why we drink, why we drink to excess and the social impact of heavy drinking cultures.
    • Elspeth Muir is completing her MPhil in Creative Writing at UQ. She has had work published in Voiceworks, The Griffith Review, The Lifted Brow, The Best of the Lifted Brow Vol 1 and BUMF.

  3. Segregation of the loathsome: The portrayal of Hansen's disease in fiction
    Until recently, Hansen's disease was considered a morally as well as physically contagious disease. In Queensland, patients were segregated at the Peel Island lazaret, off the coast of Brisbane, until its closure in 1959. For this seminar, Karen Hollands will read an excerpt from the novella she is writing about a teenage girl sent to the lazaret.
    • Dr Karen Hollands has a PhD in Education and is now completing an MPhil in Creative Writing.

  4. The Idiot’s Tale
    Newsome will read an extract from his manuscript THE IDIOT’S TALE, set in the tumult of the 18th century slave trade along the west African coast, as well as briefly discuss the creative challenges of writing dialogue for historical characters. The manuscript is the creative component of Richard’s PhD thesis and is his first foray into Young Adult literature.
    • Richard Newsome is the author of The Billionaire series of Middle Grade adventure novels.

Jean Skeat, Elspeth Muir, Karen Hollands, and Richard Newsome are all postgraduate students in the School of Communication and Arts.

Venue

Room 601, Level 6, Michie Building