Xavier Herbert

As a biographical documentary concept develops, its intention and its form are impacted and may be transformed by market demands. The documentary idea about the life of Xavier Herbert has been in development through a number of iterations within the shifting landscape of the Australian documentary industry from the mid- 1990s to 2009. This study is, on the one hand, an endeavour to find a workable way to express and practise the multi-layered complexity of creative work, a long-form documentary script on Herbert, an Australian literary icon. On the other hand, this thesis represents a cumulative research exercise, whereby my own experiences in the documentary industry in Queensland, Australia and overseas are analysed in an effort to enlighten the broader documentary community about such a complex, even labyrinthine, process.

Aurora : an illustrated novella

Aurora, an illustrated novella, is a retelling of the classic fairytale Sleeping Beauty, set on the Australian coast around the grounds of the family lighthouse. Instead of following in the footsteps of tradition, this tale focuses on the long time Aurora is cursed to sleep by the malevolent Minerva; we follow Aurora as she voyages into the unconscious. Hunted by Minerva through the shifting landscape of her dreams, Aurora is dogged by a nagging pull towards the light—there is something she has left behind. Eventually, realising she must face Minerva to break the curse, they stage a battle of the minds in which Aurora triumphs, having grasped the power of her thoughts, her words. Aurora, an Australian fairytale, is a story of self-empowerment, the ability to shape destiny and the power of the mind. The exegesis examines a two-pronged question: is the illustrated book for young adults—graphic novel—relevant to a contemporary readership, and, is the graphic novel, where text and image intersect, a suitably specular genre in which to explore the unconscious? It establishes the language of the unconscious and the meaning of the term ‘graphic novel’, before investigating the place of the illustrated book for an older readership in a contemporary market, particularly exploring visual literacy and the way text and image—a hybrid narrative—work together. It then studies the aptitude of graphic literature to representing the unconscious and looks at two pioneers of the form: Audrey Niffenegger, specifically her visual novel The Three Incestuous Sisters, and Shaun Tan, and his graphic novel The Arrival. Finally, it reflects upon the creative work, Aurora, in light of three concerns: how best to develop a narrative able to relay the dreaming story; how to bestow a certain ‘Australianess’ upon the text and images; and the dilemma of designing an illustrated book for an older readership.

Playing with picturebooks : postmodernism and the postmodernesque

This thesis traces the influence of postmodernism on picturebooks. Through a review of current scholarship on both postmodernism and postmodern literature it examines the multiple ways in which picturebooks have responded to the influence of postmodernism. The thesis is predominantly located in the field of Cultural and Literary Studies, which informs the ways in which children’s literature is positioned within contemporary culture and how it responds to the influences which shape its production and reception. Cultural and Literary Studies also offers a useful theoretical frame for analysing issues of textuality, ideology, and originality, as well as social and political comment in the focus texts. The thesis utilises the theoretical contributions by, in particular, Linda Hutcheon, Brian McHale, and Fredric Jameson as well as reference to children’s literature studies. This thesis makes a significant contribution to the development of an understanding of the place of the postmodern picturebook within the cultural context of postmodernism. It adds to the field of children’s literature research through an awareness of the (continuing) evolution of the postmodern picturebook particularly as the current scholarship on the postmodernism picturebook does not engage with the changing form and significance of the postmodern picturebook to the same extent as this thesis. This study is significant from a methodological perspective as it draws on a wide range of theoretical perspectives across literary studies, visual semiotics, philosophy, cultural studies, and history to develop a tripartite methodological framework that utilises the methods of postclassical narratology, semiotics, and metafictive strategies to carry out the textual analysis of the focus texts. The three analysis chapters examine twenty-two picturebooks in detail with respect to the ways in which the conventions of narrative are subverted and how dominant discourses are interrogated. Chapter 4: Subverting Narrative Processes includes analysis of narrative point of view, modes of representation, and characters and the problems of identity and subjectivity. Chapter 5: Challenging Truth, History, and Unity examines questions of ontology, the difficulties of representing history, and addresses issues of difference and ‘otherness’. The final textual analysis chapter, Chapter 6: Engaging with Postmodernity, critiques texts which engage with issues of globalisation, mass media, and consumerism. Brief discussion of a further fifteen picturebooks throughout the thesis provides additional support. Children’s texts have a tradition of being both resistant and compliant. Its resistance has made a space for the development of the postmodern picturebook; its compliance is evident in its tendency to take a route around a truly radical or iconoclastic position. This thesis posits that children’s postmodern picturebooks adopt what suits their form and purposes by drawing from and reflecting on some influences of postmodernism while disregarding those that seem irrelevant to its direction. Furthermore, the thesis identifies a shift in the focus of a number of postmodern picturebooks produced since the turn of the twenty-first century. This trend has seen a shift from texts which interrogate discourses of liberal humanism to those that engage with aspects of postmodernity. These texts, postmodernesque picturebooks, offer contradictory perspectives on aspects of society emanating from the rise in global trends mentioned above.

