Postgraduate Profile

Mrs Cassandra O'Loughlin

PhD Candidate, School of Humanities & Social Science

Discipline: English
Faculty/Division: Education and Arts
Email: cassandra.oloughlin@uon.edu.au

Current Research

PhD Thesis Title: Ecocritical Theory and the Poetics of Place.

Supervisors: Dr. Kim Cheng Boey and Dr. Jesper Gulddal

Abstract:
The purpose of this research is to investigate the language of ecopoetics as a medium that is concerned with the sensuous perception of the world: the perceived relationship between the self and the natural environment. Ecopoetics presents the earth as having active agency, an elusive, breathing veracity of which human beings are an intricate part. Ecopoetry can harness the forces of place and memory and has the capacity to assign meaning to a specific locality, encourage feelings of attachment: it can mesh physical, social and historical energies. The work of the Irish poet Michael Longley will be examined as a means of informing and developing my poetics as they emerge out of Australian environments, radically different topographies and climates than those of Ireland. Longley's work presents a kind of mandate based on individual perception. In theory, at least, ecocritical discourse must question how nature is perceived and what the politics of culture and nature mean in this age of environmental concern. 

Qualifications

  • 2010 Bachelor of Arts Honours (First Class)

Awards

  • 2011 Vice Chancellor's Scholarship Supplement
  • 2011 Awarded a University of Newcastle Research Scholarship (UNRSC)
  • 2010 Newcastle University Pro Vice-Chancellor's Faculty Medal
  • 2010 University Medal

Conference Paper

ASLEC-ANZ 4th Biennial Conference-"Regarding Earth: Ecological Vision in Word and Image"-31 Aug. to 2 Sept. 2012. Title of the paper presented: "The Ecopoetics of Charles Harpur".

Membership of Professional Networks

ASLEC-ANZ: Association for the Study of Literature, Environment and Culture-Australia and New Zealand.

Research Publications-Poetry and Essay

"This Land's Dreaming"-highly commended entry in the 2012 Eric Rolls Prize, Watermark Literary Society.

"River Guide" and "Encounters" Earthlines, Issue 2 August, 2012, 28-30.

"Touch and Flow" Meanjin Quarterly, Vol. 70, No.1, 2011, 228-230.

"On the Flight of a Daughter", Cake Literary Magazine, Lancaster University, UK, Issue No. 3, 2011, 37.

"The Room and the Tree" Antipodes, Vol. 24, No.2, Dec., 2010, 155.

"The Taste of Strangeness" Islet, Winter, 2010.

"City of Steel and Jaded Bricks" Eureka Street, Issue 2, Feb., 2010.

 "Nourishment"  Overland, Issue 196, Spring, 2009, 41.

"South of Birubi on Newcastle Bight", "Belonging" and "Yesterday" Mascara Literary Review, Issue 5, June, 2009. 

"Tossed Salad State of the Mind"  Eureka Street, Issue 9, Apr., 2008.

"Floods"- published in the book From the Earth to the Table, Newcastle: Catchfire Press,  2008, 40-41.

"The Bogong Moth" Southerly, Vol. 67, No.3, 2007, 213.

"Perhaps Dying Isn't Hard After All" Eureka Street, Issue 20, Oct. 2007.

"My Mother the Mountain" Through the Valley: Writings from the Hunter, Newcastle:Catchfire Press, 2007, 164-165.

"On the Beach-1962" Stories for a Long Summer, Newcastle: Catchfire Press, 2006, 94.

"At a Smudged Distance" Poetrix, Issue 27, Nov. 2006, 7.

"River Child" Archipelago: An Anthology of Creative Writing from the University of Newcastle, Newcastle: Archipelago Group, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, 2006, 177.

"A Spot in Time" 2004 Catchfire Press Poetry Prize. Published in Beneath the Valley, Newcastle: Catchfire Press, 2005, 10.

"The Painter" (and other poems) Initio: An Anthology of Creative Writing from the University of Newcastle, Newcastle: Uniwrite Publications, 2004, 52-58. 

"On Forgetting" Poetrix, Issue 22, May, 2004, 4.

Contribution to University Life:

  • Swamp poetry editor - 2009-2010
  • Design and Production of Archipelago: An Anthology of Creative Writing from  the University of Newcastle, Archipelago Group, Newcastle 2006 ed. Katharine Aitken and Maria Freij.
  • Design and Production of Initio: An Anthology of Creative Writing from the University of Newcastle, Uniwrite Newcastle 2004 ed. Dr. Kim Cheng Boey.