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Papers by stephen conlon

Asian Journal of Literature, Culture and Society, 2012

Writing this review of a posthumously published book of poems in verse and prose by a woman I kne... more Writing this review of a posthumously published book of poems in verse and prose by a woman I knew very briefly in the late 1980s has been a cathartic experience. I first met Vicki Viidikas when I had just finished my doctoral dissertation and was managing the Sandringham Hotel in Newtown. One of my jobs there was to book bands. I approached Michael Wilding, who had supervised my Ph.D. and asked for his help in finding poets so that I could have a regular Saturday afternoon residency-type of gig. I had several song writers who wanted to read or recite their lyrics: Dave Studdert, Louis Tillett among them. Michael suggested that I meet Vicki and two other poets, Robert Adamson and Stephen Oliver. After reading some of her work, Vicki asked me if she could have a room in the hotel, as she was short of money and had nowhere to live. At that time, the upper story of the hotel was a kind of half way house for other artists anyway, so I gave her a room.

More often than not, literary criticism seems busy telling the past what it was really like. Nove... more More often than not, literary criticism seems busy telling the past what it was really like. Novels, at least historical ones, do the same thing. But, refreshingly, Phillip Edmonds' novella Leaving Home with Henry turns this process upside down by having Henry Lawson, one of Australia's great writers, come to life on a road trip with Trevor, a contemporary writer who has "a wider mission into where mateship might be" (10). As the two writers drive across the continent, they talk about what they see of the new Bushlife and the types of characters they meet on the way. Like Trevor, who sees his trip as "only skirting the country for to be totally prepared would only be to conquer, summarise, understand it, when why shouldm't it remain a mystery?' (10), Edmonds' novella offers a series of glimpses into events that echo the impressionistic sketches Lawson offers in his own stories without omniscient judgments and evaluations. To have written a long novel about Lawson would be incommensurate with the ways Lawson

An essay for maintaining traditional coming-of-age ceremonies of the Inuit. The Inuit male coming... more An essay for maintaining traditional coming-of-age ceremonies of the Inuit. The Inuit male coming of age tradition is an important and necessary way for children transitioning into adults by learning and applying social, spiritual and educational skills kept in traditions to help the community survive in hazardous Arctic conditions. As the Inuit child starts the initiation process at around 10 to 12 years old, he will be on hunting trips with his family and elders and learn from them how to steer the canoe or boat to use each and every weapon while learning to hunt and survive in the harsh, cold, bristling wind and snow. He will hear stories about the past and the history of his ancestors as they bravely and skilfully learned how to survive and to pass their knowledge on. When we study the beliefs and practices of traditional people, we also learn that we share their world and experience. We are all human and face the same problems even now with our environments.

Comparative Literature, 2002

Three Women…One Man Steve Jacobs Wild Strawberries. ISBN 10:0987562319 just_a_girl Kirsten Krauth... more Three Women…One Man Steve Jacobs Wild Strawberries. ISBN 10:0987562319 just_a_girl Kirsten Krauth University of Western Australia Press. ISBN 9781742584959

Gao Xingjian offers a way beyond the currently prevalent ideologies that seem to dominate literat... more Gao Xingjian offers a way beyond the currently prevalent ideologies that seem to dominate literature and literary criticism. He does this by creating major works that offer an aesthetic based on a return to the humanist traditions of literary art and the infusion of Buddhist and Taoist Ways to Enlightenment. His achievement is to blend Eastern and Western perspectives or perceptions that enrich each other and so make possible truly original art. This essay discusses Gao’s views on art by arguing that once another, better, way to think and create can be enunciated, we may recognize the passing of what is currently often touted as the only correct or valid way to read and write literature in our universities and in the literary market. If it is possible to be original and cogent in expressing such an alternative, then perhaps we may re-shift our focus back onto the ways we have been writing before the advent of Postmodernist and Poststructuralist ideologies. In so doing, we may also r...

This essay discusses the various aspects of Michael Wilding’s work as an academic, creative write... more This essay discusses the various aspects of Michael Wilding’s work as an academic, creative writer, teacher, publisher and editor in terms of the ecological relationships he is able to maintain in these areas. Such relationships may be understood in terms of his attempts to develop co-operative relationships with others. The tone of the essay is as much informal as it is formal; spoken as it is written; personal as it is detached. The meaning of any communicative action is as much a matter of form as it is of content. In discussing his attraction to, and then turn away from, postmodernism, the argument is made that such a return to the ideas of realism seems a natural thing. But, as he is about to publish a documentary on the early literary scene in the Australian colonies as Wild Bleak Bohemia, the question is asked: have recent developments in the Australian literary scene created such another apparently bleak scene for the creative writer, academic, publisher and teacher? Wilding...

