Dr Alison Bartlett Lecturer in Literature Dept of Humanities and International Studies Faculty of Arts University of Southern Queensland Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia 4350 Phone (07) 4631 1044 Fax (07) 4631 1063

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a member of the public memory research cluster

Teaching

2004
Semester One
ENL 3001      Gender and Literature course spec
ENL 3003      Special Study in Literature course spec
ENL 1000      Literature Criticism Culture course spec (tutor)

Semester Two
ENL 1001     Narrating Australia course spec
ENL 4008     From Dylan Thomas to Bob Dylan course spec
ENL 4005/6   Honours Dissertation A and B course spec
ENL 8000/1   Masters Dissertation A and B course spec
 

Publications

2004

‘Black Breasts, White Milk? Ways of Constructing Race & Breastfeeding in Australia’ Australian Feminist Studies 19,45:341-56.

‘Introduction: Taking our breasts to work.’ With Fiona Giles. Australian Feminist Studies 19,45:269-71.

Editor, thematic edition of Australian Feminist Studies.

Things to do with books: feminist literary criticism' Rev. article of After Electra: rage, grief and hope in 20thC Fiction, by Eden Liddelow; Writing Mothers and Daughters: renegotiating the mother in western European narratives by women; and Love: an unromantic discussion, by Mary Evans. Australian Feminist Studies 19.43: 125-8.

‘Grounded’ Learning to Breastfeed: women’s stories about boobs, babes and being a mum Ed. Lil Deverell & Debbie Tuck. Ormond Press.

Rev. of Hollywood Moms by Joyce Ostin. Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering 6.1: 196-97.

2003

'Breastfeeding Bodies and Choice in Late Capitalism' Hecate 29,2: 153-165.

‘Thinking through Breasts’ in Fresh milk: the secret life of breasts, by Fiona Giles.
Sydney: Allen & Unwin/New York: Simon & Schuster.  151-61.

'Managing Violence? feminist management practice in a domestic violence service' with Rosemary Campbell
and Louise Whitaker. Women Against Violence Journal 14: 35-41.

‘Stillen als Kopf-Arbeit.’ Trans Babette Müller-Rockstroh Hebammen Zeitschrift 4 : 47-52.

Rev. of Between Literature and Painting: Three Australian Women Writers, by Roberta Buffi. Australian Literary Studies 21,2: 217-218.

'Battling Bodies' Rev. of Fear of Food by Carol Bacchi Australian Women's Book Review 15,1 online

Rev. of Faith Singer by Rosie Scott, JAS Review of Books 13 online

'In Stitches and Knots' Rev. of It's my party and I'll knit if I want to!, by Sharon Aris. Coppertales 9: 85-86.

Coppertales 9, 2003. Editor.

2002

‘Scandalous Practices and Political Performances: breastfeeding in the city.’ Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 16,1: 111-21.

'Breastfeeding as head-work: Corporeal feminism and meanings for breastfeeding' Women’s Studies International Forum 25,3: 373-382.  

'Transforming Narrative Practices' Review Article Australian Feminist Studies 17,38: 225-227.

'Narratives of Breastfeeding' Network Narrative News 21: 11-13.

 ‘Evoking/Invoking India’ Review of The Anger of Aubergines by Bulbul Sharma,and Goja: an Autobiographical Myth by Suniti Namjoshi. Australian Women’s Book Review 14,1 online

 'Zipless if not Borderless: Altman's Critique of Contemporary Sexual Politics' Rev. article of Global Sex, by Dennis Altman. Politics and Culture 2 (2002) online journal

Coppertales: a journal of rural arts 8, 2002. Ed with Chris Lee and Brian Musgrove

2001

‘Desire in the Desert: exploring contemporary Australian desert narratives.’ Antipodes 15,2 (2001): 115-22.

Bartlett, Alison and Gina Mercer, eds. Postgraduate Research Supervision: Transforming (R)Elations. Eruptions ser. New York: Peter Lang. 2001.

This highly accessible anthology concerns itself with the relationships between postgraduate research candidates and their supervisors. It is a collection of immense depth and diversity including nearly fifty contributors, candidates and supervisors (many writing collaboratively), reflecting upon the pleasures and perplexing dynamics of supervisory relations. Their lucid understandings emerge through personal anecdote, critical reflection, and pedagogical theorizing. As candidates and supervisors, they recognize the impact of personal, cultural, and institutional histories and desires. This enterprising anthology proposes creative and productive alternatives to the prevailing models. It is a generous and engaging text, vital reading for candidates, supervisors, researchers, mentors, and tertiary educators.

