All units in literature are moving into their drama extravaganzas. Third years are preparing segments from their five Shakespeare plays ( A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Henry IV, Macbeth, Troilus and Cresside and The Tempest) and are being helped in this by the Artist in Residence James Evans of Sydney’s Bell Shakespeare Company. Second years are…
Welcome to Week 9
Cream of the the Cream / or Crème de la Crème/ or Schlagobers dazu- Best Blogs!
Crème de la Crème Literature students have completed the first round of their blogging before they hone their skills and prepare to embed these blogs into their Literature ePortfolios. This has engaged students at first, second and third years completing units in “Introduction to Literature”, “Nineteenth Century Literature” & “Shakespeare and the Renaissance”. The activity…
19th Century Group venture into the Art Gallery Time Tunnel
Two groups of 19th Century students wandered through the 18th and 19th Centuries today, finishing with a brief look at modernism before exiting into the wonderful sunny skies of a Sydney midday. We then journeyed half a kilometre – past William Shakespeare- on to the gates of the Palace Gardens, that one-time icon of Victorian…
Macbeth at the Opera House with 3rd Year Shakespeare Students
Kate Mulvaney played a fabulous, demonic Lady Macbeth for our 3rd year students yesterday. She brought an electrifying, negative force onto the stage and demonstrates that Shakespeare’s women are sometimes far from the meek downtrodden characters that we have seen in Henry IV Parts 1 & 2, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Troilus and Cressida.…
Shakespeareans Gathered in Shakespeare Place
Here we all are again at our ritual honouring of The Bard at his Sydney Shrine. No Photo-Regulations broken here! All in the spirit of cultural transformation. And no, there were no lives or limbs lost in the effort! Have a great Easter Week!
Rollicking into mid-semester!
This week past we have completed Henry IV parts 1 & 2 in “Shakespeare”, explored Tolstoy in the” 19th Century “and glanced at a number of key contemporary poets in “Introduction to Literature”: Langston Hughes, Wislawa Symborska, Wole Soyinka and Martin Espada. First year blogs have all been marked, second and third year essay marks…
Visit to Shakespeare Room in the State Library
This was a fabulous visit for all who attended. Not only were we able to touch the chair, made from the tree, that grew in the garden, next to the house where Shakespeare lived in Statford… but we also were introduced to the symbolism surrounding two of his great benefactors, The Earl of Southampton (young…
Literature and Life Week 4/5: Subversion Continued!
Last week I spoke about the subversive power of literature and poetry and explored this in Shelley, Shakespeare and Dickens. This week we have just experienced some of the most amazing practitioners of this subversion, the Americans Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson and the German Arthur Schopenhauer, the Persian Shamsu d-Dīn Muhammad, Hafiz and the…
The Subversive Power of Literature- Week 3: heading into Week 4
The Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley declared at the end of his “ A Defence of Poetry” (1821) that “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the World” (Norton). By this Shelley meant that while poets are not acknowledged for their insight and wisdom by the status quo -they are usually considered as useless and irrelevant…
Former ACU Literature Student- Justine Zarebski (ACU 2005- Now Full-Time Literature Teacher) Praises Blogging at ACU
Here is Justine’s Blog entry on the impact of blogging on her teaching trajectory (quoted with her explicit permission): Hello! I am a third year out teacher who studied a BT/BA (Literature) at ACU. I graduated in 2009 and have decided to use this page as a record of my professional development. My first experiences…
Week 3: Bottom’s Dream- Wordsworth’s Leech Gatherer and Metaphors Galore!!!!
(Be sure to click on all the links- some you will find very useful) Bottom’s Dream in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of the most amazing, inexplicable moments in all of Shakespeare. Here is a character, at the bottom of the social hierarchy – like so many of Shakespeare’s most loved characters- who has glimpses of…
End of Week One ! A Great Beginning!
Introduction to Literary and Dramatic Forms has been launched with a glimpse – in Dead Poet’s Society- into the way a contact with literature can be a subversive agent of social change, for keeping us in touch with the things that really matter to our lives, to emotion, to relationship, to the creative force that…
Welcome to Literature and Life Autumn 2012
This semester we have literature bloggers and ePortfolio creators across three years: in first year students studying “Introduction to Literary and Dramatic Forms”; in second year “The Nineteenth Century”; in third year “Shakespeare and the Renaissance”. What a feast! Welcome to this blogging site where you will be getting a running commentary on weekly lectures…
David Malouf Visits ACU
What a fabulous event this was for both third and first year students. Here in this photo are two of our international students from Germany Nesrin Gencer (on left) and Katrin Hartwig (both studying Australian and Twentieth Century Literature) with David Malouf and yours truly (MG). I felt that we were all nourished in a…
Wishing you all a fruitful lecture-free week!
This last week we again brought drama into our experience of literature. Drama can bring the insights of literature directly into our bodies as we work to make the lines and ideas breathe and move. And what a fabulous feasts of dramatists we have in Australian Literature (from Louis Esson through to Chi Vu). I…
Politics and Language- Week 9 around the corner!
