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Humanities writing program helps scholars reach wider audience

August 25, 2006

WritingOut.thumb.jpgThe University of New England is hosting a program of seminars and workshops that is helping scholars reach a wider audience with their published work.

Presented under the title “Writing Out”, the two-day program has already run successfully at universities right around Australia. UNE’s Dr Stephen Harris, a member of the organising committee for the Armidale event, said UNE would be the final venue for the program, which has been on tour for the past year. “They contacted us in UNE’s School of English, Communication and Theatre, and we leaped at the chance,” Dr Harris said.

He explained that “writing out” referred to the process of writing and publishing scholarly work in a way that would interest readers who were not specialists in the field.

The program, initiated by the Humanities Writing Project and funded largely by the Australian Research Council, is directed principally at academics in the humanities, with special reference to postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers. “It’s a wonderful opportunity for aspiring academics and early-career researchers who are interested in communicating with a more general audience,” Dr Harris said.

The program consists of seminars followed by writing workshops. The two seminars – from 10 am to 12 noon on both Friday 1 September and Saturday 2 September – are open to all interested people. They will involve discussions among scholars, writers, editors and publishers on the process of presenting scholarly material to a wider, general audience. The panellists for Friday’s seminar, titled “Editorial Practices”, will include UNE’s Emeritus Professor Julian Croft, Professor Margaret Harris (Chair of the Humanities Writing Project), Phillipa McGuinness (Commissioning Editor, UNSW Press), Dr Catherine Cole (Sydney-based cultural historian, academic and novelist), and Paul Cliff (Editor, National Library of Australia). Several of the visiting panellists will also contribute to Saturday’s seminar, titled “Writing and Research”, and will be joined by prominent UNE academics including the distinguished historian Professor Alan Atkinson.

Friday’s seminar will be in Arts Lecture Theatre A1, and Saturday’s in Arts Lecture Theatre A2. People interested in attending one of both of the seminars should contact Gill Willis on (02) 6773 2023 (or e-mail: gwillis2@une.edu.au).

The writing workshops – from 2 pm to 5 pm on both days – are restricted to registered participants, who will be working on their own material. They will work directly with selected panellists to develop skills and techniques relevant to their discipline and publishing interests.

“There is a lot of valuable research being done,” Dr Harris said. “If some of it can reach a wider audience, our society will be enriched and scholars will be rewarded with wider circulation of their work and ideas.”

THE PHOTOGRAPH displayed here shows members of the UNE organising committee for "Writing Out" – (from left) Associate Professor Michael Sharkey, Ms Gill Willis, Associate Professor Dugald Williamson, Ms Rose Williamson, and Dr Stephen Harris.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at August 25, 2006 04:26 PM