Prof Michael Ackland ~ Roderick Professor of English

Michael Ackland was educated at Melbourne Grammar School, Monash University, Cologne University and the Australian National University, and taught for many years at Monash University.

He has also taught and lectured widely in Europe and North America. He is fluent in French and German.

His  recent temporary positions included Visiting Scholar at Columbia University, and Visiting Professor of Australian Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New  Delhi, and at Tokyo University.

The author of numerous monographs, biographies and editions, his most recent book was The Experimental Fiction of Murray Bail (Amherst: Cambria Press, 2012). He is currently researching Christina Stead and the Socialist Heritage with an ARC Discovery Grant.

Teaching

• EL2020: Australian Literature (Level 2; CNS)

Interests

Research

• Comparative Literature , Art History and the History of Ideas Twentieth Century Literature to the end of the Cold War, with special reference to its political affiliations
• Christina Stead and the Socialist Heritage Haruki Murakami and Japanese social history The Australian Colonial Heritage

Awards

• Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities

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

• Ackland M (2016) Who are the biggest cannibals?: Colonial literary reckonings with the dark European Other in the Pacific region. Journal of New Zealand & Pacific Studies, 4 (1), pp. 43-52, DOI:10.1386/nzps.4.1.43_1.
• Ackland M (2016) 'Reclaiming the rubbish': outcasts, transformation and the topos of the painter-seer in the work of Patrick White and David Malouf. Le Simplegadi, XIV (16), pp. 27-36, DOI:10.17456/SIMPLE-40.
• Ackland M (2016) Money is a steal:" Christina Stead's critique of finance capitalism in House of All Nations. Journal of the European Association for Studies of Australia, 7 (1), pp. 39-49.
• Ackland M (2016) "The Young Man Will Go Far": educational nobility and Christina Stead's compositional practice in the early 1930s. Australian Literary Studies, 31 (6), DOI:10.20314/als.86153007d7.
• Ackland M (2014) Morality at bay: the lesson of the Americas in Murray Bail's Homesickness. Antipodes, 28 (2), pp. 275-288, DOI:10.13110/antipodes.28.2.0275.
• Ackland M (2013) "Reality is monstrous": Christina Stead's critique of the triumphant West in The Puzzleheaded Girl. Antipodes, 27 (1), pp. 11-17, DOI:10.13110/antipodes.27.1.0011.
• Ackland M (2012) 'We are all philosophers; we cannot help being': Credos, Lifechoices and Philosophy in Murray Bail's The Pages. Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, 12 (3), pp. 1-13.
• Ackland M (2012) "I am thinking I am free": intransigent reality versus utopian thought in the later fiction of Christina Stead. Southerly, 72 (1), pp. 159-180.

Books

• Ackland M (2016) Christina Stead and the Socialist Heritage. Cambria Australian Literature. Cambria Press, New York, NY, USA

Book Chapters

• Ackland M (2016) A working-man's paradise?: Christina Stead's verdict on Antipodean socialism and injustice. In: Postcolonial Justice in Australia: reassessing the 'fair go'. Konzepte Orientierrungen Abhandlungen Lekturen Australien Studien, 12. Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, Trier, Germany, pp. 127-137
• Ackland M (2016) "What are men to rocks and mountains?": self-interest, civility and the unnameable in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. In: Pride and Prejudice: a bicentennial bricolage. Università degli Studi di Udine, Udine, Italy, pp. 159-174
• Ackland M (2013) "On all fours passing, tintinnabulation": Murray Bail's creative case against the imperial word. In: The Tapestry of the Creative Word in Anglophone Literatures. Forum Editrice, Udine, Italy, pp. 231-240

More

ResearchOnline@JCU stores 56+ research outputs authored by Prof Michael Ackland from 2003 onwards.

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.

Current

• The Beautiful and Damned: Searching for the Flapper in Australian Print Culture 1920's - 1930's (PhD , Secondary Advisor)
• Topographical Texts: Connections Between Landscape, Movement, Materiality and Text in the Fiction of Patrick White, Gerald Murnane and Murray Bail (PhD , Primary Advisor)

Completed

• Manifestations of the Ego: Egoism in the Modernist Manifesto (2021, PhD , Primary Advisor)
• Empty spaces and smiling faces: the New Settlers' League and Australian immigration (2017, PhD , Secondary Advisor)