Welcome to CuSPP! This network brings together researchers, scholars, and writers working in and beyond the Australian National University in Canberra in cultures of screen, performance, and print. CuSPP encompasses literary and screen studies, cultural history, theatre and performance studies, digital cultures and humanities, book history and reception studies. It explores relationships across time and place, from the ancient world to the present day. On this website you will find information about our upcoming events, which we hope you will find of interest.
Scarlette Do on Vietnamese Socialist Utopia in Đặng Nhật Minh’s 1980s Films
Vietnamese auteur Đặng Nhật Minh is highly regarded both inside and outside of the country for his poetic films and skilful negotiations with the censors at the Ministry of Culture. This paper examines two of Đặng’s films—When the Tenth Month Comes (1984) and The Girl on the River (1987)—against the backdrop of socio-political reforms and … Continue reading
Alice Grundy’s Exit Seminar: Editing and Publishing in Australia
Thursday 30 June, 4.30-6pm, A. D. Hope G28 (Note change of venue) Please find link and password for livestream of this seminar here While many scholars acknowledge that a book’s passage to publication is managed, aided and afforded by the labour of many people, in most literary scholarship such labour is ignored – perpetuating what … Continue reading
Xiang Li on ’The Drover’s Wife’ Stories
Rewriting, Reflecting and Resisting: Gender, Reception and ‘The Drover’s Wife’ Stories Thursday 5 May, 4.30-6pm, A. D. Hope Conference Room. Henry Lawson’s 1892 short story ‘The Drover’s Wife’ has inspired many reinterpretations over the years. The constant (re)reading and (re)writing of the story enable discussions of and debates over gender, race, national identity and Australian … Continue reading
Paul Magee on “the Retrospective Nature of Poetic Mimesis”
Bringing the Original into Being by Copying It: On the Retrospective Nature of Poetic Mimesis Thursday 28 April, 4.30-6pm, A. D. Hope Conference Room. For zoom link for this event and/or to be added to the CuSPP member list contact: Russell.Smith@anu.edu.au A long line of commentators (Johnson 1751; Attridge 1982; Ford 2021) have pointed out … Continue reading
Louisa Kirk, “Women’s Friendship in 20th Century American Novels”.
A matrix of becoming: Women’s friendship in 20th century American novels(Exit Seminar) Thursday 24 March, 4.30-6pm, A. D. Hope Conference Room. For zoom link for this event and/or to be added to the CuSPP member list contact: Russell.Smith@anu.edu.au Few women would disagree with the idea that female friendship is—alongside the romantic and familial—one of the … Continue reading
Leslie Barnes, ”Smoke and Mirrors”
“Smoke and Mirrors: Sex Work and Rithy Panh’s Cinematic Image” Thursday 24 February, 4.30-6pm, A. D. Hope Conference Room. For zoom link and further enquiries contact: Russell.Smith@anu.edu.au This paper examines the narrative authority of the sex worker in Rithy Panh’s Un Soir après la guerre (1998) and Le Papier ne peut pas envelopper la braise (2007), two films that counter … Continue reading
Monique Rooney on CATS as Elemental Melodrama
Join us for the next CuSPP Seminar (taking place via zoom) Thursday 9 December, 4.30 – 6pm (see CuSPP email or contact monique.rooney@anu.edu.au for zoom link). Elemental Limits: Cats (2019), Melodrama and the Heaviside Layer From its inaugural performance at the New London Theatre (1981), Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats has been a blockbuster success recognised for … Continue reading