Daniel Bedggood
Qualifications
- BA(Hons) (Canterbury)
- MA (Canterbury)
- PhD (Canterbury)
Contact Details
Phone: +64 3 3642987
Internal Phone: 3056
dan.bedggood@canterbury.ac.nz
Postal address:
English Programme
School of Humanities
University of Canterbury
Private Bag 4800
Christchurch, New Zealand
Physical address:
Room 318, English/Education Building
Office hours:
Tuesdays 2-3pm, and Fridays, 11am-12pm.
Research
My research encompasses several fields in contemporary and historical culture and literature, including Colonial and Postcolonial Literatures and Theory, with a particular focus on analysis of Cultural Contact, Globalization and Displacement; Non-fiction Literary Genres; Science Fiction; and Cultural Studies.
I am currently working on a book entitled Shifting Places: Transnational Writing and Cultural Exchange, a study of texts representing different modes of travel and displacement in the late twentieth-century. My other current research ranges from a focus on The Black Jacobins, CLR James' accounts of the Haitian Revolution; research on recent Palagi publications in the Pacific; looking into the experimental social visions of Iain (M) Banks and Ursula Le Guin's science fiction; and pedagogical research on teaching literature.
Some recent outputs:
“Michael Ondaatje: Coming through Slaughter.” In C. Sandru (Ed.), The Literary Encyclopedia. London: The Literary Dictionary Company. (2010)
“Michael Ondaatje: In the Skin of a Lion.” In C. Sandru (Ed.), The Literary Encyclopedia. London: The Literary Dictionary Company. (2010)
“The Future is Not Written?: The Role of WAC in Future-Proofing Higher Learning.”
Presented at “Writing the Future” [Tertiary Writing Conference] , Victoria University (2-3 December, 2010).
“Nation-Building as Decolonising Performance: The Example of CLR James Representing the Haitian Revolution.” Presented at Flogging a Dead Horse: Are National Literatures Dead? [Stout Institute conference], VUW: Wellington, December 2008.
“Embodying Desire, Embodying Disease: Sacks and the ‘Scientific' Representation of ‘Pacific Malaise.'” In Howard McNaughton and John Newton (eds.) Figuring the Pacific. University of Canterbury Press, 2006.
“(re)Constituted Pasts: Postmodern Historicism in Graham Swift and Julian Barnes.” in James Acheson and Sarah Ross (eds.) The Contemporary British Novel. University of Edinburgh Press, 2005.
“Hounding the ‘Great Voyager': [Review article] The Trial of the Cannibal Dog: Captain Cook in the South Pacific (Anne Salmond)” Pacific Journalism Review 11.1 (2005): 206-10.
“Regarding Islands: Review of Islands in History and Representation,” (eds. Rod Edmond and Vanessa Smith) Australian Humanities Review 31-32 (April 2004). [online at http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/AHR/].
“Tainted Moves”: Subjects of Contemporary Travel Literatures. Doctoral Thesis, University of Canterbury, 2004.
Teaching
In ENGL 117, I teach on skills and strategies for research and composition of academic essays. In ENGL 201, I teach focussed on Non-Fiction Literary texts, with an historical focus up to the present day on the development of non-fiction genres such as the narrative essay, autobiography and travel-writing, and in ENGL 410, on the ideas of utopia and dystopia present in a range of literature from the sixteenth century to the present.
Supervision
I am happy to talk to students considering postgraduate research on:
- Non-fiction Literatures (especially Travel-Writing and Essays)
- Postcolonial and Cultural Studies
- Contemporary Fiction
- Science Fiction
Background
Though born in Christchurch, I had colourful and dislocated early background, including an international career as a professional ballet dancer and actor. Settling back down in Christchurch, I completed undergraduate and postgraduate study at the University of Canterbury, gaining both an MA and PhD here. I have taught within the English Programme since 1999 in a range of undergraduate courses, including ENGL102, ENGL132, ENGL209, and ENGL307, and in other programmes on campus (most recently, Bridging Programmes and Professional and Executive Development).