Intro Contents Order this book Reviews: JAS Rev of Books 4 (01/02) Aust Women's Bk Rev 13,2 (2002) Educ Rev (Sep 2002) thirdspace Aust Feminist Studies17,39(2002) Aust Univ Rev 45,2 (2002) Gender & Educ14,3(2002) Higher Education 47 (2004)

"Mostly Metaphors: theorising postgraduate pedagogy from practice", with Gina Mercer, in Postgraduate Research Supervision: Transforming (R)elations. New York: Peter Lang, 2001.55-70.

Guest Editor, Coppertales: a journal of rural arts  7, 2001 Country Women's Edition Alison Bartlett and Catherine Darcy, "Adventures in Flight and Writing: an interview with R.D. Lappan" Coppertales 7 (2001): 99-104. "Questioning Bodies, Representation, Nations" Review Essay of The Body's Perilous Pleasures: Dangerous Desires and Contemporary Culture, ed. Michele Aaron, and Feminism and the Biological Body, by Linda Birke. Australian Feminist Studies 16.34 (2001): 113-17.

"From here to maternity" Campus Review Mar 7-13, 2001: 11.

"New Australian Literary Criticism" Rev. of Susan Lever's Real Relations: the feminist politics of form in Australian Fiction. LiNQ 28,2 (2001): 72-74.

2000

"Thinking through Breasts; writing maternity." Feminist Theory 1,2 (2000): 173-88. Abstract

"Reconceptualising Discourses of Power in postgraduate pedagogy." with Gina Mercer. Teaching in Higher Education 5,2 (2000): 195-204.

'Thinking about bodies, pleasure, training and education' Review Essay of Taught Bodies, edited by Clare O'Farrell, Daphne Meadmore, Erica McWilliam & Colin Symes and Pedagogical Pleasures by Erica McWilliam. Hecate's Australian Women's Book Review. 2000. online.

Rev. of Body/Landscape Journals, by Margaret Somerville. Meanjin 2 (2000): 204-6.

1999

Bartlett, Alison, Robert Dixon and Christopher Lee, eds. Australian Literature and the Public Sphere. Refereed Proceedings of the 1998 ASAL Conference. Toowoomba: Association for the Study of Australian Literature.1999.

"Cooking up a Feast: finding metaphors for feminist postgraduate supervision." with Gina Mercer. Australian Feminist Studies 14,30 (1999): 367-75.

"Fictions of Desire: contemporary Australian desert narratives." Women-Church: an Australian Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion. 26 (1999):39-43.

"Mudmaps and Mudcakes: Finding Metaphors for Postgraduate Supervision" in Winds of Change: Women and University Culture Conference Proceedings. Sydney: UTS. 1999. 632-639.

1998

Jamming The Machinery: Contemporary Australian Women’s Writing. Canberra: ASAL Literary Studies Series 1998.

Jamming the Machinery celebrates the emergence in Australia of a range of contemporary women's writing which challenges conventional expectations of fiction. Alison Bartlett reflects on the implications of French feminist theory and its call for a writing practice which resists established patterns of representation and offers new versions of women's experience. Through her critical analyses of writing by Ania Walwicz, Margaret Coombs, Fiona Place, Inez Baranay, Susan Hawthorne, Sue Woolfe and Davida Allen, she outlines some of the complexities of contemporary feminist art. She blurs the divide between academic critic and writer by contributing her own fictional speculations and allowing each of the writers to speak through a series of interviews (Walwicz, Coombs, Place, Baranay, Hawthorne, Woolfe) and a letter (Allen). This book gives a sense of the energy behind contemporary women's writing in Australia. It is a critical book which breaks down the boundaries between reader and writer, and engages them in a shared exploration of what is means to be a contemporary Australian women.

Intro Extracts of reviews

"A Passionate Subject: Representing Desire in Feminist Pedagogy." Gender and Education 10,1 (1998): 85-92. (see response by Mary Eagleton in 10,3 (1998): 343-50)

"Performing Theory" in The Space Between: Australian Women Writing Fictocriticism Ed. Amanda Nettelbeck and Heather Kerr. Perth: University of Western Australia Press. 1998. 79-88.
"Reading Bodies" in The Space Between: Australian Women Writing Fictocriticism Ed. Amanda Nettelbeck and Heather Kerr. Perth: University of Western Australia Press. 1998. 89-98.

Research

Specialist research areas include contemporary Australian women's writing,
                                                  feminist theory
                                                  fictocriticism
                                                  feminist pedagogy
                                                  cultural studies
                                                  gender studies

Member of the public memory research cluster
Current projects include:

By taking breastfeeding as my subject, I seek to extend the theoretical possibilities of corporeal feminist theory by applying it to a more common lived daily practice for women, a practice which is as infinitely variable and changeable as its texts. This will not only extend the transformative possibilities of corporeal theories but also bring some fresh conversations to the current available discourses of breastfeeding. When I began breastfeeding only a few years ago I was both appalled and perversely excited by the contradictory positions into which breastfeeding mothers were placed in breastfeeding literature. When I began looking for feminist material on breastfeeding or critical analyses of breastfeeding literature I was surprised to find how little it has been addressed, and how sedimented 1970s ideologies of maternity still pervade contemporary discourses so unproblematically. A driving force in conceptualizing this project has therefore been my own experience of breastfeeding my  daughter. Equally as important, however, has been the critical and theoretical skills through which I am able to ‘read’ breastfeeding narratives as texts, rather than as facts, or truths, or solutions.

