Staff
 |
|
Professional Background
Educated at Sydney University with a BSc and BA (Hons), I attended Oxford University for a short postgraduate interlude before being appointed as Tutor to English Department, Faculty of Military Studies, RMC Duntroon in 1983. In 1986 I moved with the rest of FMS to University College, ADFA as part of the School of English. This has subsequently been amalgamated into the School of HASS, UNSW@ADFA. Apart from visiting research and teaching fellowships at Universities of Barcelona, Pennsylvania State and Luoyang, Foreign Languages Academy, PRChina, I have researched and taught at UNSW in one form or another since 1983. In that time I have published widely on Anzac imagery, iconic and emblematic literatures of the English renaissance, Australian writers and poets such as Peter Porter, Douglas Stewart, and Barbara Blackman, and artists such as Ken Unsworth, Peter Daly, Lex Dickson, and on Vietnam Veteran Art. I have given numerous conference papers and convened more than 6 conferences; with subjects ranging from ‘Cultural Representations of Australia’s Vietnam War’, ‘POW experiences’; ‘400th Anniversary of the Spanish Armada’; ‘7th Annual Film and History Conference’; ‘Crossing Cultures: Australia, Literature and the Asia Pacific’; I have given more than twenty conference papers ranging from psychoanalysis of films, to the memorialisation and art of war through to the representation of Anzac iconography, film and combat, to ‘Photographic narratives in Australia at 1900’, and ‘Shakespeare in comic book art’, and on teaching literary theory and ‘combat art and film’.
Administratively I have served on more than twenty committees at all levels of the ADFA collegiate life, most notably as Presiding Member of the Humanities Board from 1998-2003. I am currently Presiding Member of the Post Graduate Course Work Committee, and a member of the UNSW Kensington PGC committee.
Courses Taught:
A selection includes all aspects of English 1 notably ‘English 1B (2005-08) : War and Literature’; ‘English Renaissance Studies (1500-1660)’; ‘Genre Studies: Non-Fictional Prose’; several versions of ‘Literary Theory and Practice’; Several iterations of ‘Studies in the Media' (includes separate studies of Situation Comedies, Westerns, Costume Dramas from Biblical epics through to Gladiator, and several varieties of War film courses from undergraduate to Post-graduate); Fourth Year (Honours) courses on Literary Theory; period studies inn the 16th and 17th centuries; medieval literature.
In 2008 I am teaching ‘War and Memory’ and ‘Strategic Communication’ both postgraduate/Master’s courses by distance.
Research Interests / Projects
Iconography of Anzac, combat in films, representations and memorialisation of
warfare. ( a number of papers are in process, or being edited for publication)
Ken Unsworth (installation artist and sculptor) : a critical study. A book length Ms
is nearing completion in2008.
Barbara Blackman: archiving and criticism of her letters and papers, and
surrounding umbra of writers, artists, critics. (a long term project organising BB’s papers for eventual archiving; critical articles to come)
‘Odd Angry Shots: a Critical History of Australian Soldiers in film and TV since
WW2.’ (long term project - for book length study).
ADFA Library Art exhibitions. Curating approx 5 per year since 1990.
‘Ken Unsworth Retrospective’ proposed for Drill Hall Gallery, ANU 2009.
‘Intervention Art’ joint exhibition with Ginnindera Galleries, for September 2008.
Other ‘interests’:
Australian Poetry and select writers: includes. Douglas Stewart, Peter
Porter, John Kinsella, Rosemary Dobson, JS Harry, Rodney Hall, David Malouf, Robert Grey, and Chris Wallace-Crabbe.
Australian prose writers: Rodney Hall, Alex Miller, Brian Castro, David Foster,
Australian Screen writers: John Doyle (Changi), and numerous Crawfords’
scriptwriters for The Sullivans, among other series
TV mini series: Vietnam, Sword of Honour, Changi, Cowra Breakout and so on..
The Sitcom
Combat and costume drama in film and TV generally.
Consulting / Professional Activities
I have done some editing for various publishers including the Army History Unit.
I served on the curatorium of the Power House Museum, Casula, ‘Vietnam Voices Travelling Show’ in 2000.
Publications
Major works are:
And:Vietnam Days (1991) ed with JG Grey and Peter Pierce
Vietnam War Myth and Memory (1992), edited with JG Grey
Australian National Vietnam Veterans Memorial Dedication Booklet (1992)
Australia’s Vietnam War (2005), edited with P Pierce and JG Grey
A Bibliography of Douglas Stewart (1996) compiled with S Ballyn
Crossing Cultures (1996), ed with B Bennett, et al
Our Selection On: cinemas’ histories (1997), ed with B Van der Heide et al
‘AAVE: Art of the Australian Vietnam Experience’, Exhibition, website, and Catalogue, ADFA Library, 1996. (over 150 works shown)
Areas of Potential Postgraduate Supervision
- Australian Literature, television and cinema.
- US and European film and TV especially on combat and related warfare fields.
- Popular Culture, especially US, UK and Australian TV sitcoms, series, and
- documentaries, and multi-media
- Australian art, especially installation art, printing, sculpture and ceramics
- Anzac, and especially Vietnam War cultural responses in Australia and the USA
- Cultural, literary and critical theory
- Strategic Communication
- Archivally focused work on manuscripts.