Mary Besemeres ARC Postdoctoral Fellow Australia Research Institute Curtin University of Technology

ARC Discovery Grant and Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship at Curtin University of Technology 2002�2004
Project title: 'Cross-Cultural Lives: Narratives By Migrants Between Languages'.

Books

Translating One's Self: Language and Selfhood in Cross-Cultural Autobiography, Peter Lang AG European Academic Publishers, 2002.

Journal Articles

'Rewriting One's Self into English: Milosz Translated by Milosz', The Polish Review Vol. 40, No. 4 (1995): 415-432.

'Language and Self in Cross-Cultural Autobiography: Eva Hoffman's Lost in Translation', Canadian Slavonic Papers Vol. 40, Nos. 3-4 (1998): 327-344.

'Self-translation in Vladimir Nabokov's Pnin', The Russian Review 59:3 (2000): 390-407.

'Immigrant Irony and Embarrassment: Andrew Riemer's The Habsburg Caf�', New Talents 2001, Elizabeth Ruinard and Elspeth Tilley (eds), Journal of Australian Studies 67 (2001): 109-117.

With Anna Wierzbicka, 'The meaning of the particle lah in Singapore English', Pragmatics & Cognition 11:1 (2003), 3-38.

'Different Languages, Different Emotions? Perspectives from Autobiographical Literature', The Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, in press.

'The Family in Exile, Between Languages: Eva Hoffman's Lost in Translation, Lisa Appignanesi' Losing the Dead, Anca Vlasopolos's No Return Adress', a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, forthcoming in 2004.

Book Chapters

'Cultural Translation and the Translingual Self in the Memoirs of Edward Said and Andr� Aciman', In Exile, Language and Identity, Magda Stroinska and Vittorina Cecchetto (eds), Peter Lang, Bern, 2003, 19-33.

'Lost in Translations? Eva Hoffman and Tim Parks', In Mapping Identities in Modern Europe, Peter Wagstaff (ed.), Intellect, Bristol, in press.

'Immigrant Embarrassment and Self-Translation in Andrew Riemer's The Habsburg Caf�', In Selves Crossing Cultures: Autobiography and Globalization, Rosamund Dalziell (ed.), Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2002, 102�111.

'Translating the Self in Hsu-Ming Teo's Love and Vertigo and Shirley Lim's Among the White Moon Faces', In Anglophone Cultures in Southeast Asia: Appropriations, Continuities, Contexts, R�diger Ahrens et al, Universitaetsverlag Winter, Heidelberg, 2003, 115-122.

'When one's point of view changes with one's language', In Point of View in Language and Culture (in Polish), Jerzy Bartminski (ed.), UMCS, Lublin, Poland, in press.

Journal Issues

With Maureen Perkins, co-edited Mots Pluriels, No. 23 (2003), 'Translated Lives: Autobiography Between Languages and Cultures', (http://www.arts.uwa.edu.au/MotsPluriels)

With Maureen Perkins, co-edited Life Writing 1:1 (in press).

With Dr Maureen Perkins, I established the Life Writing Research Unit at Curtin University (May 2003), which runs monthly seminars that have attracted participants both from other W.A. universities and from the wider community. The international refereed print journal, Life Writing, which we have founded, has been a major outcome of the unit. The journal will be launched by Professor Sally Morgan (UWA) on 18 February. Contributors to the first issue include Ien Ang (UWS), David Parker (Chinese University of Hong Kong), Richard Freadman (La Trobe) and Tony Simoes da Silva (Exeter University). Members of the editorial board of Life Writing include scholars of international standing Jerome Bruner (State University of New York), Lila Abu-Lughod (University of Columbia) and Sidonie Smith (University of Michigan).

I have received a number of invitations to take part in conferences and to contribute book chapters on the basis of my previous research. In 2001, Dr Rosamund Dalziell invited me to take part in the conference Selves Crossing Cultures: Autobiography and Globalization (papers were by invitation only); Professor Magda Stroinska (McMaster University, Canada) invited me to contribute to her edited volume Exile, Language and Identity. In 2003, Dr Peter Wagstaff (University of Bath) invited me to contribute a chapter to the edited volume Mapping Identities in Modern Europe, on the basis of my book Translating One's Self (2002) and the journal issue I coedited with Dr Maureen Perkins, Mots Pluriels No. 23 (March 2003). Dr Aneta Pavlenko (Temple University) has recently invited me to contribute a chapter on emotion in translingual memoirs to her forthcoming book on bilingualism and emotions. In 2003 I was invited to give radio interviews on the topic of life writing, with SBS Polish radio, ABC radio Kalgoorlie, and radio station 6EBA ethnic radio, Perth.

From 2004, advisor to Alba Gonzalez, From Joaquin Enjuanes to Fr. Maur: A Benedictine Life in Context, Department of Social Work and Social Policy, Curtin University of Technology

With Professor Anna Wierzbicka (ANU) I am planning a workshop on the theme "Translating Lives: Australian Stories of Language Migration", to be held at Curtin University of Technology 8�9 November 2004. Invited participants include Dr Eva Sallis (University of Adelaide), Professor Michael Clyne (University of Melbourne) and Professor Brij Lal (ANU). We plan to edit a collection of essays based on the workshop and will be approaching a publisher with a proposal in due course.