Tamlyn Avery

Dr Tamlyn Avery

Lecturer in English

School of Humanities

Faculty of Arts, Business, Law and Economics

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

I am Lecturer in English Literature in the Department of English, Creative Writing, and Film, specialising in modern literature and modernism. I previously worked at the University of Queensland (2020–2025), where I was Senior Lecturer in American Studies. Before that, I taught at UNSW, Flinders University, and the Australian Catholic University. I received my doctorate in English Literature from UNSW, after completing my undergraduate degree there with First Class Honours. I also have a Masters of Teaching, specialising in teaching English Literature.

My research is situated in literary and modernist studies. I have published widely on topics including gender, race, and literary representations of white-collar labour in the context of the 'typewriter revolution' and the rise of managerial capitalism (c. 1890–1950); as well as the relationship between classical music and modernist literature. I am co-editor of the Australasian Modernist Studies Network's journal, Affirmations: of the Modern. My first book, "The Regional Development of the American Bildungsroman, 1900–1960" (Edinburgh University Press 2023), examined how regional politics and aesthetics informed the development of a key genre of the novel in the U.S., during an era that is typically associated with both modernism and surging nationalism. I am also editor of the forthcoming edited volume, "The Women of 1922: Revisiting the Poetics and Politics of Modernism" with Palgrave, which investigates the contributions of women's writing to modernism's so-called miracle year, 1922. My research appears in PMLA, Modernism/Modernity, American Literature, the Oxford Handbook of African American Women’s Writing (forthcoming), The African American Review (forthcoming), and elsewhere. I am currently preparing a new book entitled "Writing the Collar-Line" about the racial politics of white-collar bureaucratization and the typewriter revolution, as told through the lens of African American literary history.

I welcome HDR proposals on areas relating to modernism, modern (19th/20th century) literature, and American and African American literature.

  • Appointments
    Date Position Institution name
    2025 - ongoing Honorary Senior Research Fellow University of Queensland
    2020 - 2025 Senior Lecturer in American Studies University of Queensland
    2020 - 2020 English Language Coordinator Flinders University
    2018 - 2020 English Language Proficiency Expert UNSW Australia
    2017 - 2020 Sessional Tutor and Lecturer Australian Catholic University
    2016 - 2019 Sessional Tutor and Lecturer UNSW Australia

  • Education
    Date Institution name Country Title
    2017 - 2018 UNSW Australia Australia Master of Teaching
    2012 - 2017 UNSW Australia Australia PhD
    2008 - 2011 UNSW Australia Australia Bachlor of Arts (Hons 1)

  • Research Interests
    Literatures in English North American History North American Literature

  • Journals
    Year Citation
    2026 Avery, T. (2026). Reconstructing the Stenographic Romance of Alice Dunbar-Nelson’s ‘As Told Over a Typewriter.’. African American Review.
    2024 Avery, T. (2024). Playing Amanuensis to Inner Urges: Masculinity, Authorial Anxiety, and Wallace Thurman's Typewriter. MODERNISM-MODERNITY, 31(4), 24 pages.
    DOI
    2024 Avery, T. (2024). Passing as White Collar: The Black Typewriter and the Bureaucratization of the Racial Imaginary. PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 139(1), 66-81.
    DOI
    2020 Avery, T. (2020). "Split by the Moonlight": Beethoven and the Racial Sublime in African American Literature. American Literature, 92(4), 623-652.
    DOI
    2019 Avery, T. (2019). Gretel Adorno, the Typewriter: Sacrificial Lambs and Critical Theory’s ‘Risk of Formulation’. Australian Feminist Studies, 34(101), 309-324.
    DOI WoS1
    2019 Avery, T. (2019). The Métis and the Multiple "Me" in Carson McCullers's The Member of the Wedding. The Mississippi quarterly, 72(1), 69-93.
    DOI
    2017 Avery, T. (2017). Women’s Work: The Bildungsromance of Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie. Affirmations: of the Modern, 5(1), 1-28.
    2014 Avery, T. (2014). Alienated, Anxious, American: The Crisis of Coming of Age in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and the Late Harlem Bildungsroman. Limina: A Journal of Historical and Cultural Studies, 20(2), 1-17.
    - Avery, T. (n.d.). Fredric Jameson, Richard Wright, and the Black National Allegory. Affirmations: of the modern, 7(1), 1-29.
    DOI

  • Books
    Year Citation
    2025 Avery, T., & Morrell, S. (Eds.) (2025). Revisiting the Poetics and Politics of Modernism: The Women of 1922. Palgrave.
    2023 Avery, T. (2023). The Regional Development of the American Bildungsroman, 1900-1960. Edinburgh University Press.

