For more information on MEMSO, please visit www.tannerritchie.com/memso to view an online brochure.

Trial URL: sources.tannerritchie.com

This trial runs until 20th June 2013.

‘A Genius About the Place’:
Phoenix Magazine and Australian Modernism

4.30–6.30pm Thursday 23 May 2013
Rare Books & Special Collections, Level 1 Barr Smith Library
Free—all welcome

An amazing modernist enterprise was initiated within the University of Adelaide during the 1930s by a group of students and academics—Phoenix Magazine. A discussion by Dr Susan Sheridan, Samela Harris and Cheryl Hoskin will examine this significant development in the context of Australian modernism, and poetry readings by Dr Ben McCann, Senior Lecturer in French Studies and Chair of the University of Adelaide Theatre Guild, will illustrate the magazine’s progressive art, culture and literature.

Published between 1935 and 1939, Phoenix Magazine was one of the first literary and artistic journals to promote modernism in Australia. Its demise, due to the denial of University Union funding, led to the founding of the Angry Penguins journal by Max Harris, Geoffrey Dutton, DB Kerr and Paul Pfeiffer. The Phoenix was remarkable not only for its creative content in the conservative Australian cultural environment of the time, but also for its role as the launch pad for Angry Penguins and subsequent progressive publications such as Australian Letters, not to mention the careers of Harris, Dutton and others.

Light refreshments will be served.

The Conversation is in conjunction with the Rare Books & Special Collections exhibition ‘A Genius About the Place’: Phoenix Magazine and Australian Modernism on display in the Rare Books & Special Collections Foyer, Level 1, Barr Smith Library from 1 May–15 June.

Both the exhibition and Cultural Conversation are events associated with About Time: SA History Festival 2013.

For more information and to register your attendance please call 8313 3086 or email art.heritage@adelaide.edu.au

For more information about the Guild visit www.adelaide.edu.au/theatreguild

(L) Dr. Jared Thomas (R) Kylie Percival, University Archivist

The significance of the University of Adelaide’s history as a story inextricably entwined with the cultural fabric of South Australia was recognised at a UNESCO Inscription Ceremony on 14 May 2013.

The event formally added the University Archives’ earliest records to the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register.   The inscription acknowledges the cultural and historic value of the University Archives for the benefit of current and future generations.

This is a significant achievement as the University of Adelaide is the first university in Australia to have its historical administrative records recognised by this prestigious programme.

For more details, see http://www.adelaide.edu.au/records/motw/

DataConnect is managed by the University Library on behalf of the Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President (Research). For general enquiries and assistance with DataConnect, please contact the Library’s Digital Services team  or 8313 3629 or see our guide.

Students and staff are invited to drop in for a quick 20 minute overview to help get you started, with plenty of extra time for questions.

Wednesday 15 May 3.10pm

Friday 17 May 3.10pm

Monday 20 May 10.10am

Thursday 23 May 11.10am

Venue: Ira Raymond Exhibition Room, level 3, Barr Smith Library.

No bookings required.

For enquiries, please contact Ellen Randva.

Phoenix Magazine and Australian modernism

History Festival Exhibition, 1 May-15 June 2013, Barr Smith Library Level 1

If it is possible at this time still to feel the importance of poetry, Adelaide is now in an interesting condition. There are signs here that the imagination is stirring, and that if it has a chance it will give us something of our own. There is a genius about the place; and genius as a neighbour is exciting even at this dreadful moment.  (C.R. Jury, Angry Penguins 1940)

The literary, particularly poetic, upsurge wrought by the Angry Penguins journal began in 1935 with Phoenix, centred at the University of Adelaide. The decision of the editors to change the ‘jolly old school magazine’ format of the Adelaide University Magazine to a completely literary journal started a seminal period in Australia’s cultural history.

Phoenix published works ranging from the nationalistic poetry of Rex Ingamells and the Jindyworobaks Club to the avant-garde modernist verse of Max Harris, D.B. Kerr and Paul Pfeiffer, with art by John Dowie and Dorrit Black, among others.

During 1940, in reaction to withdrawal of funding for Phoenix, Harris, Kerr, Pfeiffer and Geoffrey Dutton founded the influential Angry Penguins magazine which sought to promote internationalism and ‘a noisy and aggressive revolutionary modernism’ to Australian culture.

Why did the relatively conservative University of Adelaide become the ‘literary hotbed’ of Australian modernism? A faculty of some distinction, the creative support of Professors C.R. Jury and J.I.M. Stewart, a University Union which encouraged student participation and debate though the Arts Association and the student newspaper On Dit, the modern literature available through the newly built Barr Smith Library and Preece’s Bookshop, and the collegiality of St Mark’s College all played a role.

Max Harris and Geoffrey Dutton went on to publish Australian Letters which fostered collaborations between the most important artists and poets of the time. The literary energy in Adelaide between the launch of Phoenix in 1935 and the end of Angry Penguins in 1946 had an important and far-reaching influence on emerging Australian culture.

Presented by Rare Books & Special Collections, University Archives, and Art & Heritage

The purpose of the Prize, of up to $1,000, is to encourage study and research, including use of the Barr Smith Library collections, into any aspect of Australian prisoners of war of the Japanese during the Second World War. This may include the capture, captivity, treatment, conditions, release and repatriation of these prisoners of war and may include the effects of captivity on their lives, their health and their families

Lucy Robertson, Honours student in the School of History & Politics, is undertaking research into the experiences of women as prisoners of war of the Japanese. It is little known that over 400 Australian, British, New Zealand, Canadian, American and Dutch women and children were interned in Changi Prison Singapore. Lucy’s Honours thesis will address the neglect of these women’s experiences through a critical analysis of the Changi quilts. Three patchwork quilts were made by women in Changi, with each woman receiving a square of cloth and asked to put “something of herself” into the square. Not only did the quilts allow women to rebel against their captivity and isolation through art, they also enabled women to pass coded information to other prisoner of war camps. The three quilts survive to this day , one held by the Red Cross Museum in London and two at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. Lucy has worked with curators at both institutions and at the Changi Museum. Her honours thesis is also interested in the way these artefacts can engage people in the present with the experience of those in the past and has the potential to influence curatorial practice.

Find more information on the Hugh Martin Weir Prize website.

Jane Sloane will share her journey from being a student at the University of Adelaide to being a global advocate for women and girls.

Hear how the advice given to her by Nelson Mandela helped shape her path and career, and about the many twists and turns her journey has taken.

Jane will discuss the people and organisations that have influenced and inspired her and will provide her perspective on the interventions that are making a difference to women and girls realizing their universal human rights.

She will also talk about the rise of a global women’s movement and a global citizenship movement and the opportunities and challenges inherent in this momentum for social change. Finally she will discuss what this journey has meant for her at a personal level, what she has given up and what she has gained by working globally with, and for, women and girls in helping to secure their full human rights.

Bookings by Tuesday 21 May to:
robina.weir@adelaide.edu.au

Telephone: 8313 4064
Open to the public
Gold coin admission

Sponsored by

Wines by

Hours: 9am to 5pm

Venue: Ira Raymond Exhibition Room, level 3, Barr Smith Library

All items $2 unless marked otherwise.

There is a wide variety of subject areas this year, including duplicate titles from one of Adelaide’s finest book collectors.

No listings, just come along and see for yourselves. First come, first served!

For enquiries, please contact Margaret Hosking on 8313 3706.