School of English, Communications and Performance Studies

1. The School

The School of English, Communications and Performance Studies offers subjects in the closely interconnected areas concerned with the study of texts, narrative and textuality. The School offers major sequences and postgraduate studies in four disciplines, each with its own particular emphasis – English, communications, visual culture, drama and theatre studies.

The School is made up of four sections – English Communications and Media Studies Visual Culture, and the Centre for Drama and Theatre Studies. The School has a student load of 906 EFTSU, of which approximately 46 are postgraduate. There are 50 (FTE) teaching staff in the school.

English : The section teaches English literature at the Clayton and Caulfield campuses. Areas taught include Australian, English and American literature, children's literature, publishing, writing and fiction writing. Some subjects are taught jointly with the Centre for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies. Strengths of the section include the editing of scholarly texts, English literature 1660-1800, women's writing, Australian literature (including regional studies), children's literature, literary and cultural theory, literary biography, poetics, history of the book, history of authorship, and editorial practice and theory. The section also includes the Centre for Postcolonial Writing

A Writing major is offered at the Gippsland campus by the School of Humanities, Communications and Social Sciences of the Faculty of Arts.

Communications : Undergraduate units in Communication and Media Studies are offered at Berwick Caulfield, Clayton and Gippsland.  The collection has been substantially developed at all campuses at teaching level to support high enrolments.  Where possible electronic texts are purchased to minimise purchase of multiple copies at each site. 

Postgraduate studies are taught by Australian Studies at the city campus and Berwick and by the School of Humanities, Communications and Social Sciences at Gippsland.

Visual Culture : Visual culture studies are available at the Clayton campus and cover two main areas – the history and theory of art, architecture and photography, and film and television studies. Specialist postgraduate courses are available in Australian art, gallery and museum studies, and art history/film studies. Research interests include Australian art and architecture, medieval art and architecture, museum and curatorial studies, reception theory, film studies, performance art, cyber culture, art in popular culture, fashion, feminism and psychoanalysis, women's art history, Japanese fiction and film, Asian film, documentary film theory, cinema remakes and sequels, Australian film and television.

Drama and Theatre Studies : Drama and theatre studies are taught on the Clayton campus and are closely connected to other sections of the School of English, Communications and Performance Studies. Students may undertake a Bachelor of Performing Arts with majors in drama and theatre studies, music or visual culture. Research strengths include Australian theatre, past and present; postcolonial drama; performance theory and the semiotics of rehearsal and performance; Asian theatre; musical theatre; and the theatre, textual and non-textual, of the cultures and periods reflected in the programs of departments in the Faculty of Arts. The Centre stages approximately ten public productions each year.

3. The Library's collection

a. Location

Material acquired for the School of English, Communications and Performance Studies is located predominantly in the Matheson Library on the Clayton campus, with a smaller collection to support the teaching of English literature located on the Caulfield campus and collections at Berwick and Gippsland. There is also significant material located in the Rare Books collection and the microform collection.

The School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics also purchases English-language material and material in the vernacular on Asian culture, literature, theatre and film. This is located in the Asian Studies Research or in the Matheson Library if it is English-language material.

Material is also purchased by the departments of the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics to support the teaching of European culture, literature, film and theatre. This material is located in the Matheson Library.

Materials in the areas of  Australian, Asian and U.S. history, culture and literature are purchased by the School of Humanities, Communications and Social Sciences to support teaching in these areas on the Gippsland campus. Material on writing is also purchased for the Gippsland (and Berwick) campuses to support teaching in this area.

Materials in the areas of philosophy are purchased by the School of Philosophy and Bioethics to support the cross-disciplinary requirements of philosophy in art. This material is located in the Matheson Library.

The School of Music also purchases materials including books, music scores and sound recordings to support music theatre and music history.

The Faculty of Art and Design purchases significant amounts of material in the areas of art and visual culture. This material is located predominantly on the Caulfield campus, with a significant collection on the Gippsland Campus. This material is relevant to the courses offered by the Visual Culture section, although the sections emphasis is more on the history, philosophy and theory of the visual arts, rather than the practical aspect.

The Faculty of Information Technology acquires significant material in the areas of publishing, textual bibliography and children's literature to support its teaching and research in these areas. These materials are located on the Caulfield campus, with older material in the Matheson Library and the Gippsland library.