Re-Presenting/Representing Melbourne: A literary and cultural analysis of Melbourne’s inner city and outer suburbs in contemporary fiction

This article provides an overview of a research project investigating contemporary literary representations of Melbourne’s inner and outer suburban spaces. It will argue that the city represented by local writers is an often more complex way of envisioning the city than the one presented in public policy and cultural discourses. In this view, the writer’s vision of a city does not necessarily override or provide a “truer’ account but it is in the fictional city where the complexity of the everyday life of a city is most accurately portrayed. The article will also provide an overview of the theoretical framework for reading the fictional texts in this way, examining how Soja’s concept of Thirdspace (2006) provides a place to engage “critically with theoretical issues, while simultaneously being that space where the debate occurs” (Mole 2008: 3).

What once was old is new again: reviving an early-modern form of interdisciplinarity for socio-legal studies

Socio-legal studies are an essentially interdisciplinary enterprise. However, there is currently only one form of interdisciplinarity that most socio-legal scholars (and criminologists) recognise and work with. This form is derived from the idea that 'society itself' - and by this most scholars mean 'civil society' - drives the law. However, another, rival understanding of society, which we term the authoritarian-liberal statist understanding that slipped from view in the late seventeenth century and remained obscure from then until now, may be used to generate another form of interdisciplinarity for sOcio-legal studies (and for criminology). However, this rival understanding of society does not simply allow us to reconfigure our notion of 'society'; it radically changes the role society plays in relation to the law. Two crucial points emerge from this rival account: first, society can no longer be understood as separable from (even though interacting with) the law; and second, society can no longer be understood as driving the law.

Labyrinthine literacies : navigating cultural agency in the arrival and requiem for a beast

The OED reminds us as surely as Ovid that a labyrinth is a “structure consisting of a number of intercommunicating passages arranged in bewildering complexity, through which it is it difficult or impossible to find one’s way without guidance”. Both Shaun Tan’s The Arrival (2006) and Matt Ottley’s Requiem for a Beast: A Work for Image, Word and Music (2007) mark a kind of labyrinthine watershed in Australian children’s literature. Deploying complex, intercommunicating logics of story and literacy, these books make high demands of their reader but also offer guidance for the successful navigation of their stories; for their protagonists as surely as for readers. That the shared logic of navigation in each book is literacy as privileged form of meaning-making is not surprising in the sense that within “a culture deeply invested in myths of individualism and self-sufficiency, it is easy to see why literacy is glorified as an attribute of individual control and achievement” (Williams and Zenger 166). The extent to which these books might be read as exemplifying desired norms of contemporary Australian culture seems to be affirmed by the fact of Tan and Ottley winning the Australian “Picture Book of the Year” prize awarded by the Children’s Book Council of Australia in 2007 and 2008 respectively. However, taking its cue from Ottley’s explicit intertextual use of the myth of Theseus and from Tan’s visual rhetoric of lostness and displacement, this paper reads these texts’ engagement with tropes of “literacy” in order to consider the ways in which norms of gender and culture seemingly circulated within these texts might be undermined by constructions of “nation” itself as a labyrinth that can only partly be negotiated by a literate subject. In doing so, I argue that these picture books, to varying degrees, reveal a perpetuation of the “literacy myth” (Graff 12) as a discourse of safety and agency but simultaneously bear traces of Ariadne’s story, wherein literacy alone is insufficient for safe navigation of the labyrinth of culture.

Achieving supply chain sustainability : the role of relationship management, culture and procurement form

In this research we examined, by means of case studies, the mechanisms by which relationships can be managed and by which communication and cooperation can be enhanced in developing sustainable supply chains. The research was predicated on the contention that the development of a sustainable supply chain depends, in part, on the transfer of knowledge and capabilities from the larger players in the supply chain. A sustainable supply chain requires proactive relationship management and the development of an appropriate organisational culture, and trust. By legitimising individuals’ expectations of the type of culture which is appropriate to their company and empowering employees to address mismatches that may occur, a situation can be created whereby the collaborating organisations develop their competences symbiotically and so facilitate a sustainable supply chain. Effective supply chain management enhances organisation performance and competitiveness through the management of operations across organisational boundaries. Relational contracting approaches facilitate the exchange of information and knowledge and build capacity in the supply chain, thus enhancing its sustainability. Relationship management also provides the conditions necessary for the development of collaborative and cooperative relationships However, often subcontractors and suppliers are not empowered to attend project meetings or to have direct communication with project based staff. With this being a common phenomenon in the construction industry, one might ask: what are the barriers to implementation of relationship management through the supply chain? In other words, the problem addressed in this research is the engagement of the supply chain through relationship management.

