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Professor Brigitta Olubas

Professor Brigitta Olubas

Professor

BA (Hons 1) DipEd Tas, MA (Hons 1) Syd, PhD UNSW

Arts, Design & Architecture (ADA)
School of the Arts and Media

Brigitta Olubas is Professor of English. Primary area of research: Australian literature including diasporic, migrant and refugee writing. Her authorised biography of Shirley Hazzard, Shirley Hazzard: A Writing Life (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / Virago / Hachette Australia, 2022 ) was shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary Award for Nonfiction (2022), the Nib Literary Award (2022), the Magarey Medal for Biography (2023), and the National Biography Award (2024).

Her most recent publications were both funded by an ARC Discovery grant: Hazzard & Harrower: The Letters (NewSouth Publishing, 2024, co-edited with Susan Wyndham ) and Expatriates of No Country: The Letters of Shirley Hazzard and Donald Keene (Columbia University Press, October 2024?)

She is currently working on a new biography, provisionally titled "Revenant: The Caribbean Lives of Jean Rhys" for Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

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Phone
+61 2 9385 2303
E-mail
b.olubas@unsw.edu.au
Location
225, Level 2 Robert Webster
  • Books | 2022
    Olubas B, 2022, Shirley Hazzard: A Writing Life, US: Farrar, Straus & Giroux; UK: Virago; Australia: Hachette,
    Books | 2012
    Olubas B, 2012, Shirley Hazzard: Literary Expatriate and Cosmopolitan Humanist, Cambria Press, Amherst, NY,
    Books | 2010
    McMahon E; Olubas B, 2010, Introduction
    Books | 2010
    McMahon E; Olubas B, 2010, Remembering Patrick White, BRILL,
  • Book Chapters | 2021
    McMahon E; Olubas B, 2021, 'Introduction', in McMahon E; Olubas B (ed.), Antigone Kefala New Australian Modernities, University Of Western Australia Press, Perth, pp. 1 - 18
    Book Chapters | 2021
    McMahon E, 2021, 'Worldly interiors in the Fiction of Antigone Kefala', in McMahon E; Olubas B (ed.), Antigone Kefala: New Australian Modernities, University of Western Australia Press, Perth, pp. 51 - 68
    Book Chapters | 2021
    Olubas B; McMahon E, 2021, 'Introduction: "Something as Foreign as Myself"', in Antigone Kefala: New Australian Modernities
    Book Chapters | 2021
    Olubas B, 2021, '¡®We Had Nowhere To Go¡¯: Artist Friendships and Migrant Poetics in the Work of Jurgis and Jolanta Janavicius', in Olubas B; McMahon E (ed.), Antigone Kefala: New Australian Modernities
    Book Chapters | 2020
    Olubas B, 2020, 'Like/Unlike', in The Novels of Alex Miller, Routledge, pp. 89 - 100,
    Book Chapters | 2017
    McMahon EN; Olubas B, 2017, '"Rediscovering Again: Reading Elizabeth Harrower Across Time"', in McMahon EN; Olubas B (ed.), Elizabeth Harrower: Critical Essays, Sydney University Press, Sydney, pp. 1 - 7
    Book Chapters | 2017
    Olubas B, 2017, '"Addiction, Fire, and the Face in The Catherine Wheel"', in McMahon EN; Olubas B (ed.), Elizabeth Harrower: Critical Essays, Sydney University Press, Sydney, pp. 99 - 108
    Book Chapters | 2017
    Olubas B, 2017, 'Literature, Literary Ethics, and the Global Contexts of Australian Literature: Teaching Nam Le's The Boat', in Birns N; Moore N; Shieff S (ed.), Teaching Australian and New Zealand Literature, Modern Language Association of America, New York, pp. 190 - 198,
    Book Chapters | 2016
    Olubas B, 2016, 'Introduction: Shirley Hazzard ¨C Author, Amateur, Intellectual', in We Need Silence to Find Out What We Think, Columbia University Press, pp. ix - xxiv,
    Book Chapters | 2016
