Writing Place, Pushing Genre: adventures across South Africa and Australia

You are invited to two workshops as part of the Writing Place, Pushing Genre series, organised by Professor Peter Beilharz.

Wed 28 June: Opening Informal Conversations
Thurs 29 June: Writing and Research in Conversation

Building 502C.101 (behind Education building)
Curtin University. Kent Street, Bentley

Please RSVP your attendance to: HUM-MCCAAdmin@curtin.edu.au

1st Workshop: Opening Informal Conversations
Wednesday 28 June, 10AM-4PM

Professors Noëleen Murray and Ivan Vladislavić, University of Witwatersrand, with responses from Thesis Eleven Team, Peter Beilharz, Trevor Hogan, Sian Supski, and comments from Sisonke Msimang (Centre for Stories), John Mateer (Independent Curator and Poet) and Meg Samuelson (University of Adelaide). These speakers will open day one, with general discussion to follow.
To begin, we need to address some general issues of difference and alignment between South African and Australian and West Australian experiences. What were these colonial and imperial and local stories and realities? What were the regimes of racial regulation? What was the cultural traffic and policy traffic between the two? How do we narrate apartheid, and after, and the Australian parallels? How do we narrate, research and write these today? What might it mean, to write these stories?
Reading: AO Neville, Australia’s Coloured Minority (1947)

2nd Workshop: Writing and Research in Conversation
Thursday 29 June, 10AM-4PM

The format for today is a mix of conversations and short papers.

10AM: Ivan Vladislavić, with Peter Beilharz and Sian Supski, on Ivan’s works of fiction and engagement with images, with specific reference to The Folly; Double Negative and the new edition of The Exploded View.
11AM: Kim Scott and Sean Gorman will engage in conversation on new work and old, from Benang and That Deadman Dance, leading up to the arrival and discussion of Kim’s new and much awaited book, Taboo.
12PM-1PM: Break for lunch

Short Papers
1PM-1.30PM: Naama Grey-Smith – The Memory of Place: Writing the Local and Global Self
1.30PM-2PM: Matt Roberts – Intergenerational Loss through the Novel
2PM-2.30PM: Meg Samuelson – Reading Coastal Spaces through Shifting Frames – Reflections and Conjectures on South African and Australian Beach settings
2.30PM-3PM: Renee Schipp – Blurring at Our Borders: Unlearning Identity Through Topography
3PM – 3.15PM: Break for afternoon tea (light refreshments will be provided)
3.15PM – 4PM: Writing Cities and Urban Research – Noëleen Murray, Dora Marinova, and Peter Newman on urban and community research. What are the scholarly, political and practical challenges facing urban research today? How do we seek to develop and maintain comparison, nationally and globally? How do we keep regions, hinterlands and communities in the optic of urban research? How do we seek out the balance between country and city?

 The week’s events close with ‘From Ponte to Perth’ at Packenham St Arts Centre, Friday 30 June at 6PM

If you have any special requirements to enable you to participate at this event please advise when you RSVP. We will contact you to provide assistance.
For information about disability services at Curtin, please visit disability.curtin.edu.au.