Personal details
- Name
- Professor Susan Carson
- Position(s)
- Head of School (acting)
Creative Industries Faculty,
School of Communication - Program Director
Creative Industries Faculty,
School of Communication - Professor
Creative Industries Faculty,
School of Communication - Discipline *
- Other Language, Literature and Culture, Other Studies in Human Society, Performing Arts and Creative Writing
- Phone
- +61 7 3138 8115
- Fax
- +61 7 3138 0185
- sj.carson@qut.edu.au
- Location
- View location details (QUT staff and student access only)
- Identifiers and profiles
-
- Qualifications
-
PhD (University of Queensland)
- Professional memberships
and associations Dr Susan Carson is an Associate Professor in the Creative Writing and Literary Studies discipline in the Creative Industries Faculty. Sue has two key research streams, being postgraduate teaching and Australian writing and cultural studies. Sue has won two Category 1 grants from the Office of Learning and Teaching (Australia) (2013; 2014) and in 2013 she won a national citation from the OLT for an Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning.
Her current research focus is in cultural tourism with a specific interest in digital and community engagement with the practices of cultural tourism. Sue leads the Creative Industries Cultural Tourism research group and publishes internationally in the field of cultural tourism studies. This research combines Sue’s prior work experience in information technology with her recent research in Australian culture and writing. She is a specialist in women’s writing namely the work of Charmian Clift, Christina Stead and Eleanor Dark and continues to publish on Australian literature. Sue supervises a range of postgraduate students, most of whom are creative writing and cultural studies scholars.
- Keywords
-
Cultural Tourism, e-trails, Australian literature, Literary tourism, Modernism, Postgraduate pedagogy
Biography
Background Professor Sue Carson taught in the Creative Writing and Literary Studies discipline in CIF for some years and developed courses in Shakespearean studies and popular culture before moving to the CIF Research Office. As a former information technology journalist, she maintains an interest in Australian media. Her MA (Research), ‘Seeking a life in the literary position: the writing of Charmian Clift‘, was awarded by the University of Queensland in 1994. Susan’s doctorate, ‘Making the Modern: the writing of Eleanor Dark’ was awarded by the University of Queensland in 1999. Professor Carson was Head of Postgraduate Studies (Research) in the Creative Industries Faculty and now researches in the field of higher degree research pedagogy as well as in cultural tourism. In 2013 she won an Australian Award for University Teaching (a citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning). In 2014 she was appointed Research Leader for the school of MECA, Media Entertainment and Creative Arts, CIF. In 2017 she was appointed Academic Program Director in the CIF School of Communication. She supervises a range of PhD and MA (Research) and Honours students in the area of creative writing practice and cultural studies. Research interests are:
- HDR pedagogies
- cultural tourism in Australia
- Indigenous tourism in Australia
- Australian writing and the environment
Awards:
Dean’s Award for Leadership (2008)
Dean’s Award for Outstanding Contribution for Student Management (2006)
Teaching
Sue teaches undergraduate programs in creative writing and literary studies, chiefly in 20th century literature, popular culture and science communication. In 2013 Sue won an Australian Award for University Teaching : being a Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning for “Leadership in pioneering an innovative, staged, developmental, practice-led program for undergraduate, Honours, and postgraduate students in creative industries, leading to enhanced student success. Sue is now a Professor in the School of Communication where she is Academic Program Director. She supervises PhD candidates researching in the fields of creative writing and Australian studies, and has supervised doctoral and masters candidates to completion. Sue is a Level 3 Mentoring Supervisor.
Experience
Sue has a strong interest in the relationship between literature and the environment, in particular literary walking trails, and she has conducted field research in this context.
In 2014 she was part of a team that won a University of Sunshine Coast seed grant ‘Cultural Ecology and the Common Reader: Community Book clubs as Vehicle for Eco-critical Reading beyond the Academy,’ University of Sunshine Coast Seed Grant (2013–2014) The project is a study into the artistic happenings occurring between communities outside the academy, literary works and established theoretical frameworks of eco-criticism.
In 2012-2013 she won a Royal Historical Society of New South Wales (2012–2013) grant on community engagement and literary heritage. The grant, ‘Katoomba Lives: Environmental Heritage, Literature, Technology’ (acquitted) produced a report for the RAHS and demonstrates national recognition of CIF expertise in heritage, environment and with mobile technologies.
In 2012 she was a member of a team that won an Arts Queensland (2012) $25 000 [environmental literature content for gallery trails in 2012–2013] for the Gold Coast City Gallery.
