Eminent authors provoke debate on Aussie culture

Tuesday, 17 April 2018

Writers and academics will challenge existing perceptions and approaches by institutions to Australian culture in a day-long symposium followed by a free public forum.

Provocations is a new series of exciting public forums tackling controversies in the arts and humanities, hosted by the University of Adelaide’s J.M. Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice.

The first symposium of the series is entitled Who Shot the Albatross? Gate-keeping in Australian Culture.

In the symposium eminent authors and academics will ask poignant questions such as: Are cultural institutions receptive to new voices or are they living in a literary echo-chamber? How do elites govern the cultural field? Are we all inadvertently cultural gate-keepers?

The symposium will be followed by a free public forum in which attendees will have the opportunity to express their own perceptions of cultural gatekeeping.

Speakers:
Professor Brian Castro, Chair of Creative Writing, University of Adelaide, is the author of ten novels, including the multi award-winning Double-Wolf and Shanghai Dancing. His latest novel Blindness & Rage was published by Giramondo in 2017. He was the 2014 winner of the Patrick White Award for Literature.

Professor Sneja Gunew is Professor Emerita of English and Women's and Gender Studies at the University of British Columbia, Canada. She has edited and co-edited four anthologies of Australian women's and multicultural writings. She compiled (with others) A Bibliography of Australian Multicultural Writers and co-edited Striking Chords: Multicultural Literary Interpretations.

Dr Michelle Cahill is a Sydney writer. Her short story collection Letter to Pessoa won the NSW Premier's Literary Award for New Writing. Her honours include the Hilary Mantel International Short Story Prize, the ABR Elizabeth Jolley Prize shortlist and the Arts Queensland Val Vallis Award.

Dr Mark Davis is coordinator of the Publishing and Communication program at the University of Melbourne. His research focuses on online 'anti-publics' and extreme online discourse, Australian digital literary cultures and taste-making, and the cultural politics of gatekeeping.

WHAT:      The J.M Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice presents a public forum, Who Shot the Albatross? Gate-keeping in Australian Culture.
WHERE:    Hartley Concert Room, Level 1, Hartley Building, Kintore Avenue, The University of Adelaide, SA 5005.
WHEN:      5 pm Thursday 26 April 2018
BOOKING: Eventbrite

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