Michael R. Griffiths

Overview

Michael R. Griffiths is a literary scholar whose work focuses, for the most part, on settler colonialism and representation of and by Indigenous peoples. He joined the School of The Arts, English, and Media in 2014. He received his PhD in English from Rice University in 2012, and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Columbia University's Institute for Comparative Literature and Society from 2012 to 2014.

Griffiths' first monograph was released in 2018: The Distribution of Settlement: Appropriation and Refusal in Australian Literature and Culture (UWAP) and details the genealogy, history and legacy of appropriation in representations of and by Aboriginal people in Australian literature.

Griffiths has also intervened into debates about the precarities of free speech and hate speech. With Tanja Dreher, he co-edited a special issue of Continuum which offered an account of freedom of speech debates in the late liberal world. This special issue received sufficient hits and citations to be reprinted as a (forthcoming) book from Taylor and Francis.

He has also published articles on numerous other topics, including: poetics and intention in postcolonial literature following the work of Edouard Glissant, whiteness in the settler colonial public sphere, Daniel Defoe and critical animal studies, and the Bildungsroman in Africa. This work has appeared in such venues as Discourse, Postcolonial Studies, Postmodern Culture, Textual Practice and Humanimalia, as well as in a number of edited collections. He is an editorial board member of Antipodes and of Australian Literary Studies.

Griffiths is an active participant in Jindaola <https://www.uow.edu.au/about/learning-teaching/jindaola/> after having gone through the 2018–19 training.

He is Chair of the South Pacific Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (SPACLALS). <https://southpacificaclals.wixsite.com/website>

Top Publications

Year	Title
2018	The distribution of settlement: appropriation and refusal in Australian literature and culture
2012	The white gaze and its artifacts: governmental belonging and non-indigenous evaluation in a (post)-settler colony Published in Postcolonial Studies: culture, politics, economy
2010	“Need I Repeat?: Settler colonial biopolitics and postcolonial iterability in Kim Scott’s Benang,”
2011	Biopolitical correspondences: settler nationalism, thanatopolitics, and the perils of hybridity Published in Australian Literary Studies
2017	Form, Frame and Allegory in Recent Transnational Short Fictions Published in Australian Humanities Review
2014	Winton’s spectralities, or, what haunts Cloudstreet?
2010	“The Tame from the Wild”: handling political economies of life at the Emergence of capital Published in Humanimalia: a journal of human/animal interface studies
2012	The correspondence of Bernard O'Dowd and Walt Whitman: Indigeneity and the cosmopolitics of settler literary nationalism Published in Antipodes: a global journal of Australian/New Zealand literature
2016	Interventions: Race, culture, and population via the thought of A.P. Elkin Published in Settler Colonial Studies
2014	Toward relation: Négritude, post-structuralism, and the specter of intention in the work of Édouard Glissant Published in Discourse (Detroit, 1979): journal for theoretical studies in media and culture
2013	Indigenous life writing: rethinking poetics and practice
2010	Production values: Fordism and Formalism in North by Northwest Published in Postmodern Culture: an electronic journal of interdisciplinary criticism
2016	Biopolitics and Memory in Postcolonial Literature and Culture

Research Areas

Research Overview

Griffiths is currently working on several article/chapter length studies of the following:

White representations of Aboriginality and Aboriginal people in the Australian novel (for the Cambridge Companion to the Australian Novel Ed. Nicholas Birns and Louis Klee; and for The Cambridge History of the Australian Novel Ed. David Carter).

The representation of settler violence and history in Richard Flanagan's writing.

The politics of allegory and realism.