In 2010 she was part of a team that won an QUT Early Career Researchers Grant (2010) of $10,000 for ‘Walk the Book’ to design e-literary trails (completed). This grant provided the data that is the basis of four international journal publications to date.
In 2008 she walked the then newly-opened ‘Coleridge Trail’ in Somerset, England, to conduct field work on the relationship of literature, walking, and community engagement in the context of the poetry of Samuel Coleridge.
Publications
- Hamilton J, Carson S, (2015) Supervising Practice: Perspectives on the supervision of creative practice higher degrees by research, Educational Philosophy and Theory p1243-1249
- Carson S, (2013) Loving Europe: Peel Me a Lotus and Australian women writing travel, Telling stories: Australian life and literature 1935-2012 p217-224
- Carson S, Hawkes L, Gislason K, Martin S, (2013) Practices of literary tourism: An Australian case study, International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research p42-50
- Carson S, Brien D, (2013) Susan Carson in conversation with Donna Lee Brien on research higher degree examination administration, TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Programs p1-7
- Carson S, (2013) Inside the pleasure dome: Cultural tourism on Australia's Gold Coast, Almatourism: journal of tourism, culture and territorial development p32-44
- Hamilton J, Carson S, Ellison E, (2013) 12 Principles for the Effective Supervision of Creative Practice Higher Research Degrees
- Carson S, (2012) ''The rest flies down the wind'': Complexities of late style in the work of Christina Stead, Antipodes: a global journal of Australian/New Zealand literature p253-257
- Carson S, (2011) Engaging the metaphorical city: Brisbane male fiction 1975-2007, Sweat: The Subtropical Imaginary p45-53
- Carson S, (2009) From Sydney and Shanghai: Australian and Chinese women writing modernism, Pacific Rim Modernisms p173-198
- Carson S, (2008) Paris and beyond: The transnational/national in the writing of Christina Stead and Eleanor Dark, Transnational Ties: Australian Lives in the World p229-244
For more publications by this staff member, visit QUT ePrints, the University's research repository.
Awards
Awards and recognition
- Type
- Editorial Role for an Academic Journal
- Reference year
- 2012
- Details
- Editorial panel member Australian Women's Book Review
- Type
- Membership of Learned Societies
- Reference year
- 2012
- Details
- Membership of Society and assistance to the organizing committee of the 2011 D. H. Lawrence Society of North America 12th international conference (Sydney).
- Type
- Membership of Learned Societies
- Reference year
- 2012
- Details
- Membership of Romantic Studies Associatin of Australia and delivery of conference papers.
- Type
- Membership of Learned Societies
- Reference year
- 2012
- Details
- Membership of Modern Lnaugaegs Association of America and delivery of papers to a series of MLA conferences (the premier USA scholarly organization in literary studies).
- Type
- Membership of Learned Societies
- Reference year
- 2012
- Details
- Membership of Modernist Studies Association of America and regular attendance at MSA conferences.
Research projects
Grants and projects (Category 1: Australian Competitive Grants only)
- Title
- Good Practice Report: Postgraduate Research and Coursework Degrees
- Primary fund type
- CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
- Project ID
- SP13-3265
- Start year
- 2013
- Keywords
- Postgraduate; courses; PhD; Report; HDR
- Title
- Building distributed leadership for effective supervision of creative practice higher research degrees
- Primary fund type
- CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
- Project ID
- OLT LE12-2264
- Start year
- 2012
- Keywords
Supervision
Completed supervisions (Doctorate)
- Re-imagining Legacy: A Woman Experimental Filmmaker's Response to Colonisation (2015)
- Re-presenting the Past: Authenticity and the Historical Novel (2014)
- The River Story : To empower the powerless, and others who aspire to become honourable ancestors and heal the Planet (2014)
- Soundage: a practice-led approach to Gertrude Stein, sound and generative language (2013)
- Writing About Risky Relatives and What Might Have Been: The Craft of Historiographic Metafiction (2012)
Completed supervisions (Masters by Research)
- Australian Aboriginal Virtual Heritage (2014)
- The Candidate: a novella and examination of Australian Gothic Crime Fiction (2010)
- "Theatre of the Dancing Language": New possibilities in contemporary Australian Playwriting (2009)
- Writing the Oriental Woman: An Examination of the Representative of Japanese Women in Contemporary Australian Crime Fiction (2009)
- The Rebels Shout Back - subaltern theory and the writing of "A Christmas Game" (2008)