The Laboratory of Modernity: Knowledge Formation and the Australian Settler Colonies (1788-1900)

殖民时期的澳大利亚是检验欧洲思想、收集原始数据和试验社会实验的实验室，特别是在管理定居者、罪犯和土著人口方面。这个文学历史项目将分析殖民知识的生产和流通，通过关注文本和印刷文化，并将绘制它们对欧洲思想和现代社会理论的影响。该项目以细致的档案和文本分析为基础，将追踪移民殖民地的知识是如何由个人产生，并通过通信、机构和帝国网络的出版物传播的。这个项目将对澳大利亚的文学和文化史产生新的见解。

Colonial Australia was a laboratory in which European ideas could be tested, raw data collected, and social experiments trialled, especially in managing settler, convict, and Aboriginal populations. This literary historical project will analyse the production and circulation of colonial knowledge, by focusing on texts and print culture, and will map their influence on European thought and modern social theory. Grounded in meticulous archival and textual analysis, this project will trace the ways in which knowledge created in the settler colonies was produced by individuals and circulated by correspondence, institutions, and publication through imperial networks. This project will produce new insights into Australia’s literary and cultural history.