Dr Paul Dawson

Overview

Paul Dawson is a writer of fiction and poetry, and an internationally recognized scholar in the fields of narrative theory and Creative Writing as an academic discipline.

Paul’s first book of poems, Imagining Winter (Interactive Press, 2006), won the 2006 national IP Picks Best Poetry Award, and his poetry has been anthologised in Contemporary Asian Australian Poets (Puncher and Wattmann, 2013) and Harbour City Poems: Sydney in Verse 1788-2008 (Puncher & Wattmann, 2009). Paul’s short stories and poems have appeared in a range of literary journals and newspapers, both in Australia and overseas, including: Meanjin, Island, Southerly, Overland, Snorkel, Slope (US), The Sleeper's Almanac, Australian Poetry Journal, Blue Dog: Australian Poetry, Imago: New Writing, and The Sydney Morning Herald.

Paul is the author of Creative Writing and the New Humanities (London/New York: Routledge, 2005), a comprehensive international account of the historical origins, theoretical underpinnings, and disciplinary future of Creative Writing programmes.

Paul's scholarly research focusses on narrative theory and contemporary fiction. His article, "The Return of Omniscience in Contemporary Fiction" won the 2010 prize for Best Essay in Narrative, awarded by the International Society for the Study of Narrative. He is currently working on an Australian Research Council Discovery Project (DP110100721) entitled "The return of the omniscient narrator in contemporary fiction: authorship and narrative authority in the new millennium."

Research Summary

Paul's research has two broad focusses: narrative theory as a field of literary knowledge, particuarly in relation to narrative voice and authorship; and the theory, pedagogy and institutional functions of Creative Writing as an academic discipline. These areas of research inform Paul's ongoing study of contemporary fiction in the wake of postmodernism. Paul's other area of research interest is contemporary poetry, particularly the relations between avant garde and lyric modes of writing.

Teaching

Paul received a 2011 Vice-Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Postgraduate Research Suupervision, and a 2012 Postgraduate Council Supervisor Award


ARTS 2032: Creative Writing
ARTS3046: Narrative

Publications

BOOKS
The Return of the Omniscient Narrator: Authorship and Authority in Twenty-First Century Fiction (Columbus: The Ohio State University Press. In press.) hyperlink

Imagining Winter (Brisbane: Interactive Press, 2006) hyperlink

Creative Writing and the New Humanities (London/New York: Routledge, 2005)

BOOK CHAPTERS (commissioned)
“The Future of Creative Writing.” The Handbook of Creative Writing Ed. Steve Earnshaw (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 2007). 78-90.

“Writers, Critics, and Literary Authority.” Creative Writing: Theory Beyond Practice. Ed. Nigel Krauth and Tess Brady (Brisbane: Post Pressed, 2006). 21-31.

“Fiction: Develop Your Skills in Narrative Writing.” Power Prose: Writing Skills for the Media Age. Ed. Carolyne Lee. (Melbourne: Hardie Grant, 2004). 136-55.

JOURNAL ARTICLES
"Real Authors and Real Readers: Omniscient Narration and a Discursive Approach to the Narrative Communication Model." Journal of Narrative Theory 42.1 (2012): 91-116.

"The Return of Omniscience in Contemporary Fiction." Narrative 17.2 (May 2009): 143-161.
* winner of 2010 prize for Best Essay Published in Narratiive

“State of Play: Australian Poetry and Poetics Now.” Five Bells: Australian Poetry 15.4 & 16.1(2009): 30-39.

"Historicizing Craft in the Teaching of Fiction." New Writing: International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing 5.3 (2008): 211-224.

"Creative Writing and Postmodern Interdisciplinarity." TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses12.1 (2008) hyperlink

"What is a Literary Intellectual?: Creative Writing and the New Humanities." Cultural Sudies Review 9.1 (2003): 161-79.

“Towards a New Poetics in Creative Writing Pedagogy.” TEXT 7.1 (2003) hyperlink

"A Place for the Space Between: Fictocriticism and the University." Westerly 47 (2002): 139-51.

"Creative Writing in Australia: The Development of a Discipline." TEXT 5.1 (2001) hyperlink.

“Writing Programmes in Australian Universities: Creative Art or Literary Research?” TEXT 3.1 (1999) hyperlink.

“Poetics in the Discipline of Creative Writing.” Southerly 58.4 (1998-99): 8-21.

“The Function of Critical Theory in Tertiary Creative Writing Programmes." Southern Review 30.1 (1997): 70-80.

“Grunge Lit: Marketing Generation X.” Meanjin 56.1 (1997): 119-25.

FICTION

"Australian Academic." Overland 206 (2012): 65-71. hyperlink

"Countershading." The Sleepers Almanac No. 7 (2011): 345-9.

"The Death of a Beautiful Woman" (extract from novel in progress). Southerly 70.2 (2010): 144-58.

“A Gun in Your Pocket.” Island 96 (2004): 133-6.

“Thomas Pennington’s Fetich.” Meanjin 63.1 (2004): 200-210

"Traffic.” Imago: New Writing 11.3 (1999): 53-7.

“Who Are You Calling Bohemian?” Sydney City Hub 2.35 (April 1997): 9.

POETRY

"Reading Hopkins", "Dickinson's Envelope", "Possible Worlds", "Sydney". Contemporary Asian-Australian Poets. Eds Adam Aitken, Kim Cheng Boey, and Michelle Cahill. Sydney: Puncher and Wattman, 2013. 107-12.

