Griffiths, Michael Dr
Senior Lecturer
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Faculty of the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
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School of the Arts, English and Media
Overview
Overview
Michael R. Griffiths is a literary scholar whose work focuses principally on settler colonial literatures and histories. Within this concern he is especially interested with the representation of 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.He has also published articles on numerous other topics, including: poetics and intention in postcolonial literature following the work of Édouard 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. According to Google Scholar, his H-Index is 8.
Griffiths has also intervened into debates about the political vicissitudes of the doctrine of freedom of 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 collection of essays received a notable amount of attention and was reprinted as a book from Taylor and Francis called Unsettled Voices.
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>
Research Areas
Research Overview
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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).
Representations of Indigenous and settler perceptions of time in Eleanor Dark's historical novels for a collection under contract with Sydney University Press edited by Brigid Rooney and Fiona Morrison;
And beginning work on a book-length study tentatively titled:
Decolonizing the Death of the Author.
Here are some examples of Griffiths talking at conferences and in the media:
On Radio Adelaide, talking about cultural appropriation and problematic representation in Australian Literature
https://radioadelaide.org.au/2018/10/24/problematic-aussie-literature/
Podcast for Journal of Commonwealth Literature (with Dr Anne Collette) on Derek Walcott, 2016:
https://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/2/9/0/29081599eba50d81/griffiths_walcott_copy.mp3?c_id=12304986&cs_id=12304986&expiration=1624803930&hwt=bcea14945bb72fb0c3b1bb1310795eff
Invited talk at Columbia University's ICLS 2012:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/michael-r-griffiths-harvest-old-times-mimesis-sovereignty/id506422315?i=1000135880288
As a Higher Degree Research supervisor, Griffiths has supervised or co-supervised to successful completion such projects as:
Cosmopolitanism in Indian Fiction Written in English
Feminism and Femininity in Chinese-Australian Literature
Haunting in Chinese-Australian Literature
Writing Poetically in Prose
As an honours supervisor in the BA and BCA program, Griffiths has supervised to successful completion many projects including:
Speech, Silence and Symptom in Alexis Wright and Thea Astley
Representing The Real: Psychoanalysis in Contemporary Cinema
Writing From Where We Are: Framing the Australian African diaspora in Australian contemporary literature
Being Experimental in a Spectacular World: Australian Experimental Poetry from Brennan to Brown
Geographic Focus
- Australia Country
- Caribbean Transnational Region
- Southern Africa Transnational Region
Available as Research Supervisor
Affiliation
Publications
Selected Publications
Editor Of
Presentations
Featured In
Funding
Investigator On
| Year | Title |
|---|---|
Funding Scheme: Grant |
Other Research Activities
- Jindaola: Embedding Aboriginal KNowledges and Perspectives into Curriculum TAEM Team Member 2018 -
- Ya-angarra: Building Digital Educational Capacity within the Indigenous Knowledge Space (ESDF Grant) co-Chief Investigaror 2019 - 2021
Supervision
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 Creative Arts Konfrontasi: The Untold Experiences f Australian Soldiers and their Families in a Forgotten War Novel: "Konfrontasi' Stevenson, Kylie Doctor of Philosophy The pitfalls and promises of Postcolonial Discourse Theory Mansourizeyni, Sina Doctor of Philosophy The representation of nonhuman animals in Australian children's and young adult literature Clark, Ellanor
Service
Reviewer Of
- "Australian Literature" in (Academic Article) 2014 - 2018
Professional Service Activities
- Australian Literary Studies Editorial Advisory Board Member 2018 -
Background
Education And Training
- Ph.D. in English, Rice University, English 2006 - 2012
Contact
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
Identity
Orcid Id
- http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7501-906X (confirmed)
Overview
Top Publications
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).
Representations of Indigenous and settler perceptions of time in Eleanor Dark's historical novels for a collection under contract with Sydney University Press edited by Brigid Rooney and Fiona Morrison;
And beginning work on a book-length study tentatively titled:
Decolonizing the Death of the Author.
Here are some examples of Griffiths talking at conferences and in the media:
On Radio Adelaide, talking about cultural appropriation and problematic representation in Australian Literature
https://radioadelaide.org.au/2018/10/24/problematic-aussie-literature/
Podcast for Journal of Commonwealth Literature (with Dr Anne Collette) on Derek Walcott, 2016:
https://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/2/9/0/29081599eba50d81/griffiths_walcott_copy.mp3?c_id=12304986&cs_id=12304986&expiration=1624803930&hwt=bcea14945bb72fb0c3b1bb1310795eff
Invited talk at Columbia University's ICLS 2012:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/michael-r-griffiths-harvest-old-times-mimesis-sovereignty/id506422315?i=1000135880288
As a Higher Degree Research supervisor, Griffiths has supervised or co-supervised to successful completion such projects as:
Cosmopolitanism in Indian Fiction Written in English
Feminism and Femininity in Chinese-Australian Literature
Haunting in Chinese-Australian Literature
Writing Poetically in Prose
As an honours supervisor in the BA and BCA program, Griffiths has supervised to successful completion many projects including:
Speech, Silence and Symptom in Alexis Wright and Thea Astley
Representing The Real: Psychoanalysis in Contemporary Cinema
Writing From Where We Are: Framing the Australian African diaspora in Australian contemporary literature
Being Experimental in a Spectacular World: Australian Experimental Poetry from Brennan to Brown
Geographic Focus
- Australia Country
- Caribbean Transnational Region
- Southern Africa Transnational Region
Affiliation
Member Of
Publications
Selected Publications
Editor Of
Presentations
Featured In
Funding
Investigator On
| Year | Title |
|---|---|
Funding Scheme: Grant |
Other Research Activities
- Jindaola: Embedding Aboriginal KNowledges and Perspectives into Curriculum TAEM Team Member 2018 -
- Ya-angarra: Building Digital Educational Capacity within the Indigenous Knowledge Space (ESDF Grant) co-Chief Investigaror 2019 - 2021
Supervision
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 Creative Arts Konfrontasi: The Untold Experiences f Australian Soldiers and their Families in a Forgotten War Novel: "Konfrontasi' Stevenson, Kylie Doctor of Philosophy The pitfalls and promises of Postcolonial Discourse Theory Mansourizeyni, Sina Doctor of Philosophy The representation of nonhuman animals in Australian children's and young adult literature Clark, Ellanor
Service
Reviewer Of
- "Australian Literature" in (Academic Article) 2014 - 2018
Professional Service Activities
- Australian Literary Studies Editorial Advisory Board Member 2018 -
Background
Education And Training
- Ph.D. in English, Rice University, English 2006 - 2012
Contact
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
Identity
Orcid Id
- http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7501-906X (confirmed)
Research Areas
Geographic Focus
- Australia Country
- Caribbean Transnational Region
- Southern Africa Transnational Region