A/Prof Allison Craven - Research Portfolio

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About

Allison Craven lectures in screen and literary studies. Allison has over 25 years of experience of academic practice. She joined JCU in 2004, and previously worked in universities in Australia and South-East Asia (see 'Experience' below).

Currently (2019-2021) Allison is Colin and Margaret Roderick Scholar in Comparative Literature. Her project is entitled: The Properties of the Gothic: Haunts and Hauntings in Australian Film and Literature. (see 'RECENT CONFERENCE PAPERS' below)

Project Description: ‘The Gothic’ is a mode of cultural discourse that is widely popularized in contemporary literature, art, film, television and transmedia. Its historical sources are usually traced to British and European literatures of 18th and 19th centuries of which the main legacies are a defining set of textual tropes of haunting. Australian Gothic fictions occur in a variety of forms and media dating from colonial history to the present, where haunting emerges in a range of symbols - from bush melancholy to bunyips, bones and haunted huts and more, largely defined in the settler gaze and consciousness and often with regional inflection. The project is a comparative study of Australian literature and film in examining the diversities, continuities and ruptures between colonial and contemporary Australian Gothic fictions.

Ongoing Research Interests: Aside from her project as Roderick Scholar, Allison’s ongoing interests are in fairy tale and gothic narrative; and Australian cinema. She is sole-author of two monographs: Fairy Tale Interrupted: Feminism, Masculinity, Wonder Cinema (2017), a study of mass-mediated fairy tale and Disney media; and Finding Queensland in Australian Cinema: Poetics and Screen Geographies (2016) on regional identities and ecologies of production in Australian films set and made in Queensland.

Teaching:

EL3122 The Gothic: Narratives of the Uncanny, the Surreal and the Fantastic

CN2205 Australia and Asia in the Cinema (offered in JCU Singapore)

EL2047 Children's Literature

BA1001 Time, Truth and the Human Condition (BA Core)

Arts Core Coordinator: BA core curriculum supports students’ transition into university in first year, and enhancement of graduate employability through capstone learning. Core subjects are cornerstones in Arts' address to JCU’s strategic intent to make a brighter future for the people of the tropics.

Teaching

BA1001: Time, Truth and the Human Condition (Level 1; TSV)
EL2047: Children's Literature (Level 2; ONL & TSV)
EL3122: The Gothic: Narratives of the Haunted, the Uncanny, the Fantastic (Level 3; TSV)

Interests

Professional

Treasurer, Screen Studies Association of Australia and New Zealand Aoteoroa, 2016 to 2018.
Bachelor of Arts Course Coordinator (2010-2015)
Convenor, BA Course Advisory Group (2010-2014)
Teaching and Learning Committee (School Arts & Social Sciences; Faculty of Arts, Education and Social Sciences) (2010-2014)
JCU Academic Board (2007-2009)
Faculty and School Boards of Studies (2011-2014)
JCU Diploma Working Group (2013-2014)
Elected (Academic Staff) Member of the 17th Council, James Cook University (2018-2022)

Research

Fairy tale and gothic narrative, especially Beauty and the Beast and related stories.
Second-wave feminisms; feminism and masculinities; histories of sexual harassment.
Film and cinema in Australia; regional histories and ecologies of production; Asia and Australia in cinema; intermediality of theatre and cinema
RECENT CONFERENCE PAPER: ‘Of Bunyips, Brides and Luminous Shadows: Rethinking the Gothic through an Asian-Australian Lens.’ Asian Cinema Studies Society Conference (ACSS), June 2019, Singapore.
RECENT CONFERENCE PAPER: ‘The Good, the Gothic and the Lives of the Saints: Inter-activating morals, law and folklore in Netflix The Good Place and Black Mirror.’ Television, Drama, Law and National Identity Symposium, University of Westminster, London, September 2019.
RECENT CONFERENCE PAPER: 'The Child Lost in Folkloric Time: Rebooting the Australian Cinema Revival in Storm Boy (2019) and Picnic at Hanging Rock (2018), Children's Media Symposium, University of the Sunshine Coast, November 2019.