Edited by Claudine Salmon Published by Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore ISBN 978-9... more Edited by Claudine Salmon Published by Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore ISBN 978-981-4414-32-6

Picking up on the word "model" in the title, this paper examines the aspects of languag... more Picking up on the word "model" in the title, this paper examines the aspects of language that may be viewed as artistic. It makes a case that we need to think and act artistically as teachers in order to enrich the language and the pedagogy we use with our students and colleagues. After describing some of the ways literature and language people interact or do not interact, the paper sets out three ways of explaining how language is itself an art: in everyday life, in linguistics and in pedagogy. It then describes some ways that some of our current practices are against the values inherent in artistic practice, and offers some remedies for this imbalance in our ways of talking to each other and our students, and in the ways we conceive of our action in the classroom. The tone of this paper is conversational, as part of the argument is that we need to recognise and develop our artistic voices in English Language Teaching.

Asian Journal of Literature Culture and Society, 2012

While not arguing that literary criticism should be a social science, there is an argument to be ... more While not arguing that literary criticism should be a social science, there is an argument to be made that the writing and reading of literature, and the novel in particular, are social acts. Societies, cultures and relationships are shaped, expressed and interpreted in language which is used to communicate with others. Looked at sociologically, anthropologically, linguistically or critically, this is what novels do. Novels are not merely abstract grammar rules or theories; they are instances of how we use language in the real world-and the writing and reading of novels are real-world actsfor communicative purposes as we create ideational meanings, interpersonal relationships and texts. In any actual communication, meaning is not just in the sender or the receiver of a message; it is in the relationships between all the participants in the process. For the novel, this network of participants is comprised of the writers, narrators, characters, readers, critics and students who study the novels. In this view, writers and readers are real people, not hyperreal concoctions or theoretical abstractions. We at present lack a body of research that talks to others in ways that help us to expand our knowledge of specific texts as communicative networks. It is suggested that one way we can approach this task is through a better understanding of ethnography and ethnomethodology as literary actions. To do any meaningful ethnography, we need to see the texts we study as ecosystems as well as understand that language is also an ecosystem, as are all the particular instances of it in each novel or my text which has been shaped by the ways I construe my relationships with dialogue partners. Finally: I deliberately use anthropomorphisms when referring to things in the novel. To do otherwise would undermine my point that the novel is a living entity; it would also reinforce the duality between humans and nature that I am writing against when arguing for an ecology of the novel.

ABAC Journal, 2005

The elicitation of a response from students by a teacher is a very traditional part of the teachi... more The elicitation of a response from students by a teacher is a very traditional part of the teaching process but in recent years it has tended to be ignored in favor of a more learner-centered approach. This paper suggests that the neglect of this method may be the result of a too narrow view of the nature and function of elicitation. Rather than merely a means for testing the student’s understanding elicitation can be, as it is in the Socratic method, a means of allowing the student to explore and expand knowledge.

Depending on what we want about the environment,heath,and the economy, we must make choices about... more Depending on what we want about the environment,heath,and the economy, we must make choices about how we farm organically or intensively. To make those choices wisely about the environment,the economy, and our health, we need scientific and ethical information and to understand the local and global issues we must live with. The pros and cons are still unclear. I suggest that we use both organic and intensive farming because each one has benefits that balances the disadvantages of the other one.

