Brian Castro

Prof Brian Castro

School of Humanities

College of Creative Arts, Design and Humanities

Eligible to supervise Masters and PhD - email supervisor to discuss availability.

Brian Castro was educated at the University of Sydney and has worked in Australian, French and Hong Kong universities as a teacher and writer. He is the author of eleven novels and a volume of essays on writing and culture. His novels have won a number of state and national prizes including the Australian/Vogel literary award, The Age Fiction Prize, the National Book Council Prize for Fiction, four Victorian Premier's awards, two NSW Premier's awards and the Queensland Premier's Award for Fiction. He has delivered keynote addresses at major conferences in Shanghai, Vienna, Paris, Toulouse, Hong Kong and Kyoto. He has been a Literature Board member on the Australia Council. For many years he was the literary reviewer for Asiaweek magazine. In 2005 he held the position of Macgeorge Fellow at the University of Melbourne. In 2007-8 he was the Professorial Research Fellow in Creative Writing at the University of Melbourne. He is currently Chair of Creative Writing at the University of Adelaide and is a member of the management committee of the J.M. Coetzee centre for Creative Practice, a centre for cross-disciplinary linkages and research into creativity. Castro was the 2014 recipient of the Patrick White Award for Literature and the 2018 Prime Minister's Prize for Poetry.His research interests include melancholia and creativity, Oulipo and diasporic literatures.

Date Position Institution name
2008 - ongoing PROFESSOR University of Adelaide
2006 - 2008 PROFESSOR University of Melbourne
2005 - 2005 RESEARCH FELLOW University of Melbourne
1995 - 1995 WRITER IN RESIDENCE Australian National University
1994 - 1995 WRITER IN RESIDENCE University of Hong Kong

Date Type Title Institution Name Country Amount
2018 Award Prime Minister's Literary Award for Poetry 2018 Prime Minister's Department Australia $80,000
2014 Award 2014 Patrick White Award for Literature Patrick White Estate Australia $24,000
2006 Award Queensland Premier’s Award for fiction Qld Premier's Department Australia -
2004 Award NSW Premier’s Award for fiction; book of the year NSW Premier's Department Australia -
2003 Award Victorian Premier's Award for Fiction (Vance Palmer Prize) Victorian Premier's Department Australia -
1997 Award National Book Council ‘Banjo’ Prize for Fiction National Book Council Australia -
1993 Award Victorian Premier's Award for Fiction (Vance Palmer Prize) Victorian Premier's Department Australia -
1992 Award Victorian Premier's Award for Fiction (Vance Palmer Prize)+Victorian Premier's Award for Innovative Writing Victorian Premier's Department Australia -
1991 Award The Age Fiction Prize The Age Newspaper Australia -
1982 Award The Australian/Vogel Literary Award The Australian newspaper; Vogel prize Australia -

Language Competency
Chinese (Cantonese) Can speak and understand spoken
English Can read, write, speak, understand spoken and peer review
French Can read, write, speak, understand spoken and peer review

Date Institution name Country Title
1973 - 1976 University of Sydney Australia M.A.
1968 - 1971 University of Sydney Australia B.A. Dip. Ed.

Year Citation
2019 Castro, B. A. (2019). Detours and Divagations: Consciousness, Otherness and Hospitality. Meanjin Quarterly, Online only.
2018 Castro, B. (2018). Blindness and deafness in literary reception. Sydney Review Of Books.
2014 Castro, B. (2014). Writing country: lightning, agony, and vertigo. Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, 14(3), 1-11.
2011 Castro, B. (2011). 'Teaching creative writing in Asia': Four points and five provocations. Text, 2011(10), 1-8.
2011 Castro, B. (2011). Melancholy objects: Flaubert's double agency. Australian Journal of French Studies, 48(3), 257-270.
DOI
2009 Castro, B. (2009). My Nervous Illness. HEAT, 21, 59-66.
2009 Castro, B. (2009). Arrested motion and future-mourning: Hybridity and creativity. Cultures in Transit, 4, 83-99.
2008 Castro, B. (2008). In Camera: Arrested motion and future mourning. HEAT, 18, 41-54.
2007 Castro, B. (2007). Memory / memorial. Anglophonia, 21, 115-128.
2006 Castro, B. (2006). Trafficking in dangerous goods. Transtext(e)sTranscultures, 1(1), 13-14.
DOI
2002 Castro, B. (2002). Blue Max - a tribute to W.G. Sebald. HEAT, 3, 119-129.

