Curtin University today launched a new and exciting initiative to showcase Australian writing in China and Chinese writing in Australia.
The China-Australia Writing Centre, a joint initiative between Curtin’s School of Media Culture and Creative Arts and Shanghai’s prestigious Fudan University will exchange ideas about writing and its teaching and be a focal point for cultural exchange and translation across the region.
Curtin University Pro Vice-Chancellor Humanities Associate Professor Steve Mickler said the partnership would afford wonderful openings for collaboration between writers who use language in imaginative and inventive ways to communicate new ideas.
“It will also advance knowledge and critical practice, and examine social and cultural values,” Associate Professor Mickler said.
Humanities’ Dean of Research and Graduate Studies Professor Tim Dolin said the Centre would progress teaching and learning in the writing disciplines, building on Curtin’s long-standing record as a leader in the development and provision of creative and professional writing programs in Australia.
“With its unique mix of creative disciplines, languages, history and journalism, the centre will bring together writers from across a variety of fields, institutions and cultures,” Professor Dolin said.
Distinguished Curtin writing faculty have included Miles Franklin Award-winning novelists Elizabeth Jolley and Kim Scott, Vogel Literary Award winner Julienne van Loon, best-selling novelist Liz Byrski, and one of Australia’s most important poets, John Kinsella.
Among its distinguished graduates are the Miles Franklin Award-winning novelist Tim Winton, young-adult novelist Jon Doust, Deborah Robertson, and the poets Tracy Ryan and Phillip Salom.
The Centre will host exchanges of academic staff, higher degree by research students, and undergraduate students; collaborative writing and research projects; joint conferences and workshops held alternatingly in the two countries on chosen themes; and cooperation in the development of writing programs.