Asian Journal of Literature, Culture and Society, 2012

Comparative Literature, 2002

Asian Journal of Literature Culture and Society, 2012

ABAC Journal, 2005

Discourses have fractal patterns in which utterances are meaningful parts of an ecosystem. This e... more Discourses have fractal patterns in which utterances are meaningful parts of an ecosystem. This ecosystem is the language of the text as much as it is the wider language with which a text engages. Any fractal part of a discourse can be seen when we do not try to impose traditional forms of order on language or things. When we study language as a fractal system in which patterns of meaning occur in one discourse or part of a discourse and these patterns recur in other discourses, we see new ways in which discourses form larger environments. What we start to see is that the traditional ways we have conceived things has been distorted and misshaped: too much artificial order imposed on what we do distorts and impedes the flow of thought which brings discourses to life. These emerging patterns have remained invisible to conventional stylis-tics which has been based on Euclid's geometry and Aristotle's grammar as a two dimensional space on an X/Y axis which has idealized the shape of things, ideas and words into smooth, flat surfaces. When we study language in its environment, ecologically, we see that patterns are more messy and chaotic than we may have thought. Ideas do not necessarily begin or end where an index or a theory say they do. There are underground streams in our words and lives that shape things in creative ways. By tapping these ways, we create new perspectives on language and how we can teach it. Chaos in the Classroom charts the personal ecology of one writer's mind as he has tried to think outside the frameworks of received ideas. The resulting picture may be chaotic, but when these essays are read as a whole, there is a creative pattern of relationships between the various aspects of the writer's linguistic experience.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise be hire... more This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise be hired out or reproduced without the prior consent of the publisher in any form other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser Assumption University Press ABAC, Ram Khamhaeng 24 Rd.,

" But, because this new discourse is being enunciated without a precise knowledge of the rules of... more " But, because this new discourse is being enunciated without a precise knowledge of the rules of its own play __ that is, of its predication __ the identifications made are hasty, one term is absorbed by another, and what we end up with is language congestion. " (Clodovis Boff)

What we think and do about language and about communication are not separable in praxis. Whenever... more What we think and do about language and about communication are not separable in praxis. Whenever we read a text, listen to a teacher or participate in a classroom, we are simultaneously using language, learning language, communicating and creating language. Our attitudes, beliefs and practices in regard to any of these activities are inextricably related to, or are determined by, our responses to the other activities. Our willingness to separate these activities into distinct areas of study has resulted in a fragmentation of our understanding. The resulting rational discourse may be characterised as several discourses on different subjects. What has been forgotten is that the different subjects are aspects of one discourse __ the discourse of language. At present, there does not seem to be any attempt to conceptualise the inter-relatedness of these communication activities in EFL textbooks. This relationship has been apparently consigned to the learner's/user's experience as something done subconsciously or non-rationally. Or, the inter-connectedness is rejected as an appropriate or possible subject for academic, rational discourse. In the face of the seemingly impossible (or at least messy) analysis of how we use words, we usually have recourse to the mechanical or artificial concepts or categories of cognition, memory, speech practice etc. Such divisions are basically hard to justify from a humanistic perspective. And so, the question for

I began to think that we tend to take simple ideas and overcomplicate them __ specifically, we to... more I began to think that we tend to take simple ideas and overcomplicate them __ specifically, we too often categorise words, texts and grammatical rules as difficult. My difficulty with such categorisations is that if words are merely signs then the difficulty cannot be in the words themselves , but in us. Words are not things. Another problem I have with this view is methodological; it implies that our job as teachers is to break down complex language into easily digestible simple bits. We tend to do this because of our beliefs about second language acquisition findings. At least at first glance, these findings seem misleading and such beliefs misguided. When I tried to find where and why we started to think this way about language as a difficult thing, I became aware of a contradiction: we, especially as Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) practitioners, say we want authentic language, but we seem to go out of our way to present our students with inauthentic language and experiences with the language. At this point I realised that somewhere we had lost the connection between our principles and our practices as Communicative Language Teachers. We were in danger of acting hypocritically. And then it struck me: if the act of hypocrisy really is inherent in our practices, then the Communicative Approach, as it is currently presented and often espoused in our textbooks, cannot stand. It was then that I reconsidered our use of the principles of the Communicative Approach in practice. This seemed fair to do, as the approach itself seems to advocate a view that learning is " doing " language, or at least " using " it to do things. Six observations that I have made over recent years as I've participated in conferences, teacher-training ses

Are the acts of teaching and elicitation complementary? The Western practices of teaching, and so... more Are the acts of teaching and elicitation complementary? The Western practices of teaching, and so of English Language Teaching (ELT), come out of the Greek ideas of Socratic dialogue: teachers and students ask and answer questions in order to search for the truth. Even when we only teach the test or teach by testing, we are still practising a form of elicitation. What we elicit, and how we respond to it, are the questions that I want to address here. In the sphere of ELT, we may say somewhat technically that we elicit language, responses , writing, speech, which we then evaluate and try to improve. If there is a space in this for eliciting what the student thinks, it is not usually consciously recognized in the literature. The quality of the student's thinking is often only approached in terms of its organization as text, or its clarity of expression. But this is not really what Socratic dialogue is about. Socratic dialogue has an ethical dimension which basically aims at helping the student or dialogue partner become a better or happier person. While teachers in different cultures may define the verbs " to teach " and " to elicit " in different ways, they seem to agree that the two actions of teaching and eliciting are related. If a teacher is to have material to evaluate, then the teacher needs to elicit that material from the student. Once material or language production has been elicited, the teacher can devise or formulate actions, tasks, exercises, to help the student learn how to speak or write even more effectively than the student has done in the elicited language. All too often, what the teacher focuses on is the elicitation of a thing called language. What exactly is understood by language is usually exclusively expressed in terms of grammar, semantics and phonology. As these terms are usually understood in ELT,

