David Carter Professor Director of Australian Studies Centre University of Queensland

My research into Australian periodicals played a major role in the formulation of new research for the Australian Literature Electronic Gateway project awarded a Linkage Infrastructure grant in the 2002 round.

My work on Australian culture has been distinctive in exemplifying and arguing the theoretical case for an institutional approach to literature or cultural history and bringing cultural studies theory to bear on literary study. Its focus has been 20th century literature, intellectual movements, cultural institutions and the 'cultures of modernity' in Australia. My contribution to these fields is manifested in a series of publications and papers over the last 10 years. In October 2002 I delivered an invited paper on Australian middlebrow culture at a conference at Harvard University. In 2001 I published the major collection of essays on Australian culture from institutional/policy perspectives, Culture in Australia (with Tony Bennett, CUP); my co-authored essay, 'The public life of literature' argues the positive relation of literature to public and civic institutions. Similarly, my chapter in the Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature (2000), the first substantial overview of Australian criticism since Kiernan (1974), is structured around shifts in intellectual history and institutional structures rather than a canon of critics or texts, and my monograph, A Career in Writing (1997), was distinctive in its theorisation of institutional processes through the concept of the career which has been cited in a number of subsequent studies. Another dimension of this work was a keynote address (EASA, Italy) on contemporary Australian book culture and public intellectuals, published in Australian Humanities Review. I subsequently assembled a volume of essays from leading younger Australian intellectuals on this issue, currently being assessed by UQP. UQP is also considering a volume on Australian book publishing which I have edited with Anne Galligan. Other dimensions of my contribution to cultural history can be seen in commissioned articles on Australian 'magazine history' in MIA (2001); literature, cultural studies and nationalism in a special issue of ALS (1999); and 'the canon' in a special issue of Southerly (1997). The first of these stems from my extensive research into Australian periodicals, crucial in the proposed project. I have been invited to contribute on this topic to Volume 3 of the History of the Book in Australia (plus an essay on the publishing history of They're a Weird Mob). I have also published regularly on ways of theorising culture in Australia and processes of cultural 'transference' (eg, on Britishness, Overland Summer 2002; on nationalism and popular culture in Wimmer 1999). These works show an evolving engagement with the socio-historical and institutional dimensions of Australian literature, publishing and reception, and with theories of popular culture and consumption emerging largely from cultural studies. In the broader field of Australian studies, the reader Images of Australia has been a standard text for over a decade; while The Republicanism Debate played an important role in public debate and is frequently cited.

Books

Culture in Australia: Policies, Publics and Programs, edited plus General and Section Introductions with T. Bennett (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 364pp.

Book Chapters

'The Story of our Epoch, A Hero of Our Time: The Communist Novelist in Post-War Australia', in Frank Hardy and the Literature of Commitment, eds Adams and Lee, (Melbourne: Red Rag Publications, 2003), pp. 85-107. (In press; accepted 2001.)

'The Public Life of Literature', with Kay Ferres, in Culture in Australia, eds Bennett & Carter (Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp.140-60.

'Six Theses on Contemporary Australia', in Changing Geographies: Essays on Australia, eds Ballyn et al. (University of Barcelona, 2001), pp.59-71.

'Critics, Writers, Intellectuals: Australian Literature and Its Criticism', in The Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature, ed. Webby (Melbourne: CUP, 2000), pp.258-293.

'Past and Future', in The Australian Legend and its Discontents, ed. Nile (University of Queensland Press, 2000), pp.59-77. First published as 'Working on the Past, Working on the Future' in Becoming Australia: The Woodford Forum, eds Nile & Peterson (St Lucia: UQP, 1998), pp.6-25.

'Modest Nationalism, Mundane Diversity and Positive Unoriginality: Models of Cultural Originality and Transfer in Australia', in Australian Nationalism Reconsidered: Maintaining a Monocultural Tradition in a Multicultural Society, ed. Wimmer (T�bingen: Stauffenburg Verlag, 1999), pp.72-83. Also published as 'Australian Popular Culture: Models of Influence and Originality', in New Directions in Australian Studies, eds vanden Driesen & Mitchell (New Delhi: Prestige, 2000), pp.68-81.

'Magazine Culture: Notes Towards a History of Australian Periodical Publication 1920-1970', in Australian Literature and the Public Sphere, eds Bartlett, Dixon & Lee (Toowoomba: ASAL, 1999), pp.69-79.

