William Wardell's St John's College within the University of Sydney, 1858-59

Ursula wrote the essay for the catalogue of the Wardell Exhibition.

Sir Walter Scott in the western district, 1836-1851

A survey of 30 early settlement squatters in Victoria, using their letters, diaries and memoirs to compile a regional history of colonial readers. The resulting reader-responses support the emerging interpretations of Affective Reading, rather than more conventional strategies of literary criticism (New Historicism and Discourse Analysis).

Pre-choreographic elements: Scott deLahunta in conversation with Bertha Bermúdez

‘Pre-Choreographic Elements’ is a research project that evolved from the interdisciplinary project (Capturing) Intention initiated by dance company Emio Greco | PC and the Art and Development Research Group of the Amsterdam School of the Arts in 2005 (see article by Bermúdez in this issue, pp. 61–81.). ‘Pre-Choreographic Elements’ refers to the ‘pre-phase of choreography, where the content is being created, shaped and tested but not yet part of the selection and ordering process choreography implies’. In this dialogue, deLahunta talks to Bermúdez about the current state of this research.

Anne Scott Wilson : Video & photography exhibition

Solo Exhibition, Framed Photograhs and Video installations as part of the 'Head On Photography Festival'

Anne Scott Wilson : Insideout #2 exhibition

Solo Exhibition with catalogue essay by Elizabeth Day, video installation; inkjet prints; paintings

'Scott's aired a couple of things' : back to back theatre rehearse Ganesh versus the third Reich

 This chapter tracks the creation of Back to Back Theatre’s 2011 performance, Ganesh Versus the Third Reich, based on first-hand observation of the final stages in devising and refining the work. Ganesh traces two parallel narrative strands – that of an imagined journey of the Hindu God into the dark heart of Nazi Germany to reclaim the sacred Hindu symbol of the swastika, and the narrative which constantly threatens to engulf the Ganesh story – the fraught relations between a group of disabled artists and their non-disabled director as they negotiate the process of making the work.

The focus of this chapter is the development of a single scene from the performance work, Ganesh Versus the Third Reich, tracing it’s evolution through periods of creative development and rehearsal. The stark contrast between the working practices observed on the studio floor and the brutally knowing and parodic representation of power relations in rehearsal seen in the performance work testifies to the peculiar and productive self-reflexivity that generates the work of Back To Back Theatre. An account and analysis of both real and fictional rehearsals reveal how Back to Back’s creative processes position members of the ensemble “perceived to have intellectual disabilities” as entirely legitimate professional artists, while claiming the authority of ‘outsider artists’ to challenge perceptions and representations of disability.

Magical realism and irony's 'edge': rereading magical realism and Kim Scott's Benang

Magical realism has been the subject of much earnest theorising, implicating the narrative mode in postcolonial projects of cultural regeneration not only in Latin America but around the world. The claim that its hybrid vision simultaneously transgresses and supplements Western ratiocinative epistemologies has seen the mode become over-determined and dismissed as a postcolonial cliche. Rarely noted, however, is the ironic nature of the literary mode. Yet the trademark representation of the magical in a realist narrative is marked by a conspicuous incongruity, which is not only necessary to magical realism's aesthetic effect but which also provides a strong incentive for ironic readings. This paper will reread magical realism through Kim Scott's Benang in order to recognise the ironic incongruity at play in magical realism and to revitalise the mode's 'edge'.