Researcher Summary
I research broadly in the areas of New Zealand, Australian and Pasifika Literature and I've recently developed an interest in the production of literary biography. My long term focus, on the poetry, prose and critical writing of James K. Baxter, dates from my study of Baxter's adolescent poetic development, published in 2001 as 'Spark to a Waiting Fuse.' I've since edited a number of Baxter volumes and collaborated on a documentary about the poet's life called 'Road to Jerusalem'. At present I'm co-authoring, with Geoff Miles and John Davidson of Victoria University, a study of Baxter's use of classical mythology (The Snake Haired Muse, forthcoming in 2011). My biography of novelist, critic and social commentator Bill Pearson was published in April 2010 by Auckland University Press as 'No Fretful Sleeper: A Life of Bill Pearson'. I also have a long-standing interest in the relationship between humanities scholarship and digital technologies, and in 2001 I co-founded Victoria University's New Zealand Electronic Text Centre. Recently I was appointed director of the University of Canterbury's Humanities Computing Unit, where my major priority is to establish New Zealand's first course in electronic scholarly editing.