Available as Research Supervisor

Member Of

Association for the Study of Australia Literature 2014 - 2019

Selected Publications

Journal Article

Year	Title
2020	Otherwise than literal: convergence and the unworking of allegory in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Tambudzai trilogy Published In Textual Practice
2018	Australian literature’s legacies of cultural appropriation Published In The Conversation
2018	Inquiry mentality and occasional mourning in the settler colonial carceral Published In Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies
2018	Shifting the terms of debate: speaking, writing and listening beyond free speech debates Published In Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies
2017	Form, Frame and Allegory in Recent Transnational Short Fictions Published In Australian Humanities Review
2016	'The Fortunate Traveller' in Transit: On a Walcott Manuscript and the Vicissitudes of North and South Published In Journal of Commonwealth Literature
2016	Interventions: Race, culture, and population via the thought of A.P. Elkin Published In Settler Colonial Studies
2014	Toward relation: Négritude, post-structuralism, and the specter of intention in the work of Édouard Glissant Published In Discourse (Detroit, 1979): journal for theoretical studies in media and culture
2013	Book review: Animals and Society: an introduction to human-animal studies Published In Journal of Popular Culture
2013	It’s a Phase Published In Sculpture
2012	The correspondence of Bernard O'Dowd and Walt Whitman: Indigeneity and the cosmopolitics of settler literary nationalism Published In Antipodes: a global journal of Australian/New Zealand literature
2012	The white gaze and its artifacts: governmental belonging and non-indigenous evaluation in a (post)-settler colony Published In Postcolonial Studies: culture, politics, economy
2011	Biopolitical correspondences: settler nationalism, thanatopolitics, and the perils of hybridity Published In Australian Literary Studies
2010	Production values: Fordism and Formalism in North by Northwest Published In Postmodern Culture: an electronic journal of interdisciplinary criticism
2010	“The Tame from the Wild”: handling political economies of life at the Emergence of capital Published In Humanimalia: a journal of human/animal interface studies
2008	Caveats for the posthuman past Published In The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation

Book

Year	Title
2018	The distribution of settlement: appropriation and refusal in Australian literature and culture Publisher Australia

Chapter

Year	Title
2018	Humanism's Pharmakon: Subalternity and Universality Published In The social work of narrative : human rights and the cultural imaginary Publisher Stuttgart
2017	Provenance, Identification, and Confession in Sally Morgan's My Place Published In Fighting Words: Fifteen Books that Shaped the Postcolonial World Publisher Bern
2016	Aboriginal literature (Australia) Published In The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Studies
2014	Winton’s spectralities, or, what haunts Cloudstreet? Published In Tim Winton: Critical Essays Publisher Western Australia
2013	Indigenous life writing: rethinking poetics and practice Published In A Companion to Australian Aboriginal Literature
2010	“Need I Repeat?: Settler colonial biopolitics and postcolonial iterability in Kim Scott’s Benang,” Published In Postcolonial Issues in Australian Literature

Conference Paper

Year	Title
2014	Artifactualities: biopolitics and settler colonial liberalism Published In Postcolonial Justice. International Conference, Potsdam and Berlin

Editor Of

Book
- Biopolitics and Memory in Postcolonial Literature and Culture . Surrey, United Kingdom. 2016

Investigator On

Year	Title
2016	Enhancing the Wuhan University - University of Wollongong Partnership - Building Australian Studies at Wuhan University Awarded by: International Academic Cooperation Training Program Funding Scheme: Grant

Other Research Activities

Ya-angarra: Building Digital Educational Capacity within the Indigenous Knowledge Space co-CI 2019 -
Jindaola: Embedding Aboriginal KNowledges and Perspectives into Curriculum TAEM Team Member 2018 -

Available as Research Supervisor

Potential Supervision Topics

- Postcolonial Literary Studies
- Settler Colonial Studies
- Critical Theory
- World Literature
- Critical Animal Studies and Ecocriticism

Advisees

Graduate Advising Relationship

Degree	Research Title	Advisee
Doctor of Philosophy	The Founding of a Trinidad and Tobago national Theatre Praxis: The Dramatic Works of Derek Walcott, Errol Hill & Rawle Gibbons
Doctor of Philosophy	Transnational subjectivity in Australian Women's Fiction/Writing with intertexts: Aesthetic Reflections	Pike, Deborah
Doctor of Creative Arts	Subaltern Shadows in Mrs Dalloway	Cahill, Michelle
Doctor of Philosophy	Good Composure: Mapping Shifting Norms in the Language of Televised Australian Rules Football Commentary.	Allender, Samantha
Doctor of Creative Arts	Konfrontasi: The Untold Experiences f Australian Soldiers and their Families in a Forgotten War Novel: "Konfrontasi'	Stevenson, Kylie