    Olubas B, 2016, 'Shirley Hazzard: Author, Amateur, Citizen', in We Need Silence To Find Out What WeThink, Columbia University Press, New York, pp. xiii - xxi
    Book Chapters | 2015
    Olubas B; Howard I, 2015, '"Making Visible, changing sides: the contradictory use of camouflage by artists Xing Junqin and Ian Howard"', in Elias A; Harley R; Tsoutas N (ed.), Camouflage Cultures: Beyond the art of disappearance, Sydney University Press, Sydney, pp. 127 - 145
    Book Chapters | 2014
    Olubas B, 2014, 'Romulus, My Father and the Australian Literary Imaginary', in Taylor C; Graefe M (ed.), A Sense for Humanity: The Ethical Thought of Raimond Gaita, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, pp. 35 - 47,
    Book Chapters | 2013
    Olubas B, 2013, ''The Last Curve of the Globe': Deep Time and Scenes of Reading in Shirley Hazzard's The Great Fire', in Dixon R; Rooney B (ed.), Scenes of Reading: Is Australian Literature a World Literature?, Australian Scholarly Press, North Melbourne, pp. 127 - 136
    Book Chapters | 2013
    Olubas B, 2013, 'Home and Away: Shirley Hazzard's The Great Fire [2003]', in Genoni P; Dalziell T (ed.), Telling Stories: Australian Literary Cultures 1935-2012, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, pp. 532 - 538,
    Book Chapters | 2012
    Olubas B, 2012, '"Like/Unlike: Portraiture, Similtude and the Craft of Words in The Sitters"', in Dixon R (ed.), The Novels of Alex Miller, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, pp. 89 - 100,
    Book Chapters | 2010
    McMahon E; Olubas B, 2010, 'Introduction', in , pp. IX - XVII
    Book Chapters | 2010
    Olubas B, 2010, 'God Sees My Name: Belonging in The Crucible', in Scoping the syllabus : papers from the English Association English Teachers Conference 2010, English Association, Sydney
    Book Chapters | 2010
    Olubas B, 2010, 'Some of the doors of the house have never been seen open: Poetic Habitation and Civil Space in Patrick White's Early Drama', in McMahon E; Olubas B (ed.), Remembering Patrick White: Contemporary Critical Essays, Rodopi, Amsterdam, New York, pp. 149 - 162
    Book Chapters | 2009
    Olubas B, 2009, 'Modes of Belonging in Romulus, My Father', in Ways of Teaching, English Association Sydney, Sydney, pp. 55 - 63
    Book Chapters | 2006
    McMahon EN; Olubas B, 2006, 'Introduction: Women Making Time', in McMahon E; Olubas B (ed.), Women Making Time: Contemporary Feminist Critique and Cultural Analysis, University of WA Press, Perth, pp. 1 - 13
    Book Chapters | 2006
    Olubas B, 2006, 'Awake/Asleep', in Marian Drews - Photographs and Video Works, Qld Centre for Photography, Brisbane, pp. 49 - 58
    Book Chapters | 2006
    Olubas B, 2006, 'Jack Davis', in Samuels S (ed.), Dictionary of Literary Biography vol. 325: Australian writers, 1975 - 2000, Thomson Gale, Detroit, pp. 59 - 64
    Book Chapters | 2006
    Olubas B, 2006, 'That Which Is In Making it: Practices of efficiency, waste and modernity in artworks by Donna Marcus', in McMahon E; Olubas B (ed.), Women Making Time: Contemporary Feminist Critique and Cultural Analysis, University of WA Press, Perth, pp. 62 - 77
    Book Chapters | 2004
    Olubas B, 2004, 'Antigone Kefala', in Samuels S (ed.), Dictionary of Literary Biography vol. 289: Australian Writers, 1950 - 1975, Thomson Gale, Detroit, pp. 175 - 179
    Book Chapters | 2004
    Olubas B, 2004, 'Shirley Hazzard', in Samuels S (ed.), Dictionary of Literary Biography vol. 289: Australian Writers, 1950 - 1975, Thomson Gale, Detroit, pp. 114 - 120
    Book Chapters | 2003
    Ashcroft B; Olubas B; Kossew S, 2003, 'Rethinking First Year English: A Web-Assisted, Modular and Collaborative Course in First Year English', in Wilson S; Scoufis M; Weiss B (ed.), UNSW: Exciting and Engaging Our Students in their First Year at UNSW: Issues, Tips and Resources for FY Learning and Teaching at UNSW, University of New South Wales, Sydney, pp. 115 - 118