What do we mean by a literature model? A model is usually something we make with our hands. An ab... more What do we mean by a literature model? A model is usually something we make with our hands. An abstract model is something we make with our minds. Either way, there seems to be an implicit recognition in our language that a model is made by people, and is therefore a work of art. It is important that we remember this when we start to look for ways of analyzing our field of teaching into pieces. Such acts are basically artistic. I am not sure that there is a single model of literature that I would offer as a way of teaching English. Literature is not a method. To claim that it is a method is to claim too much. But if we go to the other extreme and claim that it is only material __ grist in the mill __ for the teacher to use is to claim too little. Literature, I would suggest, offers an experience of language. It gives us voices in which to participate in a dialogue with each other. Another way of approaching this question of the place or role of a literature model in language teaching is to ask why we think that literature is a separate thing to language. It seems to me that if we start with an assumption that there is no difference between literature and language , we may come up with some new ways of thinking about ourselves and what we do. Such self-awareness is important for us as teachers. We need to see ourselves in the mirror sometimes in order to check what we are doing. And that image in the mirror is artistic. At present, I will argue, we seem to have stopped looking for these reflections or mediations. This may have resulted in several practices that threaten the effectiveness of our teaching. I want to suggest that an attempt to see ourselves in artistic ways offers insights in at least four

After discussing some of the most important reasons for conducting ELT research, the argument is ... more After discussing some of the most important reasons for conducting ELT research, the argument is made that the conflict between the " hard " sciences and the humanities which has been a polarizing influence in ELT, discourages many potential researchers from undertaking research when they think they must have mathematical models and use often opaque terminology. The argument is made that much in the " scientific " paradigm as it has been applied to language research is faulty. This claim is illustrated by looking at several issues raised by the Chomskyans' claims to being scientific researchers. Several pitfalls or problems are identified that may warn a future researcher about the dangers of trying to be too much like a physics or chemistry researcher in what is actually a humanities-based discipline. Depending on whether one is a researcher, a teacher or a student learning a particular language in a classroom, the study of language often has different though complementary goals. We assume that most students study a language in order to be able to read, write or speak it. Teachers may study the language they teach in order to organize information about it so that students can understand how the language works. Some researchers may focus on aspects of these two types of learning by developing a better understanding of what the teachers and students

But tho' education be disclaim'd by philosophy, as a fallacious ground of assent to any opinion, ... more But tho' education be disclaim'd by philosophy, as a fallacious ground of assent to any opinion, it prevails nevertheless in the world, and is the cause why all systems are apt to be rejected at first as new and unusual. (Hume: I: III: X) Ideas found in Chaos Theory already exist in Buddhist and Taoist cultures. These deep ideas are actually some of the most powerful initial conditions in the minds of the students and teachers here in Asia. While such ways of thinking may not be easily accepted by teachers who have too much dependence on Western models of teaching and learning , or who come to teaching with a predetermined idea that teaching is what they think of as a science, the teacher in Asia may sense that much of what is offered in these Western models is flawed insofar as these models assume initial conditions that don't exist in Asia. If Chaos Theory holds any water, then we should be careful not to ignore the power of our sensitive dependence on initial conditions in any system we try to implement. If the initial conditions are different in Asia, then the results of any system that develops in those conditions will also be different here when compared to results obtained in the West. As the ideas of Chaos Theory are already being accepted by scientists in Asia and in the West, there is a possibility that by using such a model in our English Language Teaching (ELT), we can develop, at last, a sound scientific or knowledge-based framework for our thinking and practices which recognizes the contributions of ideas from Asia and sets them in the context of a more truly liberal arts model of education.

