Dr Tamlyn Avery
Lecturer
School of Humanities
College of Creative Arts, Design and Humanities
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.
| 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 |
| 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) |
| 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), 635-657. |
| 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. |
| 2020 | Avery, T. (2020). "Split by the Moonlight": Beethoven and the Racial Sublime in African American Literature. American Literature, 92(4), 623-652. |
| 2019 | Avery, T. (2019). Gretel Adorno, the Typewriter: Sacrificial Lambs and Critical Theory’s ‘Risk of Formulation’. Australian Feminist Studies, 34(101), 309-324. WoS3 |
| 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. WoS2 |
| 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. (2021). Fredric Jameson, Richard Wright, and the Black National Allegory. Affirmations: of the modern, 7(1), 1-29. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| Year | Citation |
|---|---|
| 2025 | Avery, T. (2025). A true-crime twist on a cult classic: Chris Kraus’ latest novel is her most ambitious and politically charged to date.. The Conversation. |
| 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:
- Australian Research Council Discovery Project 2026, Chief Investigator (with Andrew van der Vlies [Lead] and Benjamin Madden): "Reclaiming and Activating Australia’s Modernist Print Heritage" ($411,790.00)
- 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.
| Date | Role | Research Topic | Program | Degree Type | Student Load | Student Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Principal 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 | 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 |
| 2025 | Principal Supervisor | Developmental Rhythm in Modernist Prose Fiction: Henry James, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf | Master of Philosophy | Master | Full Time | Mr Thomas Edward Lewis |
| 2025 | Co-Supervisor | Tracing Charlotte Jay: The Geraldine Halls Project | Master of Philosophy | Master | Part Time | Ms Jane Costessi |
| 2025 | Principal Supervisor | Developmental Rhythm in Modernist Prose Fiction: Henry James, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf | Master of Philosophy | Master | Full Time | Mr Thomas Edward Lewis |
| 2025 | Co-Supervisor | Tracing Charlotte Jay: The Geraldine Halls Project | Master of Philosophy | Master | Full Time | Ms Jane Costessi |
| 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 | Full Time | Miss Letitia Rajamma McNamara |
| 2025 | Principal 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 | Full Time | Miss Jacqueline Victoria Cook |
| Date | Role | Research Topic | Program | Degree Type | Student Load | Student Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 - 2025 | Co-Supervisor | Beyond the Puzzle: Uncovering Literary Complexity in Agatha Christie’s Crime Fiction | Master of Philosophy | Master | Part Time | Mrs Margaret Mary Donovan |
| Date | Role | Committee | Institution | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 - ongoing | Treasurer | Executive Committee | Australasian Modernist Studies Network | Australia |
| Date | Role | Editorial Board Name | Institution | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 - ongoing | Editor | Affirmations: of the Modern | UNSW | Australia |