    Book Chapters | 1999
    Olubas B, 1999, 'Affective territory: writing white guilt and responsibility in 1990s Australia', in ecrire: a la croisee des iles, des langues, L'Harmattan, Paris, France., pp. 125 - 135
  • Edited Books | 2024
    Olubas B; Wyndham S, (ed.), 2024, Hazzard and Harrower: The Letters, NewSouth Publishing, Sydney,
    Edited Books | 2021
    Olubas B; McMahon E, (ed.), 2021, Antigone Kefala: New Australian Modernities, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands WA
    Edited Books | 2020
    Olubas B, (ed.), 2020, Collected Stories, Virago
    Edited Books | 2018
    Olubas B; Simoes da Silva T, (ed.), 2018, Networks and Genealogies: Tracing Connections, Inventions, and Reflections across Australian writing, Sydney University Press, Sydney,
    Edited Books | 2017
    McMahon E; Olubas B, (ed.), 2017, Elizabeth Harrower: Critical Essays, Sydney University Press, Sydney
    Edited Books | 2016
    Olubas B; Hazzard S, (ed.), 2016, We Need Silence to Find Out What We Think Selected Essays, Columbia University Press, New York
    Edited Books | 2014
    Olubas B; Olubas B, (ed.), 2014, Shirley Hazzard: New Critical Essays, Sydney University Press, Sydney
    Edited Books | 2010
    McMahon EN; Olubas B, (ed.), 2010, Remembering Patrick White: Contemporary Critical Essays, Rodopi, Amsterdam, New York
    Edited Books | 2006
    McMahon EN; Olubas B, (ed.), 2006, Women Making Time: Contemporary Feminist Critique and Cultural Analysis, University of WA Press, Perth
  • Journal articles | 2020
    Olubas B, 2020, '¡°Only for Love¡±: Expatriatism, amateur reading and Shirley Hazzard¡¯s post-war world', JASAL, 20,
    Journal articles | 2019
    Olubas B, 2019, '"'Where we are is too hard': Refugee writing and the Australian border as literary interface"', Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, 19, ttp://openjournals.library.usyd.edu.au/index.php/JASAL
    Journal articles | 2019
    Olubas B, 2019, '"We Forgot Our Names"', Publicbooks.org,
    Journal articles | 2018
    Olubas B; Yu X, 2018, '"The Chinese Translation and Reception of Elizabeth Harrower's The Watch Tower"', Southerly: a review of Australian literature, 78, pp. 206 - 221
    Journal articles | 2018
    Olubas B, 2018, '"The Event of Hiroshima in Australian Literature"', Antipodes: a global journal of Australian/New Zealand literature, 30, pp. 256 - 270,
    Journal articles | 2018
    Olubas B, 2018, '"The Short Fiction of Shirley Hazzard"', Southerly 77.3 Mixed Messages, 77, pp. 20 - 25
    Journal articles | 2017
    Gunew S; Olubas B; Chakraborty MN; Trimboli D; Muraca P, 2017, 'Discussion: Post-multicultural Writers as Neo-cosmopolitan Mediators', Journal of Intercultural Studies, 38, pp. 586 - 597,
    Journal articles | 2017
    Olubas B, 2017, 'A Mongrel, Migrant Language', Journal of Intercultural Studies, 38, pp. 577 - 579,
    Journal articles | 2017
    Olubas B, 2017, 'The space of nations is never simply their own : Hiroshima in Australian Literature(Plenary Speech 2,A Collection of Essays Focusing on Transformation of Australian Studies in a Globalising Age,In Commemoration of the 25th Anniversary of the Foundation of the Australian Studies Assosiation of Japan)', ¥ª©`¥¹¥È¥é¥ê¥¢Ñо¿, 28, pp. 127 - 141,
    Journal articles | 2015
    Olubas B, 2015, '" 'I think you're my wife': Translation, Marriage and the Literary Lives of Shirley Hazzard and Francis Steegmuller"', Southerly: a review of Australian literature, 75, pp. 73 - 87
    Journal articles | 2014