This week politics has been in the forefront of our thinking in 20th Century Literature with George Orwell’s essay “Politics and the English Language” revealing the extent to which so much of what we think and write is manipulated by “thoughts” which are not at all our own. To find the simple, direct and concrete…
Week 8
Week 8 brings Blake’s illustrations to the Book of Job into focus (for Blake students). This is an extraordinary series of etchings which expresses the heart of Blake’s revisioning of Christianity from a religion controlled by human morality (Good and Evil) to a religion open to the mystery of creation. How Blake achieves this is…
Spring Poetry Competition
Announcing a Spring Poetry Competition. [To make responding to this announcement easier I have moved it to this separate entry- please respond to this entry with your poems – following the instructions below]. Please post your entries (fully illustrated) into your Student Blogs and post a link to your entry as a comment at the…
Week 7 – We are over the hump!
This weekend was father’s day and I was taken to the Muogamarra nature reserve for an annual pilgrimage. This reserve (just north of Cowan) has one of the best displays of Sydney spring wildflowers. It is only open 6 weekends of the year and we are about half way through those 6. So be quick!…
Art & Spirit
This week in all our units we have been exploring the relationship between Art (poetry, painting, prose, music…) and that part of human nature that is termed Spirit. For William Blake and for D.H.Lawrence the division between Body and Spirit -central to many religious traditions- was something they wanted to challenge. As Blake pronounced in…
Week Six- Spring Snakes are here!
Eastern Brown Snakes are alive and well in the bush around Sydney. They are not to be messed with, but they are amazing creations. Like Blake’s “The Tyger” they embody a “fearful symmetry” that, while potentially dangerous, expresses a beautiful energy that is at the heart of creation. In class this week we explored D.H.Lawrence’s…
Week 5!!!! Mid-Semester approaching: wow was that quick!!!
Jerusalem Bay (not far from where I live): a fabulous Angophora hugging the water’s edge Hello all. This past week has been hectic as many of us are completing essays (and marking!). But I am so pleased that for Australian Literature students the experience of reading the 400 page Miles Franklin award winner (Kim Scott’s…
Rollicking into Week 4
Dawn over Galston Gorge: Saturday Morning 6.30 am We have had an amazing week with the war poets and with their supportive voice Charlie Chaplin, with Bobby Wabalanginy doing a strip-tease in front of gathered dignitaries in That Dead Man Dance and with Blake’s Songs of Experience. Looking across all of these, from my perspective…
Dancing into week 3 with Bobby Wabalanginy.
Red Spider Flower (Grevillea Punicea) taken on my bush walk in Galston Gorge this Saturday. For more see Photos. In Australian Literature we have been spending the last two weeks exploring this year’s Miles Franklin Award Winner That Deadman Dance by Kim Scott who has a white mother and an Aboriginal father of Noongar descent.…
Springing into Week 2
The end of the first week and heading into week 2: the prow of the ship cutting through exhilarating waves of Kim Scott’s That Deadman Dance with Australian Literature students. With Twentieth Century Literature students on campus we launched the twentieth century with the impact of the wars on literature and painting and then spent…
Welcome to Literature and Life Spring 2011
First hint of spring in the bush around Berowra: Native Fuchsia (Epacris Longiflora) in the early morning mist Welcome to my literature blog “Literature and Life” Spring 2011. I will be using it to reflect on why literature matters in the world today. I will also be using this space chiefly to extend my class/lecture-room…
Clemente Australian Literature Week 9
Glad to hear that you all had a good week’s break with some interesting adventures had by some!. This week our drama class continues with Sarah Woods from Bell Shakespeare and our work on Louis Nowra’s “The Golden Age”. I am glad to see that some of you took up the suggestions on this play…
Clemente Australian Literature Group 2010 Week 5
Thank you all for your participation and great contributions today. Not only did we see the cream of the early literature blogs from many of you but we had a penetrating discussion on the poetry of FrancisWebb. I was amazed at how quickly many of you just “got” what it was that Webb was dealing…
My comment on Armando
I have just commented on Armando’s Blog
Working with Clemente Students (Mission Australia Surry Hills/ Nagle Centre Campbelltown
On Tuesday this week I gave a presentation with Professor Jude Butcher on the work we have been doing with Clemente disadvantaged students. This was a great opportunity to showcase the amazing work that these students do when challenged to be creative in a literature journal Blog. I am currently teaching Australian Literature with a…
Working with Clemente Students (Mission Australia Surry Hills/ Nagle Centre Campbelltown
On Tuesday this week I gave a presentation with Professor Jude Butcher on the work we have been doing with Clemente disadvantaged students. This was a great opportunity to showcase the amazing work that these students do when challenged to be creative in a literature journal Blog. I am currently teaching Australian Literature with a…
God and the Poetic Genius in William Blake
In yesterday’s classes we explored the core ideas that lie behind and within all of William Blake’s work. This was a huge task for our three hour session, but I believe we made some headway raking the ground as it were in order to allow the seeds of our understanding to grow. Essentially Blake is…
David Malouf's Visit to Campus
David’s visit to both first and third years was a wonderful experience for us all. David’s generosity in sharing his ideas about his novel RANSOM with third years and REMEMBERING BABYLON with first years brought new insights into both novels and into the writing experience itself. Students were somewhat amazed by David’s declaration that “I…
Blog Topics for Week 6- Australian Literature & William Blake
Hi all… and sorry for the delay in your Blog Topics for Week 6. Yes it is David Malouf all round. Topic 1/ Write a letter of appreciation to David Malouf telling him what new insights you have discovered in the novel you are studying as a result of his talk with you yesterday. Topic…
AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE WEEK 5- DAVID MALOUF EXTRAVAGANZA!
