AustLit

'Working in the archives of living writers provides exciting possibilities for extended interpersonal research as well as ethical challenges. This article explores the author’s experience of working in Helen Garner’s restricted archives and negotiating the demands of scholarly objectivity with an increasingly felt empathic engagement. The author traces a chronological path through the archives relating to Garner’s three substantial works of non-fiction: The First Stone (1995), Joe Cinque’s Consolation (2004) and This House of Grief (2014). She draws attention to some of the ways in which distance and objectivity can be influenced not only by contact with a living writer but also by the space in which the archive is encountered. With a deliberate focus on the lived experience of researching, rather than a scholarly examination of archival theory, the author offers a case study of how the interaction of archives and living subject can shape research and publication.'  (Publication abstract)

'Douglas and Barnett discuss their experiences teaching life writings of trauma to undergraduate literature students, employing Helen Garner's Joe Cinque's Consolation as a case study. They consider the affect of trauma stories and explore the ethics of including trauma texts in the literature curriculum–texts that often confront and destabilize students' reading positions. Such texts require the deployment of literary methodologies including, but also beyond, close reading–for instance, paratextual, contextual, and theory-based readings. Life narratives of trauma offer a means for broad considerations of the social and political efficacy of Australian literature texts.' (Publication summary)