Speaker
Description
This paper will offer an overview of the aims and achievements of, as well as some responses to, the Stella Count, which is an annual quantitative study of gender bias in Australia's 'Books' pages that was established in 2012. The Count now constitutes the single largest dataset of a nation's book reviewing field. This paper will explore what this kind of data can tell us about the shape of contemporary literary culture, presenting, for the first time, some new longitudinal statistics about what gets reviewed, and who reviews it, in Australia.
Speaker Bio:
Melinda Harvey is Program Coordinator of Literary Studies at Monash University, Australia. She is Lead CI, alongside Prof. Dr. Corinna Norrick-Rühl, on the DAAD-funded project 'Gender Imbalance in the Australian and German Book Industries'. She is a book critic of nearly 20 years, writing for Australia's major outlets, and - with Dr Julieanne Lamond (ANU) and nonprofit literary organisation Stella - produces the Stella Count.