    Olubas B; Simoes da Silva T, 2014, 'Reconfiguring the National Imaginary', JASAL, 13
    Journal articles | 2014
    Olubas B, 2014, '"The Illusion of Old Solitude": Shirley Hazzard's Capri', Journal of Australian Studies, 38, pp. 281 - 291,
    Journal articles | 2014
    Olubas B, 2014, 'Introduction: Country - "It's Earth"', JASAL, 14,
    Journal articles | 2014
    Olubas B, 2014, 'Lines of Connection', Asian Art News, 24, pp. 40 - 44
    Journal articles | 2014
    Olubas B, 2014, 'Sorry I'm Late', Sydney Review of Books,
    Journal articles | 2013
    Olubas B; Wevers L, 2013, 'The Colonies - Australia and New Zealand', JASAL, 13
    Journal articles | 2011
    Olubas B; McMahon E, 2011, 'Editorial', Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (JASAL), 11, pp. np - np,
    Journal articles | 2011
    Olubas B, 2011, 'Nine Lives: Postwar Women Writers Makino Their Mark', AUSTRALIAN LITERARY STUDIES, 26, pp. 115 - 118,
    Journal articles | 2011
    Olubas B, 2011, 'Review of *Nine Lives: Postwar Women Writers Making Their Mark*, by Susan Sheridan', Australian Literary Studies,
    Journal articles | 2010
    Olubas B, 2010, '"'At home in more than one place': Cosmopolitanism in the work of Shirley Hazzard"', Australian Book Review, pp. 9 - 11
    Journal articles | 2010
    Olubas B, 2010, '"Modern masters of their craft"', Spectrum- The Sydney Morning Herald, pp. 37 - 37
    Journal articles | 2010
    Olubas B, 2010, '"Shirley Hazzard's Australia: Belated Reading and Cultural Mobility"', Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (JASAL), Special Issue: Common Readers and Cultural Critics,
    Journal articles | 2010
    Olubas B, 2010, 'Review of: Noel Rowe, Ethical Investigations: Essays on Australian Literature and Poetics', Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (JASAL), 10, pp. np,
    Journal articles | 2008
    Olubas B, 2008, 'Anachronism, Ekphrasis and the `Shape of Time` in The Great Fire', Australian Literary Studies, 23, pp. 279 - 289
    Journal articles | 2008
    Olubas B, 2008, 'Visual Art and Bourgeois Forms in Shirley Hazzard`s Fiction', Southerly, 68, pp. 13 - 23
    Journal articles | 2007
    Olubas B, 2007, 'Truth, writing and national belonging in `Romulus, My Father`', Australian Humanities Review, 43, pp. Online
    Journal articles | 2005
    Olubas B, 2005, 'Image, Affect and Memory: Relations of Looking in Tracey Moffat`s `beDevil`', Southerly, 65, No.1, pp. 81 - 90
    Journal articles | 2002
    Olubas B, 2002, '¡°¡®Paradoxes of Non-Existence¡¯: Questions of Time, Metaphor and the Materialities of Cultural Traditions in Wilson Harris¡¯s discussions of Australian Texts¡±', Australian Cultural History, pp. 81 - 89
    Journal articles | 2001
    Olubas B, 2001, 'Looking Down: Linoleum in Works by Bruce Reynolds 1992-1996', Southerly, 61, pp. 168 - 179
    Journal articles | 2001
    Olubas B, 2001, '`The Dirt Does My Thinking`: The Re-Use of Domestic Materials in Artworks by Donna Marcus and Bruce Reynolds', UTS Review: Cultural Studies and New Writing, 7, pp. 115 - 122
    Journal articles | 2001
    Olubas B, 2001, '¡°Dead Heart?: Reconciliation and Other Refusals in 1990s Australia¡±', Cultures of the Commonwealth: Essays and Studies, pp. 149 - 161
    Journal articles | 2000
    Olubas B, 2000, 'The worlding of Jean Rhys', AUSTRALIAN FEMINIST STUDIES, 15, pp. 406 - 407,
    Journal articles | 2000
    Olubas B, 2000, '¡°Changing ¡®the Mind of Fiction¡¯: Questions of Theory and Reading in Wilson Harris¡¯s Essays"', Journal of Caribbean Literatures, 2, pp. 187 - 197
    Journal articles | 1999
    Olubas B, 1999, '"Remembering and Taking up an Ethics of Listening in The Stolen Children"', Australian Humanities Review,
