History, language, and cultural and literary studies will come under the spotlight next month when the Contemporary Studies program hosts the Burden, benefit, trace: legacies of benevolence conference, at UQ Ipswich from December 12-14.
About 80 delegates and guest speakers from countries around the world, including the UK, the Middle East, Denmark, the US, Austria, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Turkey and Nigeria, will attend the three-day event and utilise accommodation services and amenities in the Ipswich region.
The conference is themed on benevolence – its history, problems, and representation. It is being convened by Associate Professor Helen Gilbert from the University of Queensland St Lucia, and Dr Leigh Dale, Director of the Contemporary Studies Program at UQ Ipswich.
Dr Dale said that she was particularly pleased to have had such enthusiastic support for the conference from Ipswich businesses– including iTEL Community Telco and the Heritage Building Society – and to be utilising local business for accommodation and conference support.
“It’s great that we have places like Fenton’s, which will host the conference dinner, and Razorsharp, which will do the on-site catering,” Dr Dale said.
She said it was exciting to have attracted some of the world’s best-known names in the fields of literary and cultural studies to Ipswich.
“Professor Patrick Brantlinger from Indiana University is a specialist in nineteenth-century literature and culture, and has also written books on the history of cultural studies. His address on A short history of benevolence will be a highlight of the conference,” she said.
Professor Rajeswari Sunder Rajan is a rising star in the field who, after teaching at Delhi University, has just taken up a position at Wolfson College, Oxford University. Her areas of interest include gender studies and literary studies in India.
Professor John Frow, currently Regius Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature at the University of Edinburgh and Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at that University, is about to take up the chair of English at Melbourne University.
“We’ve got speakers from all over the world, as well delegates from across Australia and the southeast Queensland region, so it should be a great event,” Dr Dale said.
The conference opening will be held in Building 14 at UQ Ipswich, where delegates will hear a paper on the history of the Challinor Centre by Dr Dolly MacKinnon, who recently co-edited a study of benevolent institutions in Australia published by University of Queensland Press.
Media: For more information, contact Dr Leigh Dale (telephone 3381 1290).