The Faculty of Education acquires children's fiction and picture books to support its courses on the Gippsland and Peninsula campuses.

b. Language

Material is acquired for the School of English, Communications and Performance Studies mainly in the English language, but some foreign language material is purchased.

c. Classification used

Material acquired for the School of English, Communications and Performance Studies is classified using the Dewey Decimal Classification. On the Clayton campus, all literature by a particular writer is classified at a single call number representing that writer and his works; however on the other campuses, literature is classified by the form i.e. drama, poetry, fiction, rather than by author.

d. Formats

No format is excluded, although in practice the majority of the collection is monographs or serials, both print and electronic. There is a collection of DVDs, video recordings and CD-ROMS. Because the Visual Culture section maintains its own slide library, no slides are purchased by the Library for this section.

e. Size of the collection

Estimated number of monograph volumes purchased per annum : English, ca. 1,800; Drama and theatre studies, ca.100; Rare Books, ca. 400, Communications 400.

Number of print serial titles received : est 300, located predominantly on the Clayton campus, for English, Drama;  approximately 80 for Visual Culture.

The Monash University Library is a repository for the Eighteenth Century microfilm collection, which contains every notable item printed in any language in Great Britain and its colonies and English-language items printed anywhere in the world between 1701-1800. Some of the material in this collection is available electronically via Eighteenth Century Collections Online

f. Significant electronic resources

The Library continues to purchase resources in electronic format, including networked or internet databases, and full text ersources, including suites of electronic journals. Relevant databases are listed.

Online Subject guides:

• Communications
• English literature
• Drama & theatre studies
• Visual culture

20% of the library materials budget for the Faculty of Arts is spent on serials, and 15% on electronic resources.

g. Coverage of the collection

Library resources are acquired for the School in the following Dewey Decimal Classification areas.

The main areas of collecting for English are detailed below

The English section maintains a commitment to teaching and research through the full range of English and Australian literature, including children's literature. The section also encourages students to participate in contemporary theoretical debate. All facets of popular culture, e.g. television, film, comics, advertising are included in the section’s areas of study and research.

The Monash University Library has a rich collection of original editions, reprints and microfilms of English literary works and continues to collect the major figures and the emerging, significant, modern figures comprehensively. Its collection of Australian literature is also extensive and is collected comprehensively. Increasingly these are also available via full-text electronic collections such as LION, EEBO and the Eighteenth Century Collection.

Modern literary theory is collected comprehensively.

Publications in the field of popular culture are collected. The Rare Book Collection has a good range of early Science-Fiction material and a comprehensive collection of Australian comics from the earliest period to the present.

The Matheson Library has significant collections in literature, literary critical theory, comparative literature, children's literature, drama and theatre studies, cultural studies and bibliographic and textual studies. The significance of the collection resides in the internationally renowned holdings of Jonathan Swift material housed in the Rare Books area. This comprises a near comprehensive collection of textually or historically important editions of Swift's writing as well as an extensive collection of the works of other writers of the period. Some manuscript material is acquired in this area as well as all significant secondary writings. There is also a general strength in eighteenth century literature generally and Australian literature. All the separately published works of a number of British and North American contemporary authors are acquired. The Library also attempts to acquire the works of those non-contemporary writers in English and those in translation who have significantly influenced writing in English.

Areas with collections at research level include Old and Middle English, sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth century literature, works of women writers of the period are assiduously collected, as well as early editions of the writers in Johnson's circle are collected. Nineteenth and twentieth century literature includes an emphasis on women writers and gay, lesbian and avant-garde publications. The Library attempts to collect nineteenth and twentieth and twenty-first century Australian literature comprehensively, and include genres of popular writing and writing for children, as well as works of accepted literary merit. Critical/literary theory is also collected at research level.

Areas supported at teaching level include Australian children's literature and its secondary and critical texts; popular culture, with representative collections in the areas of comics, pulp, science fiction and detective fiction.

Caulfield Library has a good general collection of world literature as well as an extensive collection of videos and associated resources for film studies subjects. The size of the collection supporting the teaching of English is estimated at 11,000 volumes.

Peninsula Library has a strong collection of children's literature.

Gippsland Library has a good collection of world literature with a current emphasis on post-colonial literature, women's writing, contemporary fiction and authorship, and a good collection of children's literature.

The main areas of collecting for Communications are detailed below

The main areas of collecting for Visual Culture are detailed below

The Matheson Library has significant collections in the areas of art philosophy and aesthetics, Renaissance and Baroque Art, Australian art and architecture, and contemporary film studies. The collection includes catalogues of major exhibitions in Australian galleries. The collection has been organised (with a modified Dewey system) to reflect the importance of the artist in the visual culture teaching program. This is in contrast to the Caulfield collection which is focussed on the medium, which is important in a practical based course. It is important that the integrity of this system at the Matheson Library is maintained. Current areas of focus for collection development include curatorial and museum studies, fashion design, photography and cyber art. New subjects and courses in these areas are attracting many students to the Visual Culture section and the collection is in need of building up in these areas.