    Journal articles | 1998
    Olubas B, 1998, 'Entries on Katherine Mansfield, Toni Morrison, Anais Nin, Alice Walker', Reader`s guide to women`s studies
    Journal articles | 1998
    Olubas B, 1998, 'Review of Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, `Women filmmakers of the African and Asian diaspora`', Media International Australia, Incorporating Culture and Policy, pp. 144 - 145
    Journal articles | 1997
    Olubas B; Abood P; Hatzimanolis E, 1997, 'Critical Identities` Editorial', Xtext 1 Crossing Performances
    Journal articles | 1997
    Olubas B, 1997, 'Not speaking, Listening Section 3', Bulletin of the Olive Pink Society, pp. 4 - 14
    Journal articles | 1997
    Olubas B, 1997, 'The meagre harvest: The Australian women's movement 1950s-1990s', AUSTRALIAN FEMINIST STUDIES, 12, pp. 358 - 359,
    Journal articles | 1992
    OLUBAS B, 1992, 'REWRITING THE PAST + HAZZARD,SHIRLEY NOVEL - EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY IN THE 'TRANSIT OF VENUS'', AUSTRALIAN LITERARY STUDIES, 15, pp. 155 - 164,
    Journal articles | 1989
    Olubas B, 1989, '" 'Infinite Rehearsal' in the work of Miles Franklin"', New Literatures Review
  • Other | 2014
    Olubas B; Simoes da Silva T (ed.), 2014, JASAL 13/3: Reconfiguring the National Imaginary, Association for the Study of Australian Literature,
    Other | 2014
    Olubas B (ed.), 2014, JASAL 14.3 Country, Association for the Study of Australian Literature,
    Other | 2013
    Olubas B; Simoes Da Silva T (ed.), 2013, Philosophy, Canonicity, Reading: JASAL 12/3, ASAL,
    Other | 2013
    Olubas B; Wevers L (ed.), 2013, JASAL 13/2 The Colonies: Australia and New Zealand, Association for the Study of Australian Literature,
    Other | 2011
    Olubas B; McMahon EN (ed.), 2011, JASAL 11.1 Archive Madness, ASAL,
    Creative Written Works | 1997
    Olubas B, 1997, Donna Marcus - `99% Pure Aluminium` Noosa Regional Gallery, Eyeline
    Other | 1997
    Olubas B; Abood P; Hatzimanolis E; Fuller G; Lwyn T; Dimech M (eds.), 1997, Xtext 1 Crossing Performances, UNSW and CRITACS University of Wollongong, Sydney
    Other | 1996
    Olubas B; Abood P; Dimech M; Fuller G; Hatzimanolis E; Lwyn T (eds.), 1996, Xtext 1 Crossing Performances, UNSW and CRITACS University of Wollongong, Sydney
    Other | 1992
    Olubas B; Hatzimanolis E (ed.), 1992, New Literatures Review, Univ of Wollongong, Wollongong

Other recent publications include a essays on Behrouz Boochani's No Friend But the Mountains for JASAL and Columbia University Press's PublicBooks, the edited Collected Stories of Shirley Hazzard (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2021 ) an edition of Shirley Hazzard's non-fiction writings (Columbia University Press, 2016? and two collections of essays, one on Elizabeth Harrower (Sydney University Press, co-edited with E McMahon??and Antigone Kefala and New Australian Modernities (UWA Press 2021, co-edited with E McMahon ).

Association for the Study of Australian Literature
Australian Universities Heads of English (AUHE)
Modern Language Association?
Editor, Live Crossings (magazine of creative practice by Indigenous and refugee practitioners)
Executive of the NSW English Association

My Teaching

Course Convenor:
ARTS1030 Forms of Writing: Literature, Genre Culture
ARTS2031 Australian Literature
ARTS2038 Popular Fictions: Novels and Their Afterlives

Areas of HDR supervision:
Currently supervising Honours and PhD research in the following areas: Australian literature, literary modernism, feminist theory and women's writing, literary and visual culture, transnational literary cultures and nineteenth-century fiction.