This essay offers a reading of Michael Wilding's novel Academia Nuts (2002) as a political fictio... more This essay offers a reading of Michael Wilding's novel Academia Nuts (2002) as a political fiction, as a distopia that may already be with us. The argument is made from the point of view of a critic writing within the Asian context who reads literature in terms of issues that actually matter in Asia. For this reason, the social and political background to the reading is set out before a criticism of the novel is offered. The writer's context does matter. So does the reader's. If, as Wilding suggests, the university has lost its way, then how does this impact on the reader working in an Asian university? The essay suggests that Wilding's novel is a timely contribution to the issues being discussed in many Asian universities now. By making this connection, it argues that novels can have a real impact in the world; that they are not only grist in the mill of Theory-driven hyperreal exercises that have turned too many Departments of English in the West into irrelevant and therefore harmful institutions which, instead of advancing the usage of the English language , are undermining the continued creative development of it. The writer assumes a homology between what is being conceived of as the appropriate usage of English in Western universities and the teaching of the English language in courses in Asia. Any teacher who has tried to use literature in the language classroom in Asia has probably met with a lot of resistance from course designers, fellow teachers and many students who think that learning English is best expressed by the equation Grammar + Vocabulary + Phonology = English = Job. Any English Department wanting to attract good students who may still feel the need to learn how to really use the English language has a vested interest in

This essay is intended as an appendage or fractal to my essay " Chaos in the Classroom ". In that... more This essay is intended as an appendage or fractal to my essay " Chaos in the Classroom ". In that essay, I try to explain why there is more disorder and chaos in English language teaching than is dreamed of in current or past theories of language, and that these qualities are the point of teaching which should turn its back on the orderliness of what we have thought up to now about language teaching. Because I tried to condense or compress so much into that essay, I have the feeling that the lines or currents I wanted to follow in our study of language have yet to be described, let alone explained. This essay is an attempt to make such descriptions and explanations. I deliberately forget the theories and ideas of the past, not because they are totally wrong, but because they prevent me thinking about what I want to think about.

This is the first of three volumes on research methodology. It deals with theoretical issues, whi... more This is the first of three volumes on research methodology. It deals with theoretical issues, while the second volume works from close readings of fiction, plays, and poems, and the third volume synthesises the findings. I apologize in advance for the typographical mistakes. I do not want to start revising the text...at least not yet...until I have everything written at least in draft. The immediacy of the writing is part of the research methodology I am developing.

This is a short essay or long review of a novel by Phillip Edmonds about the literary traditions ... more This is a short essay or long review of a novel by Phillip Edmonds about the literary traditions in Australian Literature.

These are works that I am using to shape the abyss of a lost world and time. If I can summons the... more These are works that I am using to shape the abyss of a lost world and time. If I can summons these voices de profundis, I hope to reshape the ways we study literature and the other humanities.

These are voices from the abyss that I am trying to summons from the depths of a lost literary ch... more These are voices from the abyss that I am trying to summons from the depths of a lost literary chronotope.

These are dots to be connected when I try to shape my chaos. They come from the abyss that is my ... more These are dots to be connected when I try to shape my chaos. They come from the abyss that is my bibliography.

The dream and trauma text explores ways to connect eschatological thinking. I wrote this draft ov... more The dream and trauma text explores ways to connect eschatological thinking. I wrote this draft over a few days when I tried to write in public with an audience in order to motivate me to write.

Screenplay Fragments

These are some of the blocks I have hewn in the quarry of my readings for my screenplay. Some peo... more These are some of the blocks I have hewn in the quarry of my readings for my screenplay. Some people have asked me about my method. This draft may give some insight into how I document my writing and draw on the voices of many others to create my verbal mosaic into a film

This is an experimental film script that deal with memory, revenger, madness, and myth in a Gothi... more This is an experimental film script that deal with memory, revenger, madness, and myth in a Gothic winding cloth of a discourse.

This is part of the theoretical framework for a combination of works I am developing. The apologi... more This is part of the theoretical framework for a combination of works I am developing. The apologia here, a film, a novel, an epic poem, and an album of 48 songs are in this total work of art. This will stay up here for exactly one day before disappearing into the nebula once again until the complete work is published.

This study is dedicated to Erich Auerbach and to Tom Cohen whose ideas of figural art have shaped much of my vision.

Fittingly, this study is buried underneath the other material on this page so that only an Orphic reader will venture to find a way through the textual Hell (with the works of art being Purgatory...prepareing the way for my final work that I have yet to make public related to the pedagogy involved in the making and study of the works).