  • Book Chapters
    Year Citation
    2025 Avery, T. (2025). Typewritten by Herself: The Means of African American Women’s Literary Modernity, 1900–1930.. In S. Drake (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of African American Women’s Writing. Oxford University Press.
    2025 Avery, T., & Morrell, S. (2025). Revisiting the Women of 1922. In T. Avery, & S. Morrell (Eds.), Revisiting the Poetics and Politics of Modernism: The Women of 1922 (pp. 1-35). Palgrave.
    2025 Avery, T., & Morrell, S. (2025). Revisiting the Women of 1922. In T. Avery, & S. Morrell (Eds.), Revisiting the Poetics and Politics of Modernism: The Women of 1922 (pp. 1-35). Palgrave.
    2025 Charlesworth, C., & Avery, T. (2025). Willa Cather's 'April Twilights' Revisitation. In T. Avery, & S. Morrell (Eds.), Revisiting the Poetics and Politics of Modernism: The Women of 1922 (pp. 176-207). Palgrave.
    2025 Charlesworth, C., & Avery, T. (2025). Willa Cather's 'April Twilights' Revisitation. In T. Avery, & S. Morrell (Eds.), Revisiting the Poetics and Politics of Modernism: The Women of 1922 (pp. 176-207). Palgrave.
    2024 Avery, T. (2024). Notes to Literature: Scores as Musical Reproduction in the Literary Text. In H. Groth, & J. Murphet (Eds.), The Edinburgh Companion to Literature and Sound Studies (pp. 81-98). Edinburgh University Press.
    2022 Avery, T. (2022). Classical Music. In K. A. Burnett, M. C. Miller, & T. Hagstette (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Literature of the U.S. South (pp. 157-161). Routledge.
    DOI
    2020 Avery, T. (2020). The Current of Music in Carson McCullers's Short Fiction. In A. Bertolini, & C. Kaser (Eds.), Understanding the Short Fiction of Carson Mccullers. Mercer University Press.
    2019 Avery, T. (2019). Doctorow and the Halbbildungsroman. In J. Murphet, & M. Wutz (Eds.), E. L. Doctorow A Reconsideration (pp. 33). EUP.

  • Internet Publications
    Year Citation
    2024 Avery, T. (2024). “Julia Phillips’ Bear is a post-pandemic novel with a fairytale twist.”. The Conversation.
    2023 Avery, T. (2023). “Lydia Davis’ amusing, insightful stories address the estrangements of everyday life.”. The Conversation.
    2023 Avery, T. (2023). “Jean Toomer’s Cane at 100: the ‘everlasting song’ that defined the Harlem Renaissance.”. The Conversation.

Recent funding awarded: 

  • Short-Term Research Fellowship – Emory University, USA (2025–6)

I currently teach and am developing courses on the cultural history of the 1960s; prison writing; and the history of the novel.

  • Current Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)
    Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name
    2025 Co-Supervisor Consider “anti-Tom” novels as proslavery propaganda in comparison to slave narratives. How did these texts represent female sexuality and motherhood within the plantation system? Master of Philosophy Master Part Time Miss Jacqueline Victoria Cook
    2025 Co-Supervisor Crime Scene Investigation: Place and Space in the Detective Fiction of Agatha Christie Master of Philosophy Master Part Time Mrs Margaret Mary Donovan
    2025 Co-Supervisor Rethinking diasporic identities through the gathering of maternal storylines in Maryse Condes Segu and Namwali Serpell's The Old Drift. Master of Philosophy Master Part Time Miss Letitia Rajamma McNamara

  • Committee Memberships
    Date Role Committee Institution Country
    2025 - ongoing Treasurer Executive Committee Australasian Modernist Studies Network Australia

  • Editorial Boards
    Date Role Editorial Board Name Institution Country
    2019 - ongoing Editor Affirmations: of the Modern UNSW Australia
  • Position: Lecturer in English
  • Phone: 83133750
  • Email: tamlyn.avery@adelaide.edu.au
  • Campus: North Terrace
  • Building: Napier, floor Sixth Floor
  • Room: 608
  • Org Unit: English, Creative Writing, and Film
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