Implementation of a survey form marking system using image processing techniques on an Imputer

This paper describes the feasibility of the application of an Imputer in a multiple choice answer sheet marking system based on image processing techniques.

An enriched radial point interpolation method based on weak-form and strong-form

In this article, an enriched radial point interpolation method (e-RPIM) is developed for computational mechanics. The conventional radial basis function (RBF) interpolation is novelly augmented by the suitable basis functions to reflect the natural properties of deformation. The performance of the enriched meshless RBF shape functions is first investigated using the surface fitting. The surface fitting results have proven that, compared with the conventional RBF, the enriched RBF interpolation has a much better accuracy to fit a complex surface than the conventional RBF interpolation. It has proven that the enriched RBF shape function will not only possess all advantages of the conventional RBF interpolation, but also can accurately reflect the deformation properties of problems. The system of equations for two-dimensional solids is then derived based on the enriched RBF shape function and both of the meshless strong-form and weak-form. A numerical example of a bar is presented to study the effectiveness and efficiency of e-RPIM. As an important application, the newly developed e-RPIM, which is augmented by selected trigonometric basis functions, is applied to crack problems. It has been demonstrated that the present e-RPIM is very accurate and stable for fracture mechanics problems.

Getting in the Groove : The Recording Studio Procedural Guide

This paper examines time management in the recording studio from the perspective of the music producer. The paper is presented in the form of a guide that will provide a common language to music clientele and technical personnel to help achieve the best possible creative outcome. The research for the guide combined the author's experience, literary evidence and external assessment to work towards establishing a practical industry resource. The result of the study explored how the success of any recording project can be forecast before valuable resources are committed. The feedback from the survey group was positive and some professionals recognised an immediate application for the procedural guide, which exceeded the author's expectations.

Measuring urban form : a comparative analysis of South East Queensland and South Florida

At first glance the built environments of South Florida and South East Queensland appear very similar, particularly along the highly urbanized coast. However this apparent similarity belies some fundamental differences between the two regions in terms of context and the approach to regulating development. This paper describes some of these key differences, but focuses on two research questions: 1) do these differences affect the built environment; and 2) if so, how does the built form differ? There has been considerable research on how to best measure urban form, particularly as it relates to measuring urban sprawl (Schwarz 2010; Clifton et al. 2008). Some of the key questions identified by this research include: what are the best variables to use?; what scale should be used?; and what time period to use? We will assimilate this research in order to develop a methodology for measuring urban form and apply it to both case study regions. There are several potential outcomes from this research -- one is that the built form between the two regions is quite different; and the second is that it is similar. The first outcome is what might be expected given the differences in context and development regulation. However how might the second outcome be explained – major differences in context and development regulation resulting in minor differences in key measures of urban form? One explanation is that differences in the way development is regulated are not as important in determining the built form as are private market forces.

Creative writing, literary studies, and global thinkers

There has been growing interest in how to make tertiary education more global and international not only in context but, also, in approach and methodology. One area of the education sector that has come under specific focus is the higher education sector curriculum and its design. This paper addresses the process of ‘internationalising’ the curriculum through the specific example of designing a new literary unit for undergraduate students, mainly literary studies and creative writing students. The literary unit entitled: Imagining the Americas: Contemporary American Literature and Culture, has the added complexity of being a unit about national fiction. This paper explores the practical problems and obstacles encountered in setting up this unit while using a framework of internationalisation. The case study examines the practicalities in implementing strategies that reflect the overall objective of creating global thinkers within a tertiary environment.

Application of a new discreet form of Gauss’ theorem for measuring volume

Volume measurements are useful in many branches of science and medicine. They are usually accomplished by acquiring a sequence of cross sectional images through the object using an appropriate scanning modality, for example x-ray computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance (MR) or ultrasound (US). In the cases of CT and MR, a dividing cubes algorithm can be used to describe the surface as a triangle mesh. However, such algorithms are not suitable for US data, especially when the image sequence is multiplanar (as it usually is). This problem may be overcome by manually tracing regions of interest (ROIs) on the registered multiplanar images and connecting the points into a triangular mesh. In this paper we describe and evaluate a new discreet form of Gauss’ theorem which enables the calculation of the volume of any enclosed surface described by a triangular mesh. The volume is calculated by summing the vector product of the centroid, area and normal of each surface triangle. The algorithm was tested on computer-generated objects, US-scanned balloons, livers and kidneys and CT-scanned clay rocks. The results, expressed as the mean percentage difference ± one standard deviation were 1.2 ± 2.3, 5.5 ± 4.7, 3.0 ± 3.2 and −1.2 ± 3.2% for balloons, livers, kidneys and rocks respectively. The results compare favourably with other volume estimation methods such as planimetry and tetrahedral decomposition.