Dr Chris Worth
MA (Oxon.), PhD (Lond.)
Chris Worth curriculum vitae [
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Biography
Having taught at Strathclyde University and for the Open University in the UK in the 1970s, I moved to Australia in 1980 and have been at Monash ever since, with interesting semesters spent working at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities in Edinburgh in 1988 and at the Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona in 1994 as well as research time spent at the British Library. From 2000 to 2001, 2002 to 2006 and then again in 2010 for six months I was Head of the School of ECPS.
Research interests
Narrative
My main continuing interest is in the telling of stories in literature, from a narratological point of view (how to tell a story, what to tell) and from an aesthetic one (what makes a good story, successful narration). Also: the future of narration in video games and virtual worlds.
Literary Theory
Teaching film adaptation of literature has made me very interested in the potential of adaptation studies to identify the ways in which intertextuality generates new texts and modifies the reception of existing ones. A study of the ‘re-making’ of traditional and literary narration is my next research project.
Literary Studies
I am particularly interested in aspects of time and space in the C19th and C20th novel in Britain; in the historical novel internationally as a means of reconstructing the past and reinventing the present; and in the work of John Ruskin
Scottish Literature
My work on towards a book on Sir Walter Scott and his interaction with the literary and theatrical culture of his time intersects with my interests in post-Enlightenment Scottish literature generally, as well as with my research on the relationship between aesthetic forms and social systems.
Selected publications
- Worth, C. (2001) ‘A Father and His Fate: Intertext and Gender’, in Essays on Gender, Narrative and Performance in Honour of Marie Maclean, edited Brian Nelson, Anne Freadman and Philip Anderson. University of Delaware Press, 129–41.
- Worth, C. (1998) ‘ “A Centre at the Edge”: Early Teaching of Literature in Australia and New Zealand’, in The Scottish Invention of English Literature, edited by Robert Crawford. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 207–224.
- Worth, C. (1995) ‘Ivanhoe and the Making of Britain’, Links & Letters 2, 63– 76.