Here are a selection of topics for the David Malouf Menu: Please chose one and eat carefully: 1/ Write a letter to David Malouf telling him how his book Remembering Babylon has made you more aware of the issues surrounding Australia’s fear of outsiders to our community. 2/ Imagine you are Janet McIvor. In no…
Blake Blog Topics Week 5
These topics are designed to help you towards work in your essay. Chose one or make up your own! 1/ Describe what impact the novel Ransom has had on your thinking about the meaning and purpose of your own existence. 2/ Blake explores the changes of STATE in a character like the Nurse. Describe in…
Hi All Aust Litters…….
I am confident now that everyone who has submitted their U R L through Blackboard has one or more comments on their work. If you still don’t have a comment please get back to me with your U R L. I understand that a few of you are also experiencing some technical difficulties caused by…
Unjust Racism in Australia
Hi all- in the light of what we have been discussing in both Australian Literature and William Blake it is really worth mentioning this report that has just come out of the United Nations about the deeply engrained racism that is still part of the Australian landscape. William Blake would have been horrified and many…
Oz Litters- Suggestions for your Literature Journal Blog for Week 4
Write a response to any one of the questions set down for Tutorial Topics in Week 4. Here is the full list if you have not yet had your tutorial (Page References are to the Macquarie Pen Anthology). You can of course personalize your responses to any of these questions and you can of course…
Billy Blake Week 4: Ideas for your Literature Journal
1/ Imagine yourself into Blake’s environment as an engraver working for the publisher of Stedman’s Narrative of atrocities in the Slave trade. Across your desk comes Governor King’s sketch of an Aboriginal Family. You are asked by your publisher to produce and engraving of this family for a book. What visions, thoughts drift across your…
Art Gallery Visit August 18th.
Thank you all for your keen participation in the Art Gallery visit. It was wonderful to see so many of you turn up, and I was amazed how many of you stayed back and spent quality time connecting with the paintings. I was also very pleased to hear that for some of you this was…
Australian Literature Week 3: Ideas for your Literature Journal
Here are 3 central ideas…but remember you don’t have to stick to these. Blogging is a space where you can share your creative ideas, experiences and reflections with the whole group. Remember that by the end of your sixth blog you should have included a mix of creative and critical entries. Please go back to…
William Blake Journal Suggestions for Week 3
Remember not to go overboard with your blogs: keep entries concise- just like William Blake might have wanted! Write a short review of the film “Singing for England”. You might like to say how it inspired you to taste something of the continuing relevance of William Blake to today. Describe in your own words the…
Ideas for Your Blake Journal Week 3
Remember not to go overboard with your blogs: keep entries concise- just like William Blake might have wanted! Write a short review of the film “Singing for England”. You might like to say how it inspired you to taste something of the continuing relevance of William Blake to today. Describe in your own words the…
Australian Literature- First Blog Post for your Literature Journal: Ideas
Aust-Litters: Here are some suggestions for your first Blog. Chose any one topic – or create your own (and check the unit outline for details on word-length etc… and remember you have to peer review one other class mate each week- be sure to cut and paste a copy of your comment and keep a…
William Blake – Suggested Topic for Week 1
To get you all focussed and thinking about Blake’s continuing impact on the modern world, please take part fully in the Blackboard Discussion on Ginsberg and Mitchell and then try to write a short response to the following statement in your Blake – WordPress Literature Journal (please read the unit outline carefully for this assessable…
Literature Blogs Spring 2010
Boronias at Dawn: I went bushwalking with a friend yesterday morning and discovered a whole ridge full of Blossoming Boronias. Spring is already here and winter is not yet over! Sydney has an amazing climate. So here now is my first L….O…..O…..O…..O…..O……N…….G Blog for the semester. Please bear…
Clemente Drama Practice
Hi all Linda is hosting a practice session at the Nagle Centre all day today…. Here is her message: Hullo Michael, I want our class to have as much opportunity to practice as possible, so I am seeing Peter tomorrow about accessing the room for the class. Would you please post this to speed commencement…
Suggestions for Week 10
Hi productive writers all: Tolstoy for second years in the last two weeks has produced some wonderful tutorials and great sharing of ideas in lectures. For WordPress – if you are in a critical mode then please describe in your own words what you think Tolstoy is trying to convey to his readers through this…
Michael Griffith: Home Page- Literature and Life Spring 2025 
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