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Philip Mead, UWA
Philip Mead Philip Mead i(A4776 works by) (a.k.a. Philip Stirling Mead)
Born: Established: 1953 Brisbane, Queensland, ;
Gender: Male
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Works By

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1 Antipodal Ireland and Tasmanian Underworlds : John Mitchel and William Moore Ferrar Philip Mead , 2021 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , vol. 36 no. 2 2021;

'The Central Highlands of Tasmania is an unlikely antipodes of Irish writing, but it is a region that has complex representations by exiled and immigrant Irish writers. The picturesque landscape of the Highlands in the Young Irelander John Mitchel’s Jail Journal (1856) is well known; less well known is the writing of William Moore Ferrar, born in Dublin in 1823 and who emigrated to New South Wales, then Van Diemen’s Land, as a free settler in 1843. His novel Artabanzanus: The Demon of the Great Lake: An Allegorical Romance of Tasmania: Arranged from the Diary of the Late Oliver Ubertus (1896) represents a vision of an ideal surface world and a hellish underground. Dedicated to Arthur James Balfour, and dramatising the issue of Irish home rule, Ferrar’s novel is an eccentric but multi-faceted instance of the Irish-Tasmanian imaginary.'

Source: Abstract.

1 Beyond the Bounds : John Kinsella’s Poetics of International Regionalism Philip Mead , 2021 single work criticism
— Appears in: Angelaki , vol. 26 no. 2 2021; (p. 10-15)

'For John Kinsella place and space, with all their historical, cultural, political, geographical, epistemic and environmental dimensions, are explicitly constitutive of his writing. But the ruling imaginary of this writing is “displacement,” the problems and paradoxes of home, country, travel, knowledge, ecology, activism that characterise his critical and poetic engagements. From multiple angles Kinsella’s writing anatomises the unsettledness of Australian history and consciousness, but it also conceives of these national dimensions in inter- and transnational terms. Kinsella is always concerned to show place, belonging and “international regionalism” alive in negotiations with the writing of any location, of all social and biological environments. Further his work reflects an activist politics of knowledge, with its recognition that a broad knowledge of locality needs to critique “Place” studies and discourses from privileged institutions of learning that fail to acknowledge the place-knowledge of communities that do not have access to means of articulating what makes their “local” knowledge relevant, dynamic and essential to themselves as well as to the wider world. At the same time, this critical discourse is shadowed by the affective realities of displacement, of never being able to be at home.' (Publication abstract)

1 Patina on Glass i "The shallows are ribbed with wind, smoke curls out from the chimney", Philip Mead , 2020 single work poetry
— Appears in: Meanjin , Summer vol. 79 no. 4 2020;
1 Contingencies of Meaning Making : English Teaching and Literary Sociability Philip Mead , Brenton Doecke , Larissa McLean-Davies , 2020 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , 29 October vol. 35 no. 2 2020;

'This paper draws on interviews conducted as part of the Australian Research Council funded Discovery project Investigating Literary Knowledge in the Making of English Teachers. Those interviews inquire into the role of literary knowing in the professional learning of early career English teachers, focusing specifically on their experiences as they make the transition, via teacher education programmes, from university students of English to school teachers. We have also been interested in how key institutional settings, practices and policies might have shaped their experiences of literary education at tertiary level; the knowledge and values they bring to their work as English teachers; and the professional learning they undergo in their first years of teaching. The aim of this article is to present an exploration of ‘literary sociability’, a working concept of the project for identifying and exploring ways of literary meaning making that might have particular relevance and use for understanding early career English teachers’ experiences across the settings of their education and work.' (Publication abstract)

1 Life and Poetry : A Writer of Glass-Delicate Lyrics Philip Mead , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , September no. 424 2020; (p. 16-17)

— Review of David Campbell: A Life of the Poet Jonathan Persse , 2020 single work biography