Reviewer Of

"Australian Literature" in (Academic Article) 2014 - 2018

Professional Service Activities

Australian Literary Studies Editorial Advisory Board Member 2018 -

Mailing Address

Dr. Michael R. Griffiths Senior Lecturer, English Literatures School of The Arts, English and Media

Room No. G31 | Building 25 University of Wollongong NSW 2522

Gwyneville

NSW

2522

Australia

Orcid Id

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7501-906X (confirmed)

Top Publications

Year	Title
2018	The distribution of settlement: appropriation and refusal in Australian literature and culture
2012	The white gaze and its artifacts: governmental belonging and non-indigenous evaluation in a (post)-settler colony Published in Postcolonial Studies: culture, politics, economy
2010	“Need I Repeat?: Settler colonial biopolitics and postcolonial iterability in Kim Scott’s Benang,”
2011	Biopolitical correspondences: settler nationalism, thanatopolitics, and the perils of hybridity Published in Australian Literary Studies
2017	Form, Frame and Allegory in Recent Transnational Short Fictions Published in Australian Humanities Review
2014	Winton’s spectralities, or, what haunts Cloudstreet?
2010	“The Tame from the Wild”: handling political economies of life at the Emergence of capital Published in Humanimalia: a journal of human/animal interface studies
2012	The correspondence of Bernard O'Dowd and Walt Whitman: Indigeneity and the cosmopolitics of settler literary nationalism Published in Antipodes: a global journal of Australian/New Zealand literature
2016	Interventions: Race, culture, and population via the thought of A.P. Elkin Published in Settler Colonial Studies
2014	Toward relation: Négritude, post-structuralism, and the specter of intention in the work of Édouard Glissant Published in Discourse (Detroit, 1979): journal for theoretical studies in media and culture
2013	Indigenous life writing: rethinking poetics and practice
2010	Production values: Fordism and Formalism in North by Northwest Published in Postmodern Culture: an electronic journal of interdisciplinary criticism
2016	Biopolitics and Memory in Postcolonial Literature and Culture

Research Areas

Research Overview

Griffiths is currently working on several article/chapter length studies of the following:

White representations of Aboriginality and Aboriginal people in the Australian novel (for the Cambridge Companion to the Australian Novel Ed. Nicholas Birns and Louis Klee; and for The Cambridge History of the Australian Novel Ed. David Carter).

The representation of settler violence and history in Richard Flanagan's writing.

The politics of allegory and realism.

Member Of

Association for the Study of Australia Literature 2014 - 2019

Selected Publications

Journal Article

Year	Title
2020	Otherwise than literal: convergence and the unworking of allegory in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Tambudzai trilogy Published In Textual Practice
2018	Australian literature’s legacies of cultural appropriation Published In The Conversation
2018	Inquiry mentality and occasional mourning in the settler colonial carceral Published In Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies
2018	Shifting the terms of debate: speaking, writing and listening beyond free speech debates Published In Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies
2017	Form, Frame and Allegory in Recent Transnational Short Fictions Published In Australian Humanities Review
2016	'The Fortunate Traveller' in Transit: On a Walcott Manuscript and the Vicissitudes of North and South Published In Journal of Commonwealth Literature
2016	Interventions: Race, culture, and population via the thought of A.P. Elkin Published In Settler Colonial Studies
2014	Toward relation: Négritude, post-structuralism, and the specter of intention in the work of Édouard Glissant Published In Discourse (Detroit, 1979): journal for theoretical studies in media and culture
2013	Book review: Animals and Society: an introduction to human-animal studies Published In Journal of Popular Culture
2013	It’s a Phase Published In Sculpture
2012	The correspondence of Bernard O'Dowd and Walt Whitman: Indigeneity and the cosmopolitics of settler literary nationalism Published In Antipodes: a global journal of Australian/New Zealand literature
2012	The white gaze and its artifacts: governmental belonging and non-indigenous evaluation in a (post)-settler colony Published In Postcolonial Studies: culture, politics, economy
2011	Biopolitical correspondences: settler nationalism, thanatopolitics, and the perils of hybridity Published In Australian Literary Studies
2010	Production values: Fordism and Formalism in North by Northwest Published In Postmodern Culture: an electronic journal of interdisciplinary criticism
2010	“The Tame from the Wild”: handling political economies of life at the Emergence of capital Published In Humanimalia: a journal of human/animal interface studies
2008	Caveats for the posthuman past Published In The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation

