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

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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.