'To an older generation of Australian poetry readers, David Campbell (1915–79) was perhaps the best-loved poet of Douglas Stewart’s post-World War II ‘Red Page’, appearing there with what would become iconic poems of the new Bulletin school like ‘Windy Gap’, ‘Who Points the Swallow’, and ‘Men in Green’. Despite his frequent publication in that heritage venue, Campbell published his first collection, Speak with the Sun (1949), in England with Chatto & Windus, through the good offices of his Cambridge mentor E.M.W. Tillyard. After that, he joined the ancien A&R régime of poets like Rosemary Dobson, R.D. FitzGerald, Francis Webb, James McAuley, and Judith Wright, who took up much of the middle ground of Australian poetry in the 1950s and 1960s. A lifelong friend and supporter of Campbell, Stewart was also influential in this group’s prominence, along with Beatrice Davis, his editorial co-adviser at Angus & Robertson.'  (Introduction) 

1 Foreword Philip Mead , 2020 single work criticism
— Appears in: Beyond the Dark : Dystopian Texts in the Secondary English Classroom 2020; (p. viii-x)
1 A Kinder Sea by Felicity Plunkett Philip Mead , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , April no. 420 2020;

— Review of A Kinder Sea Felicity Plunkett , 2020 selected work poetry

'Felicity Plunkett has being doing good works in the poetry sphere for some time now. She has edited for UQP a recent series of new and established poets; she reviews a wide variety of poetry in newspapers and magazines, as well as writing evocatively, in this journal, about influential figures in popular Australian poetics like Nick Cave and Gurrumul Yunupingu. Valuably, she has also made practical contributions to poetry teaching in the secondary English curriculum. Now she has published a second volume of her own poetry, a varied collection of highly accomplished poems.'  (Introduction)

1 Unresolved Sovereignty and the Anthropocene Novel : Alexis Wright’s The Swan Book Philip Mead , 2018 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , vol. 43 no. 4 2018; (p. 524-538)

'The recent “Uluru Statement from the Heart” (May, 2017), and the Final Report of the Referendum Council (June, 2017) are significant expressions of a rapidly evolving discourse on sovereignty in Australia. Alexis Wright's The Swan Book (2013) is a futuristic meditation on the limits of sovereignty from an Indigenous perspective: what if national borders disappear under the rising waters of global warming? What if national governments are superseded by global rule? The Swan Book explores these scenarios in a complex interplay of utopian and dystopian modes. This article argues that Alexis Wright's work is an instance of how the Indigenous world novel can address real world issues of anthropocene futures, Indigenous rights and national sovereignty.'  (Publication abstract)

1 y separately published work icon The Social Work of Narrative : Human Rights and the Cultural Imaginary Philip Mead (editor), Gareth Griffiths (editor), Stuttgart : ibidem-Verlag , 2018 15332931 2018 anthology criticism

'This book addresses the ways in which a range of representational forms have influenced and helped implement the project of human rights across the world, and seeks to show how public discourses on law and politics grow out of and are influenced by the imaginative representations of human rights. It draws on a multi-disciplinary approach, using historical, literary, anthropological, visual arts, and media studies methods and readings, and covers a wider range of geographic areas than has previously been attempted. A series of specifically-commissioned essays by leading scholars in the field and by emerging young academics show how a multidisciplinary approach can illuminate this central concern.'  (Publication summary)

1 3 y separately published work icon Zanzibar Light Philip Mead , Sydney : Vagabond Press , 2018 13999394 2018 selected work poetry

'These poems play with the endlessly malleable form of the sonnet, across a spectrum of tone and register, from traditional to terminals. They are in the innovative traditions of contemporary poetry that are willing to explore and remediate any of the conventions of the poetic archive. In the longer form poems shifting states of consciousness are tagged to scraps of language and mysteriously resonant scenes of contemporary life. The emphasis is always on the ephemeral, the intersections of dreamscapes with the barely noticeable strata of everyday life. The sentences are always close to ordinary, but unafraid to follow the runs of association and blockage generated by language itself.' (Publication summary)

