Beth Driscoll is Senior Lecturer in Publishing, Communications and Arts Management at the University of Melbourne. Her research investigates contemporary cultures of reading, publishing and writing.
Her monograph, "The New Literary Middlebrow: Tastemakers and Reading in the Twenty-First Century" (Palgrave Macmillan 2014) presents research into contemporary forms of middlebrow literary culture including Oprah's Book Club, the Man Booker Prize and literary festivals.
Beth is a Chief Investigator on two ARC Discovery Projects. "Genre Worlds: Australian Popular Fiction in the Twenty-First Century" (with Dr Kim Wilkins and Prof David Carter, UQ, and Dr Lisa Fletcher, UTas) runs from 2016 to 2019 and offers the first systematic examination of 21st-century Australian popular fiction, the most significant growth area in Australian trade publishing since the turn of the century. Its three areas of investigation are: the publishing of Australian popular fiction; the interrelationships between Australian popular fiction and Australian genre communities; and the textual distinctiveness of Australian popular novels in relation to genre. Research centres on thirty novels across three genres, building a comprehensive picture of the practices and processes of Australian popular fiction through detailed examination of trade data, close reading of texts, and interviews with industry figures.
"New Tastemakers and Australia's Post-Digital Literary Culture" (with A/Prof Mark Davis and Dr Sybil Nolan, University of Melbourne, and Dr Emmett Stinson, Deakin University) runs from 2017-2019. It investigates the effect of digital technologies on taste-making in Australian literary culture. The project examines how digital media and platforms such as eBooks, Twitter, Goodreads and Amazon reviews have changed how Australian literature is produced, distributed and consumed, and what this means for the future of Australian literature.
Other current research includes a project with the Melbourne Medical School on reading and writing for wellbeing.
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Project Types
2
Research Grant
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Credentials
Positions
Associate Professor In Publishing & Communications
Culture And Communication
Asal
Association for the Study of Australian Literature
Sharp
Society for the History of Authorship, Readership and Publishing
Education
Doctor of Philosophy
University of Melbourne
Bachelor of Laws
Australian National University
Bachelor of Arts (Hons)
Australian National University