"Possible Worlds." Australian Poetry Journal 1.1 (2011): 18.

"Lines of Desire." Snorkel 12 (October 2010) hyperlink

"Thanks for the Poems, Pauline Hanson" (extract). Harbour City Poems: Sydney in Verse 1788-2008. Ed. Martin Langford (Sydney: Puncher & Wattmann, 2009). 205-206.

“Daybreak.” Southerly 66.1 (2006): 43-44.

“Imagining Winter.” Blue Dog: Australian Poetry 2.4 (2003): 38.

"Sydney," "Adrift", "Gutter Buns." Slope: The Online Magazine of Poetry and Poetics 15 (2002)

"Anthropomorphism," "Morningside," "Yabbering Sextons," "Thanks for the Poems, Pauline Hanson," and "Lunatic Brothel." Recent Australian Poetry section of Slope 11-12 (July to October 2001) hyperlink

“Show Me the Rain.” The Sydney Morning Herald 3 October 1998: Spectrum 12.

“Tonight.” Good Time, Great Place: Between U&S 5. Ed. UTS Writers’ Group. Sydney: University of Technology, Sydney, 1992. 140-52.

REVIEWS
"Rev. of The Other Way Out by Bronwyn Lea." Blue Dog: Australian Poetry 7.14 (2008): 49-57.

“Rev. of Skinned by Light: Poems 1989-2002 by Anthony Lawrence.” Blue Dog: Australian Poetry 2.3 (2003): 72-73.

"Rev. of The Artist is a Thief by Stephen Gray." TEXT 6.1 (2002) .

Contributions

PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
2010 - Member of National Advisory Council for Australian Poetry
2006 - Project assessor (INTreader) for the Australian Research Council
2006 - Academic referee for New Writing: International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing
2004 - Academic referee for TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses
2003-2009 - Member of editorial board for Juvenilia Press

Other Information

CURRENT SUPERVISIONS (PhD)
– Hannah Courtney, “Narrative ‘Trickeries’: Author/Reader Interaction during Breaches of the Narrative Contract in Contemporary Fiction”
– Marie Rose Arong, "Towards a ‘Postcolonial’ Narratology: The Significance of Focalization in Filipino Postcolonial Novels in English"
– Camilla Palmer, untitled novel and “Zadie Smith: Past Participle, Present Simple, Future Perfect: Literary Voice and Cultural Authority in the 21st Century”
– Jane Gleeson-White, "Burnt Angels" (novel) and "The Actuality of Earth: Ecocriticism, Economics and the Novels of Kim Scott and Alexis Wright"
– Sumedha Iyer, “Surveying the Wreckage: Australian Migrant Literature in a Post-Multicultural Paradigm”
– Anna Westbrook, "The Quiet Noise" (novel) and “An Erotics of Reading: Jouissance, Queer Affects, and Futurity”
– Mei-Ling Dubrau, “plaintext” (poetry) and “Changing the Subject: Rethinking Representation and the Lyric ‘I’ in Twentieth Century and Contemporary Poetics”
– Holly Zwalf, “All that Happens Between Heartbeats” (novel) and “Sexy Mama: The Sexual, Childless Maternal Body in Mummy Play”
– Josh Brown, “Just” (novel) and "Innovations in EFL Writing Workshops in Korea"

COMPLETED SUPERVISIONS (PhD)
– Tamryn Bennett, "Aneki" (poetry) and "Towards Comics Poetry: Beyond Sequential Boundaries"
– Tim Hanna, “When I Say You I Mean Me” (novel) and “Telling Myself: The Dynamics of Narration in Epistolary Novels”
– Emma Wortley, “The Perpetual Adolescent: Maturation, Consumerism and Young Adult Fiction”
– Joan Phillip, “Transgressions in the Archives: Stories of Women Transported to Botany Bay – 1787-1788” (fictocritical project)
– Sylvia Petter, “The Smell of Dislocation: ‘Ambergris’ (novel) and ‘The Smell of Dislocation: Olfactory Imagery in Selected Works of Janette Turner Hospital’ ”
– Barbara Hill, “Sing at the Moon: The Contextual Narrative of Isolation and Grief in Australian Women’s Writing”

COMPLETED SUPERVISIONS (MA)
– Amyn Rafiq, “Sultan” (fiction) and “Recasting Religion: Postmodern Literature’s Challenge to the Grandest Narrative”
– Emma Anderson, “Reading Anais Nin on the Train” (fiction) and “Representations of Female Sexuality in Australian Chick-Lit Texts.”
– Rebecca Jee, “Undragon Stories” (fiction) and “A World Waiting to be Made: Asian-Australian Identity in Contemporary Literature”

Personal Links

Academia.edu/Paul Dawson hyperlink
Creative Writing at UNSW hyperlink
Rubric:Writing from UNSW
Imagining Winter hyperlink

Interests

narratology and narrative theory; contemporary fiction (especially from a formalist or narratological perspective); contemporary poetry (especially in relation to theories of the lyric and of the avant-garde); the historical formation and development of disciplines (currently in relation to the New Humanities and the post-Theory academy); theories of creativity (in relation to Creative Writing pedagogy, and to post-industrial theories of class); the history of the novel; postmodern fiction; literary classics; gothic fiction.