Year Citation
2018 Rutherford, J., & Castro, B. (2018). Melancholy Migrations: Journeying with the Negative. Sydney: Giramondo.
2012 Castro, B. A. (2012). Street To Street. Sydney: Giramondo Publishing.
2012 Castro, B. A. (2012). Shanghai Dancing (US edition ed.). Los Angeles: Kaya Press.
2011 Castro, B. (2011). Drift (2 ed.). Wakefield Press.
2009 Castro, B. A. (2009). The Bath Fugues. Sydney: Giramondo Publishing.
2005 Castro, B. A. (2005). The Garden Book. Sydney: Giramondo Publishing.
2005 Castro, B. (2005). Double-Wolf. Allen & Unwin.
2003 Castro, B. A. (2003). After China (2nd ed.). Adelaide, South Australia: Lythrum Press.
1999 Castro, B. (1999). Looking for Estrellita. University of Queensland Press.
1997 Castro, B. A. (1997). Stepper. Sydney, New South Wales: Random House.
1993 Castro, B. (1993). Birds of passage. Allen & Unwin.
1991 Castro, B. A. (1991). Pomeroy (2nd ed.). Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

Year Citation
2020 WESTE, L., D'AGUIAR, F. R. E. D., EVARISTO, B., HETHERINGTON, P. A. U. L., CLARKE, G. E. O. R. G. E. E. L. L. I. O. T. T., O'MAHONY, N. E. S. S. A., . . . CUMMINS, J. A. M. E. S. (2020). INSIDE THE VERSE NOVEL. In L. I. N. D. A. WESTE (Ed.), INSIDE THE VERSE NOVEL (1ST ed., pp. 75-82). MELBOURNE: AUSTRALIAN SCHOLARLY PUBLISHING.
2019 Castro, B. A. (2019). The World, the Sex and the Critic. In A. McCulloch, & R. Goodrich (Eds.), Why Do Things Break? (pp. 115-124). Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
2007 Castro, B. (2007). Twice born: risks and trespass in White's 'Patrick'. In Ivor Indyk (Ed.), Cartoon Ducks (HEAT 14) (Vol. 14, pp. 60-70). Australia: Giramondo Publishers.
2004 Castro, B. (2004). Authors take sides. In Authors take sides on Iraq and the Gulf War (pp. 29). Carlton, Victoria: Melbourne University Press.
2004 Castro, B. (2004). Through a glass darkly – W.G. Sebald’s Overcast Style. In Ivor Indyk (Ed.), Bedtime Stories (HEAT 07) (Vol. 7, pp. 71-91). Australia: Giramondo Publishers.

Year Citation
2015 Castro, B. (2015). Blindness and Rage (No. Of Pieces: 600 lines) [Performance]. Melbourne, Victoria.
2015 Castro, B. (2015). Samaritan (No. Of Pieces: 10 minutes) [Live reading of a poem]. Berlin.
2009 Castro, B. A. (2009). Recycling (No. Of Pieces: 8-12; 15 minutes reading) [Performance]. Artarmon, Sydney.