1 There’s Small Grass Appearing on the Hill-side i "There’s small grass appearing on the hill-side", Philip Mead , 2017 single work poetry
— Appears in: The Fremantle Press Anthology of Western Australian Poetry 2017;
1 Books on the Clothesline Philip Mead , 2016 single work poetry
— Appears in: Active Aesthetics : Contemporary Australian Poetry 2016;
1 Now It's Late, Time to Pick up the Dog and Hurry Philip Mead , 2016 single work poetry
— Appears in: Active Aesthetics : Contemporary Australian Poetry 2016;
1 The First Thing You See a Looming Overlay of Bushfire Smoke Philip Mead , 2016 single work poetry
— Appears in: Active Aesthetics : Contemporary Australian Poetry 2016;
1 Really. Our Day Resembles a Low-lying Island Philip Mead , 2016 single work poetry
— Appears in: Active Aesthetics : Contemporary Australian Poetry 2016;
1 y separately published work icon Literature of Tasmania : An Introduction to Tasmania in the Literary Imagination Philip Mead , St Lucia : AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource , 2016 11447190 2016 single work criticism

An AustLit digital monograph, Literature of Tasmania is a richly illustrated overview of Tasmania's role in the literary imagination, by Professor Philip Mead.

1 The Unjusticeable and the Imaginable Philip Mead , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 16 no. 2 2016;
'These notes on Alexis Wright’s fiction are about issues within (and beyond) Indigenous intellectual and political life in contemporary Australia that her fiction seems to address in imaginative and narrative ways. They’re predominantly contextual rather than interpretative. In the context of our MLA panel (9 January 2015) on Wright’s ‘(other)worldly’ fiction I offered these contextual considerations, working from the outside in, as intended to assist with reading The Swan Book (2013), particularly for a non-Australian readership; a reading from the inside out would include consideration of Indigenous storytelling modes and their adaptation of dystopian generics, and the thematics of climate theft and ecological racism (see Rose). The Swan Book and Carpentaria (2006) currently circulate as world novels where they have a powerful and distinctive presence as complex literary narratives within transnational Indigenous and, to a lesser degree, non-Indigenous literary circuits (see Osborne and Whitlock). 1 At the same time these fictions emerge out of and address native (and national) historical and political matrices that include deeply contested, volatile ideas about state sovereignty, land rights, the history of settlement, and Indigenous policy. In this connection ‘sovereignty’ is the word I would like to draw attention to. A significant aspect of The Swan Book is the complex and self-reflexive ways in which it addresses the political and social debate about ‘sovereignty,’ although this aspect of Wright’s fiction is not restricted to that novel.' (Publication abstract)
1 Ithaca Road i "You’ll be lost in the headlong city, turning your oar, older", Philip Mead , 2016 single work poetry
— Appears in: Journal of Poetics Research , September no. 5 2016; Australian Book Review , December no. 397 2017; (p. 24)
1 y separately published work icon Journal of Poetics Research JPR John Tranter (editor), Kate Lilley (editor), Philip Mead (editor), 2014 Birchgrove : John Tranter , 2014- 8456208 2014 periodical (9 issues)

'The Journal of Poetics Research is an international, generally peer-reviewed, online journal of research in a wide range of disciplines concerned with the theory and practice of literary discourse in culture, media and the arts broadly conceived, including poetry, prose, journalism, drama, cinema, radio and television, as well as with literary, historical, social, institutional and psychological modes of narrative, theory and contention.

'It is supported by Australian Literary Management. An energetic international role is an essential part of the magazine’s identity. JPR publishes research articles, occasional special themed issues, book reviews, news items, interviews, and links to primary research material. Poems and books of poetry are not part of JPR’s remit, though anthologies and collections may be reviewed and writers we ask to send in poems will be published from time to time.

'Online material is added piece by piece, and issues are published only on the Internet, generally in March-April and September. JPR reviews books and reports on conferences related to poetics, and maintains connections with other institutions worldwide. JPR was founded by poet and editor John Tranter in 2011 in the hopes of finding academic support, and after a stumble or two got going properly sans support in 2014. Like a lot of good things, it is based in Sydney, Australia.

Managing Editors are Kate Lilley of the English Department at the University of Sydney; Ann Vickery of Deakin University in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; Philip Mead, Chair of Australian Literature at the University of Western Australia; and John Tranter, an Honorary Associate in the Department of English at the University of Sydney. ' (Journal introduction)

1 Untitled i "You remind me of the focalised poplars of Wee Jasper", Philip Mead , 2014 single work poetry
— Appears in: The Turnrow Anthology of Contemporary Australian Poetry 2014; (p. 356-357)
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