Dr Kate Mitchell

Visiting Scholar

T: ( 02 ) 6125 6660

E: kate.mitchell@anu.edu.au

Research School of Humanities
College of Arts and Social Sciences

Qualifications:

2007 PhD, Literary Studies. University of Melbourne.

1999 BA (Hons). Australian National University

Short biography:

Dr Kate Mitchell holds a PhD in literary studies from the University of Melbourne and a BA (Hons) in English and history from the Australian National University. She is currently a visiting fellow at the National Europe Centre in the Research School of Humanities at the Australian National University and teaches within the College of Arts and Social Sciences. Her research is focused on nineteenth and twentieth century literary and cultural history, with a particular interest in neo-Victorian fiction and historical recollection in fictional narratives. She has published articles which examine the representation of history and historical recollection in neo-Victorian novels by Graham Swift, A.S. Byatt, Helen Humphreys and Gail Jones. Her first monograph, Victorian Afterimages, will be published by Palgrave in early 2010.

Research Interests:

Neo-Victorian fiction
Victorian fiction
Historical fiction
Literary postmodernism
Nineteenth Century literature and cultural history
Theory and philosophy of history
Memory and literature

Current Research Projects:

Victorian Afterimages: history, memory and the (re)presented past in Neo-Victorian fiction. Basingstoke: Palgrave (forthcoming, 2010).
This project explores the way in which neo-Victorian fictions enact and celebrate the power of cultural memory in an age historically obsessed and yet charged with the inability to think historically.  Combining  literary and historiographical analysis, it examines recent fictional rewritings of the Victorian period and their implications for contemporary historical knowledge and understanding by shifting focus to the foregrounding of the category of memory in neo-Victorian fiction. It examines a range of neo-Victorian novels by A.S. Byatt, Graham Swift, Helen Humphreys, Gail Jones, Sarah Waters and Belinda Starling. It is under contract for publication with Palgrave in 2010.

Reading the (Re)Presented Past: Literature and Historical Consciousness, 1700 to the present, with Dr Nicola Parsons (Sydney)
This collection of essays examines the relationship between the reader and the represented past in British fiction since the eighteenth century, focusing on the intersection of historical representation, fictional techniques, and reading practices. Our aim is to provide a clearer understanding of the reader’s role in negotiating the relationship between past and present as it is mediated by the literary text.

Selected Publications:

Books and Monographs

2010 Victorian Afterimages: History, Memory and the (Re)Presented Past in Neo-Victorian Fiction (under contract, Palgrave, 2009).

Chapters in books

2009

“(Feeling it) As it Actually Happened: History as Sensation in A.S. Byatt’s Possession." In Anthony Uhlmann, Helen Groth and Paul Sheehan (eds). Literature and Sensation. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009.  

Disciplines:

Literary Studies

History

Teaching:

I have taught in a range of subjects in the English departments at University of Melbourne and UNSW@ADFA, and in the English and History departments at Australian National University:

Literary Studies

Victorian Supernatural (Melbourne)

Romanticism and Revolution (Melbourne)
Introduction to the novel (ANU)
Jane Austen: History and Fiction (ANU)

Experience of War in Fiction and Film (UNSW at ADFA)
English Literature Since 1890 (UNSW at ADFA)
Analytical Reading and Writing (UNSW at ADFA)

History

Flesh and Fantasy: Body, Self, and Society in the Western World (ANU) 
Europe in the Modern Era (ANU)

History and Theory (ANU)

Conferences:

"‘Memory Texts': Locating History/Placing Memory in the neo-Victorian novel."
Locating History
Australian Historical Association Biennial Conference, University of Melbourne. July 2008

"‘What Will Count as History?': the remembered past in neo-Victorian fiction"
Literature and History
Australasian Association for Literature Conference (AAL)
Macquarie University, Sydney. July 2008

"Sensational Knowledge: Reading as Romance in Contemporary Historical Fiction"
Literature and Sensation
Australasian Association for Literature Conference, UWS, Sydney. July 2007

"‘The Alluring Patina of Loss': Home, Memory and Photography in Gail Jones' Sixty Lights"
Re-Membering Place, Dis-Membering Home
University of Queensland. October 2005

"A Fertile Excess: Waterland, Desire and the Historical Sublime"
Excess: Rapture and Revolution
University of Melbourne. June 2004

"A Mutual Possession: Reading as Romance in A.S. Byatt's Possession."
Plural Romance
Monash University. April 2002

"A Nostalgic (R)evolution: A.S. Byatt's Possession and the use of a past to envision the present."
Rocky Mountains MLA Annual Conference
Vancouver, Canada. October 2001

Activities:

Editorial Board Member, Humanities Research Journal (2008)

Editor (with Adam Berryman), Humanities Research Journal special issue: European Citizenship and Diasporas (forthcoming Jan/Feb 2009)

Editor, (with collective), antiTHESIS vol. 12, Space (2001).

Professional societies:

Modern Language Association (MLA)
Australasian Victorian Studies Association (AVSA)
Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL)
British Association for Victorian Studies (BAVS)