Year Citation
2020 Authors: Castro B. Title: The Slow Derangement. Extent: 13 pages.
2020 Authors: Castro B. Title: The Slow Derangement. Extent: 13 pages.
2018 Authors: Castro BA. Title: Apophlegms. Extent: http://mascarareview.com/apophlegms-by-brian-castro/.
2017 Authors: Castro BA, Young J. Title: Macau Days. Extent: 187 pages.
2017 Authors: Harrald LA, Castro B. Title: Macau Days Sound Installation. Description: Immersive sound installation, incorporating quadraphonic surround sound with injected beams of sound that incorporate 6 poems in three languages.. Extent: 21 minutes.
2017 Authors: Castro BA. Title: Blindness & Rage: A Phantasmagoria. Extent: 220 pages.
2016 Authors: Castro B. Title: Diary of a rational man: a paranormal entry. Extent: 22.
2016 Authors: Castro BA. Title: Love, Actually. Extent: 24.
2016 Authors: Castro B. Title: Love, actually. Extent: 7 pages.
2015 Authors: Castro B. Title: The company we keep. Extent: 7 pages.
2015 Authors: Castro BA. Title: Samaritan. Description: The poem, along with others was read by German speakers in German on the U-Bahn network and at designated sites like the Holocaust Memorial and in parks and squares in Berlin.. Extent: 119.
2015 Authors: Castro B. Title: 600 Lines of Blindness & Rage. Description: DOP: August 1, 2015. Extent: 600 lines of verse.
2014 Authors: Castro B. Title: Introduction (to book 'Breaking Beauty'). Extent: 3 pages.
2013 Authors: Castro B. Title: Sensible seeing. Extent: 4363.
2013 Authors: Castro B. Title: Literature and fashion. Extent: 4050 words.
2012 Authors: Castro B, Liew K, Young J. Title: Passages. Description: "Passages" is a multi-art collaboration between Brian Castro, John Young and Khai Liew, three of Australia's pre-eminent artists in the fields of literature, art and design. Passages connotes travel and the disruption of regular or familiar time and place. It suggests notions of deterritorialisation whereby orthodox understandings of history, nation, identity and belonging are destabilised and the possibility of alternative epistemologies and subjectivities can be entertained. This exhibition provides new knowledge in situating text, painting and furniture design in the context of the biographies of the artists; i.e. their "Asian" origins and Australian formation. It was reviewed postively in The Age, The Melbourne Review and the Issiad Review.. Extent: 78 pages.
2012 Authors: Castro B. Title: Street to street. Description: This is a novella about the early 20th century Sydney poet Christopher Brennan and his early 21st century biographer Brendan Costa. It asks the research question about artistic and intellectual life in Australia: how it goes unrecognised for the most part until the artist is dead. It presents new knowledge on Brennan and questions the possibilities of biography in an age which no longer values the past, an age which is now merely a realm to visit and admire. This novel was reviewed favourably in the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian and the Adelaide Advertiser.. Extent: 160 pages.
2012 Authors: Castro B, Liew K, Young J. Title: Passages. Extent: 78 pages.
2011 Authors: Castro B. Title: Slow boat to culture. Extent: 1 page.
2011 Authors: Castro B. Title: The reprieve. Extent: 4 pages.
2010 Authors: Castro B. Title: The archivist. Description: Type of work : Prose poem. Extent : 13p.. Extent: 13 p..
2010 Authors: Castro B. Title: Roller-Coaster. Description: In : Victorian Writer Type of work : Written artlcle Extent : 1 page. Extent: 1 page.
2009 Authors: Castro B. Title: Notes to a biographer. Description: Copyright © Copyright Griffith University & the author.. Extent: 6 pages.
2009 Authors: Castro B. Title: The Bath Fugues. Description: Extent : 354 p. ; 21 cm. Extent: 354 pages.
2009 Authors: Castro B. Title: Foreword. Description: Type of work : Foreword Extent : 1 p.. Extent: 1 p..
DOI
2008 Authors: Castro B. Title: Arrested motion and future-mourning: Hybridity and creativity. Description: 2008 Blaiklock lecture. Extent: 21 pages.
2007 Authors: Castro B. Title: Eight Chinese lessons. Description: Type of work : Literary essay Extent : 11 pages. Extent: 11 pages.
2007 Authors: Castro B. Title: Written kisses. Description: Type of work : Refereed Extent : 4 pages. Extent: 4 pages.
2007 Authors: Castro B. Title: My personal write of way. Description: Type of work : Article. Extent: N/A.
2005 Authors: Castro B. Title: The Garden Book. Description: Type of work : Book Extent : 316 pages; 21 cm.. Extent: 316 pages; 21 cm..
2005 Authors: Castro B. Title: Making oneself foreign. Description: Type of work : Refereed Extent : 11 pages. Extent: 11 pages.
2004 Authors: Castro B. Title: Caesura. Description: © Copyright 2004 Griffith University & the author.. Extent: 12 pages.
2004 Authors: Lyssiotis P, Castro B. Title: A Gardener at midnight : travels in the Holy Land ; from drawings made on the spot by Yabez Al-Kitab. Description: Extent : 1 v. (various pagings), [51] plates ; 52 cm "The text, Stones for Al-Kitab is by Brian Castro"--Insert. "First edition is limited to 10 signed copies"--Colophon. Extra prints: Convent of Saint Catherine, Mount Sanai -- Mount Musa, The Wells of Moses, Wilderness of Tyn. Printed on Magnani Velata Avorio. Sections were hand sewn with linen on five tape supports in a cross pattern French style. Endpapers are Magnani Vergalla. End bands have been sewn in red and gold silk. The lettering and tooling finished in 23 carat gold. The book has been quarter bound in Chieftan goatskin with raised bands and buckram sides by Nick Doslov and typeset in Bembo 26 point by David Pidgeon. Source of the work is David Robert's The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt and Nubia.. Extent: 1 v. (various pagings), [51] plates ; 52 cm.
2003 Authors: Castro B. Title: Shanghai dancing. Description: Type of work : Novel Extent : 447 pages. Extent: 447 pages.

