Susan J. Carson

Practices of literary tourism: an Australian case study

Purpose To present the results of tests for the development of literary trails for domestic visitors and tourists in Brisbane, Queensland, and to situate these findings in the context of recent state government policy changes in relation to culture, community engagement and the environment. Design Broadly cultural studies: the article analyses changes in international and national cultural tourism and Queensland based issues before presenting the research findings. Findings a gap in tourist and cultural development models exists for the implementation of a network of sustainable literary trails in Brisbane--this model can be extended to regions around the state to meet the demands of the new tourist. Limitations Queensland weather and Australian distance which will require a regional approach that networks with transport and community hubs. Practical implications the research has produced new software for the use of self-guided walks; the locations for two specific area trails; and the involvement of the State Library of Queensland as a “hub” for the trails. Substantial support exists for further development in advanced locative media and gaming. Social implications the research demonstrates the importance of developing a sense of place that relates to culture, literary history and community for tourists, as well as the potential for community engagement.

Spun from four horizons: re-writing the Sydney Harbour Bridge

Abstract The Sydney Harbour Bridge provides an imaginative space that is revisited by Australian writers in particular ways. In this space, novelists, poets, and cultural historians negotiate questions of emotional and psychological transformation as well as reflect on social and environmental change in the city of Sydney. The writerly tensions that mark these accounts often alter, or query, representations of the Bridge as a symbol of material progress and demonstrate a complex creative engagement with the Bridge. This discussion of ‘the Bridge’ focuses on the work of four authors, Eleanor Dark, P.R. Stephensen, Peter Carey and Vicki Hastrich and includes a range of other fictional and non-fictional accounts of ‘Bridge-writing.’ The ideas proffered are framed by a theorising of space, especially referencing the work of Michel de Certeau, whose writing on the spatial ambiguity of a bridge is important to the examination of the diverse ways in which Australian writers have engaged with the imaginative potential and almost mythic resonance of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Literature, tourism and the city: writing and cultural change

ABSTRACT Today national and regional tourism organizations look to sophisticated cultural tourism programmes to enhance the visitor experience for tourists of their particular city. Yet research indicates that a challenge exists in designing and implementing programmes that take full advantage of a city’s historical and emergent literary cultures. In this paper, we offer critical insights into how literary cultural heritage can foster the development of an integrated and dynamic approach and provide the experience sought by local and global tourists. International exemplars are cited together with an analysis of the Australian city of Brisbane that describes itself as a ‘new world city’. The findings of our research show that programmes that harness diverse literary cultures, rather than adhering to a single literary representation, are better equipped to build identity and thus extend cultural tourism potential.

The Children’s Chorus: Sibling Soundscapes in The Man Who Loved Children

The voices of children in The Man Who Loved Children allow Christina Stead to re-imagine her childhood and also to provide a platform for representing the struggles of children more broadly. Using a diverse range of narrative techniques Stead orchestrates the voices of the siblings to provide a soundscape for the Pollit world that dramatizes and at times directs the eccentricities of adult behaviour. In so doing Stead grants the children a type of agency that is unusual in the framework of adult fiction and thereby offers readers a new way to think about children. The tonal qualities created by Stead to represent the collective voice of the Pollit siblings are of strategic importance to the narrative and an important strand in the array of language strategies that Stead uses to open a space for the child’s perspective. This essay examines the ‘sound’ of the children in Stead’s novel and comments on connections with Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse in which children also frame narrative action. The novels present a family at a moment of social change and create an opportunity for readers to listen to the voice of the child as mediated by writers who worked with sound as a component of their experimental fiction.

Supervising Practice: Perspectives on the supervision of creative practice higher degrees by research

PhD supervision is a particularly complex form of pedagogical practice, and nowhere is its complexity more apparent than in new and emergent fields, such as creative practice Higher Degrees by Research (HDRs) where supervisors face the challenges of a unique, uncharted area of research training. While there is an increasing body of literature on postgraduate supervision, and another emerging body of research into what creative practice/practice-led/practice-based research is, so far little attention has been paid to matters associated with research education leadership and pedagogical aspects of supervision in creative practice disciplines.For this reason, this special issue brings together a range of perspectives on the supervision of creative practice PhDs in visual and performing arts, media production, creative writing, and design.

Speaking of Supervision: A Dialogic Approach to Building Higher Degree Research Supervision Capacity in the Creative Arts.

Abstract In the emergent field of creative practice higher degrees by research, first generation supervisors have developed new models of supervision for an unprecedented form of research, which combines creative practice and a written thesis. In a national research project, entitled ‘Effective supervision of creative practice higher research degrees’, we set out to capture and share early supervisors’ insights, strategies and approaches to supporting their creative practice PhD students. From the insights we gained during the early interview process, we expanded our research methods in line with a distributed leadership model and developed a dialogic framework. This led us to unanticipated conclusions and unexpected recommendations. In this study, we primarily draw on philosopher and literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin’s dialogics to explain how giving precedence to the voices of supervisors not only facilitated the articulation of dispersed tacit knowledge, but also led to other discoveries. These include the nature of supervisors’ resistance to prescribed models, policies and central academic development programmes; the importance of polyvocality and responsive dialogue in enabling continued innovation in the field; the benefits to supervisors of reflecting, discussing and sharing practices with colleagues; and the value of distributed leadership and dialogue to academic development and supervision capacity building in research education.

Charmian and George: The Marriage of George Johnston and Charmian Clift [Book Review]

Publishers details for: Charmian and George: The Marriage of George Johnston and Charmian Clift, by Max Brown, Sydney: Rosenberg, 2004.

Good Practice Report : Postgraduate Research and Coursework Degrees

29.95.