Book

Year	Title
2018	The distribution of settlement: appropriation and refusal in Australian literature and culture Publisher Australia

Chapter

Year	Title
2018	Humanism's Pharmakon: Subalternity and Universality Published In The social work of narrative : human rights and the cultural imaginary Publisher Stuttgart
2017	Provenance, Identification, and Confession in Sally Morgan's My Place Published In Fighting Words: Fifteen Books that Shaped the Postcolonial World Publisher Bern
2016	Aboriginal literature (Australia) Published In The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Studies
2014	Winton’s spectralities, or, what haunts Cloudstreet? Published In Tim Winton: Critical Essays Publisher Western Australia
2013	Indigenous life writing: rethinking poetics and practice Published In A Companion to Australian Aboriginal Literature
2010	“Need I Repeat?: Settler colonial biopolitics and postcolonial iterability in Kim Scott’s Benang,” Published In Postcolonial Issues in Australian Literature

Conference Paper

Year	Title
2014	Artifactualities: biopolitics and settler colonial liberalism Published In Postcolonial Justice. International Conference, Potsdam and Berlin

Editor Of

Book
- Biopolitics and Memory in Postcolonial Literature and Culture . Surrey, United Kingdom. 2016

Investigator On

Year	Title
2016	Enhancing the Wuhan University - University of Wollongong Partnership - Building Australian Studies at Wuhan University Awarded by: International Academic Cooperation Training Program Funding Scheme: Grant

Other Research Activities

Ya-angarra: Building Digital Educational Capacity within the Indigenous Knowledge Space co-CI 2019 -
Jindaola: Embedding Aboriginal KNowledges and Perspectives into Curriculum TAEM Team Member 2018 -

Potential Supervision Topics

- Postcolonial Literary Studies
- Settler Colonial Studies
- Critical Theory
- World Literature
- Critical Animal Studies and Ecocriticism

Advisees

Graduate Advising Relationship

Degree	Research Title	Advisee
Doctor of Philosophy	The Founding of a Trinidad and Tobago national Theatre Praxis: The Dramatic Works of Derek Walcott, Errol Hill & Rawle Gibbons
Doctor of Philosophy	Transnational subjectivity in Australian Women's Fiction/Writing with intertexts: Aesthetic Reflections	Pike, Deborah
Doctor of Creative Arts	Subaltern Shadows in Mrs Dalloway	Cahill, Michelle
Doctor of Philosophy	Good Composure: Mapping Shifting Norms in the Language of Televised Australian Rules Football Commentary.	Allender, Samantha
Doctor of Creative Arts	Konfrontasi: The Untold Experiences f Australian Soldiers and their Families in a Forgotten War Novel: "Konfrontasi'	Stevenson, Kylie

Reviewer Of

"Australian Literature" in (Academic Article) 2014 - 2018

Professional Service Activities

Australian Literary Studies Editorial Advisory Board Member 2018 -

Mailing Address

Dr. Michael R. Griffiths Senior Lecturer, English Literatures School of The Arts, English and Media

Room No. G31 | Building 25 University of Wollongong NSW 2522

Gwyneville

NSW

2522

Australia

Orcid Id

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7501-906X (confirmed)

Overview

Overview

Top Publications

Research Areas

Research Overview

Available as Research Supervisor

Affiliation

Member Of

Publications

Selected Publications

Journal Article

Book

Chapter

Conference Paper

Editor Of

Book

Funding

Investigator On

Other Research Activities

Supervision

Available as Research Supervisor

Potential Supervision Topics

Advisees

Graduate Advising Relationship

Service

Reviewer Of

Professional Service Activities

Contact

Mailing Address

Identity

Orcid Id

Overview

Top Publications

Research Areas

Research Overview

Affiliation

Member Of

Publications

Selected Publications

Journal Article

Book

Chapter

Conference Paper

Editor Of

Book

Funding

Investigator On

Other Research Activities

Supervision

Potential Supervision Topics

Advisees

Graduate Advising Relationship

Service

Reviewer Of

Professional Service Activities

Contact

Mailing Address

Identity

Orcid Id

Visualisations

Research Areas