Polar Imaginaries and Combative Poetics:

Overview

A Symposium examining mid-twentieth-century Australian literary cultures, especially realism and its political, social, and aesthetic stakes

The postwar decades saw a flourishing of small magazines, journals, writers’ groups, and publishing initiatives committed to representing the lives of working-class Australians. These efforts intersected with broader global ideological tensions, producing a charged literary field shaped by surveillance, censorship, and competing visions of culture and society.

Polar Imaginaries and Combative Poetics brings together more than twenty scholars to discuss the literary cultures and conflicts of Australia’s Cold War. Bringing renewed attention to mid-twentieth-century realism and its political, social, and aesthetic stakes, the event will explore the vibrant cultural infrastructure of the organised left and its role in shaping Australian literary production.

The in-person Symposium is hosted at UNSW Canberra City as part of an ARC Discovery Project led by Nicole Moore and Christina Spittel focused on the Australasian Book Society. The project aims to highlight the literary works, forms and lives produced by polarised forms of cultural infrastructure during Australia’s Cold War.

The Symposium will be held across 2 days:

• Thursday 20 August from 5.30pm - Welcome and Keynote Panel
• Friday 21 August - Full-day Symposium (9am-5.30pm) featuring 20 speakers. See attached for a full agenda.

The Symposium will primarily be held as an in-person event. However, a Microsoft Teams link can be sent for anyone wishing to attend remotely. Please contact Rebekah Ward at rebekah.ward@unsw.edu.au if you want to enquire about joining via Teams.

Registration is free for all parts of the event.