Experience

2001 to 2004 - Arts/Communication Coordinator and Lecturer, Monash University Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur (Media and Film Studies)
2001 - Lecturer, Monash University, Berwick and Frankston Campuses (Communication and Media Studies)
2000 - Tutor, Monash University Berwick and Frankston campuses (Communication Studies)
2000 - Tutor, VUT (Gender Studies)
2000 - Lecturer, Monash University (Sex, Gender and Knowledge)
1999 to 2000 - Tutor, RMIT University (Media in Asia)
1995 to 1999 - PhD research, Monash University (Constructions of Masculinity in Feminist theory)
1996 to 1997 - TEFL Teacher, Monash University English Language Centre (Enlish as a Foreign Language (Intermediate; EAP))
1995 to 1996 - Tutor, Monash University, Clayton campus (Introduction to Cultural Studies)
1993 - Sub-Editor, ACP Limited (Magazine sub-editor, Melbourne)
1991 to 1993 - MA by Research, University of Queensland (Sexual Harassment in the Workplace)
1991 to 1992 - Tutor, University of Queensland (Writing and Style; Rhetoric and Communication)
1991 - Tutor, Australian Catholic University (Introduction to Tertiary Studies)
1989 to 1990 - Honours research (Hons 1), University of Queensland (19thC Pantomime and popular culture)

Research Disciplines

Socio-Economic Objectives

Honours

Awards

2011 - Inclusive Practice Award, Disabilities Resources Centre
2008 - Inclusive Practice Award, Disabilities Resources Centre

Fellowships

2019 to 2021 - Roderick Scholar in Comparative Literature

Memberships

2017 - Asian Cinema Studies Society
2016 - Australian Teachers of Media
2015 - Screen Studies Association of Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand
2012 - Australian Collaboration Education Network
2005 - English Teachers' Association of Queensland

Other

2012 - Visiting Scholar, Department of Humanities, University of Sohar, Oman
2012 - Border Crossings: staff exchange, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands

Publications

These are the most recent publications associated with this author. To see a detailed profile of all publications stored at JCU, visit ResearchOnline@JCU. Hover over Altmetrics badges to see social impact.

Journal Articles

Craven A (2021) A happy and instructive haunting: revising the Child, the Gothic, and the Australian Cinema Revival in Storm Boy (2019) and Picnic at Hanging Rock (2018). Journal of Australian Studies, 45 (1). pp. 45-60
Craven A (2020) The ambiguities of ancestry: antiquity, ruins and the converging literary traditions of Australian gothic cinema. Studies in Australasian Cinema, 14 (3). pp. 162-177
Craven A (2020) The Good, the Gothic and the transnational rules of the afterlife in The Good Place. Entertainment and Sports Law Journal, 18 (1).
Craven A (2020) The last of the long takes: feminism, sexual harassment, and the action of change. M/C Journal, 23 (2).
Craven A (2020) The joy of a Gothic fable: form, didacticism, and 'happy-ness' in Sonya Hartnett's The Ghost's Child and Jennifer Kent's The Babadook. Aeternum: The Journal of Contemporary Gothic Studies, 7 (1). pp. 1-16
Craven A (2018) Where East-meets-West meets Asianization: aesthetics, regionality and Frank Capra's Lost Horizon. Asian Cinema, 29 (2). pp. 175-187
Craven A (2018) Escape to the terraform tropics: geography and gender in marine adventure films from Queensland. Screening the Past, 43.

Books

Craven A (2017) Fairy Tale Interrupted: feminism, masculinity, wonder cinema. Peter Lang, Bern, Switerland
Craven A (2016) Finding Queensland in Australian Cinema: poetics and screen geographies. Anthem Studies in Australian Literature and Culture. Anthem Press, London, UK

Book Chapters

Craven A (2019) Terraform and Terra Firma: transnational economies of image, landscape and location in screen production in Queensland. In: Regional Cultures, Economies and Creativity: innovating through place in Australia and beyond. Routledge Advances in Sociology. Routledge, London, UK, pp. 67-81
Craven A (2018) Fairy-tale cultures, media, and feminism. In: Routledge Companion to Fairy-Tale Cultures and Media. Routledge Companions. Routledge (Taylor & Francis), UK, pp. 65-73
Craven A (2017) Abroad: production tracks and narrative trajectories in films about Australians in Asia. In: Australian Screen in the 2000s. Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 99-117

More: ResearchOnline@JCU stores 31+ research outputs authored by A/Prof Allison Craven from 2002 onwards.

Supervision

Advisory Accreditation: I can be on your Advisory Panel as a Primary or Secondary Advisor.

These Higher Degree Research projects are either current or by students who have completed their studies within the past 5 years at JCU. Linked titles show theses available within ResearchOnline@JCU.

Completed