As well as teasing out some of the contradictions inherent in medical discourses, policies and practices, I also want to attend to some of the silenced discourses of breastfeeding: its erotics and why these are considered ‘dangerous’; women who refuse to breastfeed; the sacred and secular iconic conventions used to represent breastfeeding by contemporary artists; the shifting ways in which women are using public spaces for breastfeeding (particularly in the postmodern city) and as an embodied act of citizenry; the whiteness of breastfeeding and maternity in Australia's racial history and its implications for contemporary Aboriginal women. This book will re-situate breastfeeding away from the usual rhetoric of being a mother’s right, being ‘natural’, and bringing health benefits, to something that we can think about and think through.

Outcomes from this project so far:
Papers
'Black Breasts, White Milk? Ways of constructing breastfeeding and race in Australia.' Australian Feminist Studies 19.45:341-55.
'Introduction: Taking Our Breasts to Work.' with Fiona Giles. Australian Feminist Studies 19.45: 269-71.
‘Breastfeeding, Bodies and Choice in Late Capitalism’ Hecate 29,2 (2003): 153-65.
‘Thinking through Breasts’ in Fresh milk: the secret life of breasts, by Fiona Giles. Sydney: Allen & Unwin/New York: Simon & Schuster.  151-61.
‘Stillen als Kopf-Arbeit.’ Trans Babette Müller-Rockstroh Hebammen Zeitschrift 4 : 47-52.
"Breast-feeding as Headwork: corporeal feminism and meanings of breastfeeding" Women's Studies International Forum 25,3: 373-382.
"Scandalous Practices and Political Performances: Breastfeeding in the City" Continuum: Journal of Media & Culture 16,1 (2002): 111-121
'Narratives of Breastfeeding' Network Narrative News 21: 11-13
"From here to maternity" Campus Review Mar 7-13 2001: 11.
"Thinking through Breasts; writing maternity." Feminist Theory 1,2 (2000): 173-88

Conference papers:
-'Reading Rachel’s Breasts: Scripts and meanings for breastfeeding (with a little help from Friends)' CSAA Conference, Perth, 2004.
- 'Imagining Breastfeeding and Popular Culture' International and Australian Feminisms Conference Sydney 2004
- 'Reinventing the Madonna: Iconising Breastfeeding in the Visual Arts' ARM's Mothering, Religion and Spirituality conference, York University, Toronto 2003
- 'Breast Practice: feminism and breastfeeding in late capitalism' Other Feminisms Aust. Women's Studies Assoc International Conf, University of Queensland, 2003.
- 'White Milk, Black Breasts: racialising breastfeeding in Australia' Spilling the Milk: cultural studies approaches to breastfeeding one day symposium University of Sydney Aug  2003
- 'Models, Madonna and Maternity: Icons of Breastfeeding in the Visual Arts' Performing Motherhood: Ideology, Agency and Experience conference, La Trobe University, 2002.
- "Breastfeeding in the City: reading media scandal through performance and politics"  ARM International conference Mothering: Power/Oppression, University of Queensland, 2001.
- "Breastfeeding as Head-work: corporeal feminism and meanings for breastfeeding." Women in Philosophy conference, University of Queensland, 2000. 
- "Reading Breasts: cultural practices and theoretical byways into breastfeeding." Cultural Studies Association of Australia conference, University of Western Sydney, 1999.

Forthcoming
'Milky Tales: erotics of breastfeeding' Stella Magazine, Canada.
'Maternal Sexuality and Breastfeeding' Sex Education 5,1 (2005)
'Scripts and meanings for breastfeeding in popular culture' Birth Issues (2005)
Breastwork: Rethinking Breastfeeding UNSW Press (2005)

Qualifications

PhD 1996. James Cook University of North Queensland. Dissertation: Jamming the Machinery: Écriture Féminine and the practice of contemporary  women writers in Australia.

Graduate Certificate in Education (Tertiary Teaching) 1996, James Cook University of North Queensland.

BA(Hons) First Class 1990, James Cook University of North Queensland. Thesis: Other Stories: the representation of history in recent novels by Australian women writers

Certificate of Dental Therapy, S.A. 1980.

Links

Contact Alison Bartlett

last updated by Alison Bartlett on 11.2.04