The Caulfield Library has particular strengths in design, ceramics, glass, photography, contemporary art, gold and silver smithing.

Gippsland Library has an emphasis on ceramics, printmaking, photography, sculpture and art theory.

The main areas of collecting for Drama and Theatre Studies are detailed below

The Centre for Drama and Theatre Studies offers performance-based courses with the students being required to take part in the productions mounted each year in the Drama Theatre in the Performing Arts Centre. There is a particular emphasis on the presentation and study of musical theatre. The courses cover the subject areas of theatrical performance and all aspects of production. In addition, the Centre teaches the history of theatre, and of performance styles and conventions; an exploration of contemporary theories of performance and procedures of performance analysis; as well as training in the investigation of the written text.

Works on theatrical performance, and production are collected to a research level. Dramatic texts are also collected in fields of interest to the academics and students. Australian texts are collected comprehensively.

4. Other significant Monash collections or resources

English

Rare Books collection

The Rare Books Collection also has a significant collection of books on the history of books in all aspects of their production, selling and their reading, as well as a representative collection of private press books. Also available is the Lindsay Shaw collection of Australian juvenile fiction. This collection is formed by donation and purchase of significant Australian juvenile fiction, and is accessible via the catalogue.

Microform collection :

• Archives of British Publishers on Microfilm (489 reels and 55 fiche)
• Eighteenth century sources for the study of literature and culture (776 reels)
• English and American drama of the nineteenth century (19,000 microcards)
• Early English books, 1475-1640 (1979 reels)
• Early English books, 1641-1700 (1982 reels)
• Early American imprints, 1639-1800 (31,000 microcards)
• Original manuscripts and papers of Thomas Hardy (18 reels)
• The writings of Daniel Defoe (38 reels)
• British literary manuscripts from the British Library, the eighteenth century (44 reels)

Monash University Library is part of a consortium of libraries which acquires two major research collections, the Eighteenth Century (2870 reels) and the Nineteenth Century.
The Eighteenth Century provides a microfilm collection of every notable item printed in any language in Great Britain and its colonies and printed in English anywhere in the world between 1701 and 1800. Monash University Library is fortunate enough to be the repository for this collection.
The Nineteenth Century republishes English-language books and pamphlets published in all parts of the world except North America between 1801 and 1900. The General Collection is housed at Deakin University and Monash University Library holds the specialist collection "Publishing, the Book Trade and diffusion of knowledge." (1506 fiche)

Visual Culture

Video and DVD collection: The Music and Multimedia Collection of the Matheson Library houses a collection of approximately 4,500 videos and DVD format which are heavily used by the Cinema Studies teaching staff and students. The collection has a large number of feature films, documentaries and foreign language titles.

Caulfield, Peninsula, Berwick and Gippsland libraries also house significant collections in these formats that are relevant to visual culture.

Rare Books Collection : This houses a numbers of separate collections of relevance, including Art and photography, pulp series, science fiction and comics. Vulnerable items are also held in this collection.

Microform Collection : Within the Microform Collection housed in the Matheson Library (Clayton campus) are the Alinari Photo Collection, a set of 1339 fiche of art and architectural works from the 19^th century; the Early Alinari Archives (122 fiche), the architectural Drawings of Robert and James Adam in Sir John Soane's museum (11 reels), and the Wallace Collection, London (74 fiche)

The Visual Culture section Library: The Visual Culture section maintains a Visual Culture Library of approximately 300,000 slides and hundreds of photographs documenting visual culture from prehistoric times to the present day. The collection is arranged by broad geographic region, by nationality and by artist/maker. The slide collection is used predominantly for teaching and research within the department, with Visual Culture students allowed limited and supervised access.

Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA) is one of the larger public galleries within the Melbourne metropolitan area. Its exhibition program and the University Collection have a strong focus on Australian art post 1960. The Gallery maintains files, including reviews, articles and exhibition catalogues on artists represented in Gallery exhibitions and in the University Collection.

These tables devised using Dewey (the latest). Some numbers will have changed over the years and this will need to be taken into account during weeding

Collections Table

(T = teaching level, R = research level)

Amendment history
First issued: December 2000
Amended: 2006, October 2008

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