Year Citation
2017 Castro, B., & Young, J. (2017). Macau Days (No. Of Pieces: 191 pages) [Exhibition]. Melbourne: Art + Australia.

Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name
2018 - 2020 Co-Supervisor Volume 1: The Lining of the Heart
Volume 2: Encounters with Visual Art through Creative Writing: Sketching as a Methodology, Unconscious Scanning and Characterisation through Ekphrasis		 Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Mr Stephen William Abram
2017 - 2018 Co-Supervisor Mobile Lives
'The Expatriates: Short Stories' and
'The Possibilities of Expatriate Fiction: Exegesis'		 Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Joanne Nicole Lennan
2016 - 2019 Co-Supervisor Postulating the Personal in Abstract Art through Poetry: the Development and Implementation of an Abstract Ekphrasis Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Dominic Alexander Symes
2016 - 2017 Principal Supervisor Confronting the Dark: Representations of Death in Australian Fiction and 'The Art of Dying' Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Karen Maree Rees
2016 - 2020 Co-Supervisor Lawson, Stow, Prescott and the Mythos of the Outback Town Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Peter Hugh Court
2015 - 2019 Principal Supervisor Volume 1: My Killer Secret
Volume 2: 'Literary' Crime Fiction - an Analysis		 Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Phillipa Deanne Martin
2015 - 2017 Principal Supervisor Me, Myself and the Other: Self-reflexivity in Travel Writing Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Ms Tina Morganella
2015 - 2019 Co-Supervisor Disabling Poetics: Bodily Otherness and the Saying of Poetry Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Andrew Jackson
2015 - 2018 Principal Supervisor Volume 1: Belly of the Beast
Volume 2: The Road to Nowhere: Myths of Homeland and Expulsion in Australian Road Stories		 Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Liz Allan
2015 - 2017 Principal Supervisor In the Garden Where We've Been Planted Master of Philosophy Master Part Time Dr Henry Walter Prunckun
2014 - 2020 Co-Supervisor Volume One: Cooperation Volume Two: Portraying The Other in Salaryman Novels and How Their Identities are Constructed Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Ying Xuan Chuang
2014 - 2017 Principal Supervisor Volume 1 Dignity of Boundary "Jack London Slept Here (A Novel)
Volume 2 Dignity of Boundary "Foregrounding Dialogue: An Ethical Approach through Courageous Risk" (An Exegesis)		 Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Robert Meldrum Sedlack
2014 - 2017 Co-Supervisor Silence, Shamans and Traumatic Haunting: A Novel and Accompanying Exegesis Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Dr Matthew James Hooton
2013 - 2016 Principal Supervisor One Sunday in Picardy/ The Olfactory Shift in the Literature of the First World War: The Reawakening of Smell Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mrs Eleanor Ahern
2013 - 2015 Co-Supervisor Rewriting Urban Narratives of the Australian Great Depression Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Helen Catherine Dinmore
2012 - 2017 Principal Supervisor This Old Man and An Act of Reading and Writing. Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Dr Jonathan Mark Zweck
2012 - 2016 Principal Supervisor THIS IS NOT A LOVE STORY Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Ms Kathryn Koromilas
2012 - 2016 Principal Supervisor The Untellable Story / Twice Upon a Time: Starting Over After the Apocalypse Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Tim Sinclair
2011 - 2014 Principal Supervisor The Transformation of Expatriates Through Turning to the Foreign - Volume 1 The Memoir: Bound: An Expatriate's Journey to China and Beyond. Volume 2 The Exegesis: Xenotropism and the Awakening of Literary Expatriatism Through Writing Memoir. Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Dr Christine Robyn Velde
2011 - 2014 Principal Supervisor The Forked Road of Narrative in the Hero's Journey Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Con Anemogiannis
2011 - 2015 Co-Supervisor Point of View in a Divided Society:
"The Parts"