Journal Articles

'Communism and Carnival: Ralph de Boissiere's Crown Jewel and its Australian Context', To the Islands: Australia and the Caribbean, ed. McDougall, special issue of Australian Cultural History 21, 2002 pp.97-106.

'Going, Going, Gone? Britishness and Englishness in Contemporary Australian Culture', Overland 169 (Summer 2002), pp.81-86.

'Public Intellectuals, Book Culture and Civil Society', Australian Humanities Review December 2001-February 2002, http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/AHR/

'Magazine History', Media International Australia 99 (May 2001), pp.9-14.

'Good Readers and Good Citizens: Literature, Media and the Nation', Australian Literary Studies 19, 2 (October 1999), pp.136-51.

Ten Career Best Publications

Books

Culture in Australia: Policies, Publics and Programs, edited with Tony Bennett. General Introduction plus co-authored Section Introductions. Co-authored chapter with K. Ferres. (Melbourne: CUP, 2002).

A Career in Writing: Judah Waten and the Cultural Politics of a Literary Career (Toowoomba, ASAL Literary Studies Series, 1997; Sydney: Halstead Press, 1998).

The Republicanism Debate, edited with W. Hudson. Includes co-authored Introduction 'Reframing the Issues', (Sydney: NSW University Press, 1993).

Book Chapters

'Critics, Writers, Intellectuals: Australian Literature and Its Criticism', in The Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature, ed. Webby (Melbourne: CUP, 2000), pp.258-293.

'Modest Nationalism, Mundane Diversity and Positive Unoriginality: Models of Cultural Originality and Transfer in Australia', in Australian Nationalism Reconsidered, ed. Wimmer (T�bingen: Stauffenburg Verlag, 1999), pp.72-83.

'Documenting and Criticising Society' in The Penguin New Literary History of Australia, ed. Hergenhan (Ringwood: Penguin, 1988), pp.370-89.

Journal Articles

'Good Readers and Good Citizens: Literature, Media and the Nation', Australian Literary Studies 19, 2 (October 1999), pp.136-51.

'Literary Canons and Literary Institutions', in Canonozities, eds Bird, Dixon and Lever, Southerly Special Issue 57, 3 (Spring 1997), pp.16-37.

'Modernity and Belatedness in Australian Cultural Discourse', Southerly 54, 4 (Summer 1994-5), pp.6-18.

'Tasteless Subjects: Post-Colonial Literary Criticism, Realism and the Subject of Taste', Southern Review 25, 3 (November 1992), pp.292-303.

Invited/keynote conference presentations include: in 2002, invited speaker at Harvard University (papers to be published by Harvard UP); invited keynote at Chinese Australian Studies Association conference, Anhui University; keynote at workshop on Australian Studies in Tokyo; 2001: keynote, EASA conference, Italy, subsequently invited to submit paper as feature essay in AHR; 1999: invited presentation, Australian Media Traditions conference, opening and closing addresses at Australian Studies conferences in Japan and Taiwan; 1998: invited to convene panel on Literature and the Public Sphere for ASAL, keynote address to Japanese Australian Studies Association. My monograph, A Career in Writing, was awarded the Walter McRae Russell prize for the best work of Australian literary scholarship in 1998, three review essays of mine were selected for the major collection, Authority and Influence: Australian Literary Criticism. I have regularly been invited to contribute to major publications such as The Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature; books on Australian history and culture (e.g., Nile, The Australian Legend and its Discontents; Headon at el., The Abundant Culture; Gunew, Striking Chords, plus titles listed above); special issues of ALS and Southerly on Australian literary studies; and UQP's Australian Authors Series. In 2002 I was approached by Pearson Education to write a book in the interdisciplinary area of Australian studies/Australian cultural history. My subsequent proposal was read by a dozen academic peers with extremely positive feedback and a book contract has been signed. I have served on the editorial board of the Journal of Australian Studies (1996-2001) and am a member of the Advisory Board of Southern Review, the Publications Committee of the ASAL and the University of Southern Queensland's Faculty of Arts Review Committee. I served as President of the International Australian Studies Association from 1997-2001 and currently edit its bulletin Crossings. In 1999 I was appointed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade to the Australia-Japan Foundation and re-appointed for a second term in 2002.

In the last 5 years I have been asked to examine PhD theses from institutions across Australia in a wide range of areas in Australian cultural history including publishing studies, art history, literature, biography, popular culture and cultural policy. A new PhD student has recently joined me from the University of Tasmania to work on middlebrow culture.

Masters of Arts in Australian Studies