Caught in the dance : dream poems, experiential narrative, and the continuity hypothesis

This thesis explores the efficacy of the dream poem as a narrative device and is the outcome of practice-led research. The creative component, a novella, includes significant dreams of the main characters in the form of lyric poetry. The author’s own dream reports are used as source material for the poetry, and are contextualised within a prose fiction framework. Caught in the Dance is an experiment in combining prose with dream poetry and in investigating the experiential power of dreams on the formation of character identity. The exegesis discusses dreaming as an experience and the place of that experience in the context of identity narratives. Central to this discussion is the continuity hypothesis regarding the symbiosis of waking and sleeping life. Fludernik’s theory of experiential narrative is applied to dreaming and to the composition of poetry. This theory moves the emphasis of narrativity from events and the action of telling to ‘grounding narrativity in the representation of experientiality’ (Fludernik 1996:20). Ricoeur’s theories on identity and narrative are also applied to the reading of dreams, and experiences in general. He calls the system through which we ‘read’ life the ‘semantics of action’ (Ricoeur 1991b:28). Fludernik’s and Ricoeur’s approaches build on each other and they are brought together in the context of theories of the self, consciousness, and the processing of experience. Lyric poetry, as a creative product of that same consciousness, is discussed as experienced narrative moment. Furthermore, those moments are identified as defining elements in the identity narratives of characters. By combining the experience of dreaming with the experience imparted through lyric poetry, this thesis argues that the continuity hypothesis serves effectively as a demonstration of the wider narratological importance of experiential narrative.

Poetry and the limits of language

This essay argues that poetic language offers the possibility of meaning and value, and simultaneously points beyond itself, to the limits of language, to a space differently configured as erasure, silence, the unsignifiable. What does it suggest, epistemologically and ontologically, if we acknowledge this double action of poetic language? What might this space beyond language be, and what difference does it make if we acknowledge this space? The essay examines four poems and the different ways in which they acknowledge such a space, drawing on the historically distinct approaches of Meister Eckhart and Jacques Derrida in order to ask what the space beyond language might be. The argument of the essay is that in acknowledging such a space something opens up for writers and readers of poetry: a different approach to knowing, and a potentially humbled ontological position.

Women Creators: Artistry and Sacrifice in the Novels of Virginia Woolf

This thesis examines different facets of feminine artistry in Virginia Woolf's novels with the purpose of defining her conception of women artists and the role sacrifice plays in it. The project follows characters in "Mrs. Dalloway," "To the Lighthouse," and "Between the Acts" as they attempt to create art despite society's restrictions; it studies the suffering these women experience under regimented institutions and arbitrary gender roles. From Woolf’s earlier texts to her last, she embraces the uncertainty of identity, even as she portrays the artist’s sacrifice in the early-to-mid twentieth century, specifically as the creative female identity fights to adapt to male-dominated spaces. Through a close-reading approach coupled with biographical and historical research, this thesis concludes that although the narratives of Woolf's novels demand the woman artist sacrifice for the sake of pursuing creation, Woolf praises the attempt and considers it a crueler fate to live with unfulfilled potential.

Book review. Tripping over feathers: scenes in the life of Joy Janaka Wiradjuri Williams

The history of the forcible removal of Indigenous children was cast into the public arena by the publication of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission’s Bringing Them Home Report in 1997. Much has been written since then about the practices, policies and experiences of child removal in Australia. Academics, journalists, public commentators, politicians, filmmakers and those who were themselves removed from their families as children have all made contributions to public knowledge and discussion of this history, although not always in productive or well informed ways. Peter Read has been an instrumental figure in the investigation of this past, and Tripping over Feathers is his latest, and perhaps most interesting, contribution. Read’s book is a biography of Joy Janaka Wiradjuri Williams, although it is not a biography in the conventional sense. Instead, Read makes use of welfare documents, case notes, newspaper accounts, oral interviews, educational curricula, poetry, testimony and his own memories to ‘imaginatively reconstruct’ Joy’s life. He does so through the narration of what he calls a series of ‘scenes’ from Joy’s life: imaginative vignettes outlining the ‘key moments’ that are based on substantial and substantive research, albeit research that is largely invisible in conventional historical terms.

Weather variability, tides, and Barmah Forest Virus Disease in the Gladstone region, Australia

In this study we examined the impact of weather variability and tides on the transmission of Barmah Forest virus (BFV) disease and developed a weather-based forecasting model for BFV disease in the Gladstone region, Australia. We used seasonal autoregressive integrated moving-average (SARIMA) models to determine the contribution of weather variables to BFV transmission after the time-series data of response and explanatory variables were made stationary through seasonal differencing. We obtained data on the monthly counts of BFV cases, weather variables (e.g., mean minimum and maximum temperature, total rainfall, and mean relative humidity), high and low tides, and the population size in the Gladstone region between January 1992 and December 2001 from the Queensland Department of Health, Australian Bureau of Meteorology, Queensland Department of Transport, and Australian Bureau of Statistics, respectively. The SARIMA model shows that the 5-month moving average of minimum temperature (β = 0.15, p-value < 0.001) was statistically significantly and positively associated with BFV disease, whereas high tide in the current month (β = −1.03, p-value = 0.04) was statistically significantly and inversely associated with it. However, no significant association was found for other variables. These results may be applied to forecast the occurrence of BFV disease and to use public health resources in BFV control and prevention.