Quote of the month: October 2024

If nothing but the bright side of characters should be shewn, we should sit down in despondency, and think it utterly impossible to imitate them in anything.

Boswell’s Life of Johnson

The Johnson Society of Australasia

The Johnson Society of Australasia enters its 31st year, being founded in Melbourne in 1993. It remains strong with 40 members, including several of the foundation members. Members reside in most Australian States and there is a strong contingent in New Zealand. They come from a variety of backgrounds but what they all share is a fascination for the eighteenth century whether it be literature, art, history or ideas and seen through the lens of Samuel Johnson.

Dr Marc Mierowsky on ‘Hacks for bread’: writing lives and the writing life

Kathleen Syme Centre    251 Faraday Street Carlton Saturday September 14 2024

1:40 pm Registration Refreshments     2:00 pm Start

Samuel Johnson was a great admirer of Daniel Defoe. Rather than focussing on Johnson’s views on the novel—the form Defoe is credited with inaugurating—this lecture looks at how the lives Defoe wrote in fiction might have shaped Johnson’s biographical practice.

To do so, Marc Mierowsky will examine the ethics that underpinned Defoe’s and Johnson’s approach to writing lives, and trace the ways these ethics were shaped by their own lives as writers.

Marc Mierowsky is an ARC DECRA Fellow in English and Theatre Studies at the University of Melbourne. He is the associate editor of The Cambridge Edition of the Correspondence of Daniel Defoe (2022) and co-editor, of Defoe’s The Fortunate Mistress [Roxana] for Oxford World’s Classics (2024). With Sarah Balkin, he is co-author of Comedy and Controversy: Scripting Public Speech (Cambridge, 2024). His book A Spy Amongst Us: Daniel Defoe’s Secret Service and the Plot to End Scottish Independence is coming out with Yale University.

To book send message via Contact Page

Annual Seminar

Saturday June 8 10:30-4:30

Multipurpose Room 1 Kathleen Syme Community Centre

251 Faraday Street, Carlton

PROGRAM

10:30 Registration. Tea/Coffee

11:00  Welcome: Barrie Sheppard, President

11:10  The ‘unclubbable’ Hawkins. A defence of Sir John    Peter Hardie

11:50  A reading of a letter from Johnson to    Hester Thrale Barrie Sheppard

12:10  Isham and the Boswell papers: a sample   John Byrne

Lunch 12:25—1:30

1:30 Oliver Goldsmith: a member of the Club   Dennis Dorwick with Bronwen Hickman

2:30 On the survival of slanguage Kate Burridge

3:00 Johnson on Friendship Paul Tankard

4:00  Closing remarks: President

4:15 Finish

$35 Members $40 Guests (Includes Lunch and Refreshments)

For catering purposes, booking is essential. For full details see the program linked here.

Friday 19th July John Byrne at Rare Book Week – “Rebuilding Johnsons’ Library” 

Saturday  14th September Fleeman Lecture: Dr Marc Mierowsky on a comparison of Samuel Johnson and Daniel Defoe

Saturday December 7th Christmas Convivial

If you would like to be kept up to date on the program please use the contact page.