"Putting 'The Parts' Together"		 Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Mary Lynn Mather
2010 - 2014 Principal Supervisor Standing in the Plaza: Problematic Place in the Short Story Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Ms Sally Sian Lily Fermer
2010 - 2014 Principal Supervisor Cloud Village/Ethnographic Surrealism and the New World Baroque Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Miss Leila Susan Binder
2010 - 2014 Co-Supervisor The Cotton Is High & Of the Earth: Writing The Cotton Is High Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Bryan Whalen
2010 - 2016 Co-Supervisor Volume 1 The Sixth Creek Volume 2 The Sixth Creek: The Home as Habitat - Writing and Protecting the Local Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Ms Rachael Mead
2009 - 2014 Co-Supervisor Ephemeron: Volume 1 Creative works Volume 2 Exegesis Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Ms Emma Carmody
2009 - 2014 Principal Supervisor The Writer as Mapmaker - Volume One: The Journeyman Years - Volume Two: Mapping a Postmodern World Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Mr Benjamin Alexander Crisp
2009 - 2014 Principal Supervisor Pet Names. Connection and identity in second-person fiction. Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Miss Lauren May Lovett
2009 - 2009 Co-Supervisor The Museum of Paper and Wires: Reading and Writing Refugee Fiction Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Sonja Dechian
2009 - 2011 Principal Supervisor Desire and Its Disastrous Results: Re-Examining Morality and Ambivalence in the Literature of Feminine Masochism Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Maya Linden
2009 - 2012 Co-Supervisor Novel: "The 89th Temple" and Exegesis: "From the Inside Out: Narrative Empathy in the Novel `The 89th Temple'" Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Charles Canning
2009 - 2013 Principal Supervisor She Wore Pants Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Martina Newhook
2009 - 2012 Principal Supervisor Here Where We Live The Evolution of Contemporary White Australian Writers Response to White Settler Status Master of Arts Master Full Time Ms Catherine Mary Flanagan Willanski
2009 - 2015 Principal Supervisor Unintelligible: A Memoir of Unassumable Inheritance
Volume 1 Creative work
Volume 2 Exegesis After-words: Postmemory and writing perpetration		 Master of Arts Master Part Time Dr Anna Szorenyi
2008 - 2009 Principal Supervisor Peering Into Cracks and Crevices: Writing Cross-Cultural Historical Fiction' and 'The Yellow Papers Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Dr Dominique Wilson
2008 - 2009 Co-Supervisor Form in Fiction: The Development of 'I Dream of Magda' Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Stefan Lashchuk
2008 - 2009 Principal Supervisor Three Drops of Blood: Fairy Tales and Their Significance for Constructed Families Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mrs Carol Lefevre
2008 - 2011 Principal Supervisor The Process and Importance of Writing Aboriginal Fiction for Young Adult Readers Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Jared Thomas
2008 - 2011 Principal Supervisor Corpus: Fictional 'Exposures' and Writing 'Trauma' Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Shannon Joseph Burns
2008 - 2013 Principal Supervisor The 'Murdering Twinmaker' Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Sean Llewellyn Williams
2008 - 2013 Principal Supervisor The Skin of a Writer:
Volume One: Winsome of Rangoon , a Novel
Volume Two: Representing Anglo-Burmese Subjectivity		 Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Ms Michelle Diane Aung Thin
2008 - 2011 Co-Supervisor Autoplagiarist: An Exegesis of the Novel Ilustrado Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Miguel Syjuco

Date Role Committee Institution Country
2010 - 2015 Advisory Board Member Adelaide Writers' Week - Australia
2010 - 2012 Advisory Board Member Asialink Myer Foundation Australia

Date Role Editorial Board Name Institution Country
2016 - ongoing Board Member Sydney Review of Books University of Western Sydney Australia
2007 - ongoing Consulting Editor Transtext(e)s/Transcultures L'university de Lyon 3 France

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