Adjunct Professor Brian Castro

Adjunct Professor

School of Humanities

Faculty of Arts

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.

Career
Publications
Supervision
Professional Activities
Contact

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Appointments

Date	Position	Institution name
2008	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

Awards and Achievements

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 Competencies

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

Education

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

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

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Journals

Year	Citation
2019	Castro, B. A. (2019). Detours and Divagations. Meanjin.
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.

Books

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.

Book Chapters

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.

Live Performance of Creative Works

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.
2006	Castro, B. (2006). Ghosts in the Machine [Performance]. ACT: National Library of Australia.

Original Creative Works

Year	Citation
2020	Authors: Castro B. Title: The Slow Derangement. Description: N/A. Extent: 13 pages.
2020	Authors: Castro B. Title: The Slow Derangement. Description: N/A. Extent: 13 pages.
2018	Authors: Castro B. Title: Apophlegms. Description: N/A. Extent: http://mascarareview.com/apophlegms-by-brian-castro/.
2017	Authors: Castro B, Young J. Title: Macau Days. Description: N/A. Extent: 187 pages.
2017	Authors: Harrald L, 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 B. Title: Blindness & Rage: A Phantasmagoria. Description: N/A. Extent: 34.
2016	Authors: Castro B. Title: Diary of a rational man: a paranormal entry. Description: N/A. Extent: 22.
2016	Authors: Castro BA. Title: Love, Actually. Description: N/A. Extent: 24.
2016	Authors: Castro B. Title: Love, actually. Description: N/A. Extent: 7 pages.
2015	Authors: Castro B. Title: The company we keep. Description: N/A. Extent: 7 pages.
2015	Authors: Castro B. Title: Samaritan. Description: N/A. 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'). Description: N/A. Extent: 3 pages.
2013	Authors: Castro B. Title: Sensible seeing. Description: N/A. Extent: 4363.
2013	Authors: Castro B. Title: Literature and fashion. Description: N/A. Extent: 4050 words.
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. Description: N/A. Extent: 78 pages.
2011	Authors: Castro B. Title: Slow boat to culture. Description: N/A. Extent: 1 page.
2011	Authors: Castro B. Title: The reprieve. Description: N/A. 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.

Curated or Produced Public Exhibition or Events

Year	Citation
2017	Castro, B., & Young, J. (2017). Macau Days (No. Of Pieces: 191 pages) [Exhibition]. Melbourne: Art + Australia.
2012	Castro, B., Liew, K., & Young, J. (2012). Passages (No. Of Pieces: 78 pages) [Exhibition]. Healesville Victoria: Tarrawarra Museum of Art.

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Past Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)

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	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	Me, Myself and the Other: Self-reflexivity in Travel Writing	Master of Philosophy	Master	Full Time	Ms Tina Morganella
2015 - 2017	Principal Supervisor	In the Garden Where We've Been Planted	Master of Philosophy	Master	Part Time	Dr Henry Walter Prunckun
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
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	Miss 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 - 2015	Co-Supervisor	Rewriting Urban Narratives of the Australian Great Depression	Doctor of Philosophy	Doctorate	Full Time	Ms Helen Catherine Dinmore
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
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 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
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
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
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	Principal Supervisor	Standing in the Plaza: Problematic Place in the Short Story	Master of Philosophy	Master	Full Time	Ms Sally Sian Lily Fermer
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
2009 - 2014	Co-Supervisor	Ephemeron: Volume 1 Creative works Volume 2 Exegesis	Doctor of Philosophy	Doctorate	Part Time	Ms Emma Carmody
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 - 2013	Principal Supervisor	She Wore Pants	Doctor of Philosophy	Doctorate	Full Time	Ms Martina Newhook
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 - 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 - 2009	Co-Supervisor	The Museum of Paper and Wires: Reading and Writing Refugee Fiction	Doctor of Philosophy	Doctorate	Full Time	Ms Sonja Dechian
2009 - 2014	Principal Supervisor	Pet Names. Connection and identity in second-person fiction.	Doctor of Philosophy	Doctorate	Full Time	Miss Lauren May Lovett
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
2008 - 2011	Co-Supervisor	Autoplagiarist: An Exegesis of the Novel Ilustrado	Doctor of Philosophy	Doctorate	Full Time	Mr Miguel Syjuco
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 - 2013	Principal Supervisor	The 'Murdering Twinmaker'	Doctor of Philosophy	Doctorate	Full Time	Mr Sean Llewellyn Williams
2008 - 2011	Principal Supervisor	Corpus: Fictional 'Exposures' and Writing 'Trauma'	Doctor of Philosophy	Doctorate	Full Time	Mr Shannon Burns
2008 - 2011	Principal Supervisor	The Process and Importance of Writing Aboriginal Fiction for Young Adult Readers	Doctor of Philosophy	Doctorate	Part Time	Mr Jared Thomas
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 - 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	Peering Into Cracks and Crevices: Writing Cross-Cultural Historical Fiction' and 'The Yellow Papers	Doctor of Philosophy	Doctorate	Full Time	Dr Dominique Wilson

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Committee Memberships

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

Editorial Boards

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

Position: Adjunct Professor
Email: brian.castro@adelaide.edu.au
Campus: North Terrace
Building: Napier
Org Unit: English and Creative Writing

Adjunct Professor Brian Castro

Appointments

Awards and Achievements

Language Competencies

Education

Journals

Books

Book Chapters

Live Performance of Creative Works

Original Creative Works

Curated or Produced Public Exhibition or Events

Past Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)

Committee Memberships

Editorial Boards

Connect With Me

External Profiles

Other Links