Research Strengths
The School of English, Communications and Performance Studies has five sections each with particular Research Foci and Strengths.
Communications and Media Studies
Researchers in the Communications and Media Studies section (CMS) have strong interests in socio-aesthetic and socio-cultural areas of inquiry. Areas of current research include:
- British cultural identity and its expression in literary and cultural texts
- The social and political dimensions of everyday media texts and technologies
- The book and its interface with other media forms
- Audience studies
- Communication theory
- Feminist media studies
- Sport and national culture
- Social theory of the media
- Aesthetic communication
- Music communication
- Political communication and social dramaturgy
- Religious communication
- Games and gaming
- Creativity studies
- Cultural histories of travel and tourism
- Australian and international literary representations of war and conflict
For further details go to CMS Research Focus
Drama and Theatre Studies
Drama and Theatre Studies(DTS) research strengths cover the broad spectrum of performance practices including theatre, spectacle and cultural events. The three major strands within our research program are:
- Practice as research
- Histories and theories of theatre
- Performance cultures in context
For further details go to DTS Research Focus
English
English research strengths cover a wide range of literary studies, including textual criticism, Australian and international literary history, and issues surrounding both the theory and practice of literature. Although the interpretation and re-interpretation of literary works remains an important facet of sectional activity, contemporary theoretical debate has opened up questions about what literature is and how texts work, and has widened the scope of literary studies into areas formerly the preserve of linguistics, philosophy, sociology and politics. Particular areas of current focus include:
- Australian biography
- Scholarly editing
- Eighteenth-century English literature
- Creative writing
- Postcolonial studies
- Women’s writing
- Discourse analysis
- Poetry and poetics
For further details go to English Research Focus
Film and Television Studies
Research strengths in Film and Television Studies (FTV) are focused around an international approach to the study of American, Asian and Australian cinema and television. Within these national and regional studies there is a particular research focus on historical forms and practices of film and television studies and the dynamic relationships between film and television histories, presents and futures.Monash Film and Television Studies staff have internationally recognised expertise that contribute to research excellence in the following areas:
- Australian national cinema
- Australian television
- Teen film and television
- Documentary film theory and history
- American cinema
For further details go to FTV Research Focus
Visual Culture
The research strengths of the Visual Culture section are:
- Nineteenth and twentieth-century Australian visual culture
- Urban imagery in Australian art and visual culture
- Australian war art
- Masculinities
- Aboriginal Art
- Postcolonial revisions of nineteenth-century Australian visual culture.
For further details go to Visual Culture Research Focus
Centres
The Centre for Comparative Literature & Cultural Studies
The Centre for Postcolonial Writing
Performance and Social Aesthetics (PASA) Research Unit