Dr Chrystopher Spicer ~ Adjunct Senior Research Fellow

Cultural historian Dr Chrystopher Spicer is an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at James Cook University in Cairns, Queensland, engaged in research into the relationships between literature, culture, and place of the tropics. He has carried out heritage surveys of Australian historic buildings and cemeteries and is the co-author of Cemeteries our Heritage (Ed. Celestina Sagazio), 1992, Melbourne: National Trust of Australia (Victoria). He is also the author of several books on Australian and American cultural history, including Clark Gable: Biography (McFarland, 2002), Great Australian World Firsts (Allan & Unwin, 2012), and most recently, his pioneering exploration of the relationships between extreme tropical weather, such as cyclones, and people, place, and regional literature: Cyclone Country: The Language of Place and Disaster in Australian Literature (McFarland, 2020). He is currently involved in a major research project on the life and work of Australia’s internationally renowned writer of the South Pacific, Louis Becke, about whom he has written a number of papers, such as, “Louis Becke’s Modern Buccaneer: The transformation of William ‘Bully’ Hayes into the first modern literary pirate of the Pacific,” Journal of Australian, Canadian & Aotearoa New Zealand Studies (2021), 1:2, 73-108.

Interests

Research

• Cultural history Memory
• Literature
• Place

Teaching

• Creative writing
• Non-fiction writing
• Academic writing
• Critical thinking
• Research method

Research Disciplines

• Literary studies (4705)
• Anthropology (4401)
• Architecture (3301)

Socio-Economic Objectives

• Expanding knowledge (2801)
• Communication (1302)
• culture and society (1399)

These are the most recent publications associated with this author. To see a detailed profile of all publications stored at JCU, visit ResearchOnline@JCU. Hover over Altmetrics badges to see social impact.

Journal Articles

• Spicer C (2022) “Plenty of business going on”: The Apocalyptic Cyclones of Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria as Trope of Real, Imagined, and Spiritual Australian Place. Motifs, 6.
• Lundberg A, Ngalamulume K, Segata J, Termizi A and Spicer C (2021) Pandemic, plague, pestilence and the tropics: critical inquiries from arts, humanities and social sciences. Etropic: electronic journal of studies in the tropics, 20 (1).
• Spicer C (2021) Louis Becke's Modern Buccaneer: The transformation of William 'Bully' Hayes into the first modern literary pirate of the Pacific. Journal of Australian, Canadian, and Aotearoa New Zealand Studies, 1 (2). pp. 73-108
• Spicer C (2021) The Granite and the Rainbow: Towards a New Biography of Louis becke. Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, 21 (2).
• Spicer C (2021) The Memory of Love: The Springthorpe Memorial in Australia as Haptic Memoryscape. Markers, 37. pp. 92-119
• Spicer C (2021) Weep For the coming of men: epidemic and disease in Anglo-Western colonial writing of the South Pacific. eTropic: electronic journal of studies in the tropics, 20 (1). pp. 273-293
• Spicer C (2016) "The Cyclone which is at the Heart of Things": the cyclone as trope of place and apocalypse in Queensland literature. Etropic: electronic journal of studies in the tropics, 15 (2). pp. 58-68
• Spicer C (2016) "Big wind, he waiting there": Vance Palmer's cyclones of apocalypse and their power of revelation. Etropic: electronic journal of studies in the tropics, 15 (1). pp. 101-107

Books

• Spicer C (2020) Cyclone country: the language of place and disaster in Australian literature. McFarland & Company, Jefferson, North Carolina, USA
• Spicer C (2017) The Flying Adventures of Jessie Keith "Chubbie" Miller. McFarland and Company, Jefferson, NC, USA
• Spicer C (2002) Clark Gable: biography, filmography, bibliography. McFarland & Company, Jefferson, North Carolina

Other research outputs

• Spicer C (2012) Great Australian World Firsts: the things we made, the things we did. Allen & Unwin, Sydney, NSW

More

ResearchOnline@JCU stores 14+ research outputs authored by Dr Chrystopher Spicer from 2002 onwards.