2018 ASAL Mini Conference (Darwin)

2018 ASAL Mini Conference (Darwin)

2018 ASAL Mini Conference (Darwin)

8 – 9 February 2018, Hosted by Charles Darwin University. 

The ASAL mini conference webpage is now live and can be accessed here: http://conference-desert-lines.cdu.edu.au/ 


The Association for the Study of Australian Literature Conference will be held in Darwin, Australia. The conference theme focuses on creative writing at the borderlands of Australian literature and asks its contributors to consider Australian literature beyond the “boundaries” of the canon and its mainstream readership. The conference theme draws on ASAL’s identity as an association of scholars working in the fields of Australian literature, paying particular attention to writing beyond coastal centres, and towards writing that represents the “outback” of the Australian imagination.

Confirmed Plenary Speaker: Dr Christian Bök, Fellow in the Royal Society of Canada and lecturer in the School of Creative Arts and Humanities, Charles Darwin University.
Christian Bök is the author of Eunoia (2001), a bestselling work of experimental literature, which has gone on to win the Griffin Prize for poetic excellenceBök is currently working on The Xenotext – a project that requires him to encipher a poem into the genome of a bacterium capable of surviving in any environment.

Master Class
Christian Bök will facilitate a creative writing master class for academics, postgraduates, writers and teachers in literary fields. More details to follow on the subject of the keynote address and the topic of the master class closer to registration.

Call for Papers
The organisers welcome submissions for individual presentations of 20 minutes. Please note: submissions are due by Friday 1 September 2017.

Please send abstracts and any enquiries to Dr Adelle Sefton-Rowston: [email protected]

Submissions should include: name of author (Including affiliations), title of presentation, an abstract up to 200 words, and a biographical note of up to 50 words. Further details: www.austlit.edu.au/ASAL

A PDF flier is available here