A/Prof Deborah Pike

Associate Professor English Literature
BA Hons 1, PhD (English), Grad Cert (Education)

Email: deborah.pike@nd.edu.au
Phone: (02) 8204 4107

  • Biography

    Deborah Pike is foundational lecturer and Discipline Head in English Literature at Notre Dame, Sydney. She is also national co-ordinator of the Bachelor of Arts program.  She is a winner of an Australian Government Award for University Teaching, a Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning for literature as a transdisciplinary practice, as well as a Vice Chancellor's Award in Teaching.

    Deborah Pike has a first class Honours degree in English from the University of Western Australia, as well as a PhD in English from the University of Sydney.

    Deborah's research interests currently span the areas of: literary modernism; play, wellbeing and literature; and studies in English literature as a discipline, and transdisciplinarity. She has published in the areas of postcolonial and cultural studies and modernist literatures. Her most recent book, The Subversive Art of Zelda Fitzgerald was shortlisted for the inaugural AUHE Prize in Literary Scholarship. She has published and edited multidisciplinary volumes.

    Before coming to UNDA, Deborah lectured in English language and literature at the University of Paris VII and at the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po); she also worked at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Deborah has presented papers and seminars in Australia, Europe, the US and the UK. In addition to her intellectual pursuits, she has been employed in the media and publishing industries.

  • Teaching areas

    Deborah Pike teaches and convenes the following courses: Text and Tradition; Modernism and the Avant-Garde; Poetry and Poetics; Author-Text-Reader: Literary Theory and Criticism; Narrative Writing; Fictions of the Self: Life Writing; Experience the World: Paris and Beyond.

  • Research interests and current projects

    Research expertise

    • Modernism
    • Literary Theory
    • Twentieth-century Literature
    • Late nineteenth-century literature
    • Transnational Australian Literature
    • Life Writing
    • Creative Practice
    • Transdisciplinarity
    • Arts Education
    • Current Projects
    • Minor modernists
    • Australian Transnational Literature
    • The Future of the Humanities
    • Intercultural storymaking through the Arts (Grant collaboration with CDU)

  • Research supervision

    Research Supervision

    Deborah is available to supervise in the areas of Modernism, Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century English and American Literature. She is also interested in cosupervising on transdisciplinary projects.

    Current and past supervision

    PhDs

    • ‘Assent as an Expression of Faith: Correspondences Between Newman’s Illative Sense and Hopkins’ Poetics in light of the Philosophy of John Duns Scotus’
    • ‘Creative practice and the vā – Making material knowledge within intercultural relational spaces’ (with Charles Darwin Univ)

    Masters and Masters of Philosophy

    • 'Bedrooms and Battlefields: Negotiating Gendered Arenas of Power within Le Roman de Silence'
    • 'At the Heart of Leviathan: A Hobbesian Reading of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness'
    • ' Reinterpreting the Villain: Changing the Pattern of the Fairy Tale through Sleeping Beauty’s Maleficent
    • '“Strange scribblings:” Tracing the Gothic in Australian Poetry’

    Honours

    • ‘Hands off My Body! Postmemory, Fragmentation and the bodily expression of trauma in literature’
    • ‘“Thought and Affliction, Passion, Hell Itself”: Feminine Madness and Sexual Agency in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Hamlet, and The Two Noble Kinsmen’
    • The Haggadah: visual and historical analysis
    • Evelyn Waugh, Vile Bodies and Modernism
    • Drago Jančar, Slovenia and Postmodernism
    • Australian Children’s Picture Books

  • Books

    • Pike, D. (2025). Modernism Beyond the Canon. London, Bloomsbury (forthcoming).
    • Pike. D. (2024) The Players. Fremantle: Fremantle Press (novel).
    • Pike, D. (2017). The Subversive Art of Zelda Fitzgerald. Columbia: University of Missouri Press.
    • Pike, D., Lynch, S. & a’Beckett, C. (eds) (2017). Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Play: From Birth to Beyond. New York: Springer Publishing Company.
    • Pike. D., Nelson, C. & Ledvinka, G. (eds) (2015). On Happiness: New Ideas for the Twenty-First Century. Crawley: University of Western Australia Publishing.

    Edited Journal Special Issue

    • Pike, D. Harvey, M. & Sykes, G. (2000). Colloquy, Issue 5, Special Issue: Curious Eyes – The Sites and Scenes of Modernism.

  • Book chapters

    • Pike, D. (2017). ‘You Can Leave Your Hat On: Teaching Literature at University and the Playground of the Mind’ in Pike, D., Lynch, S. & a’Beckett, C. (eds), Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Play: From Birth to Beyond. New York: Springer Publishing Company.
    • Pike. D., Lynch, S. & a’Beckett, C. (2017). ‘Playing with Theory’ in Pike, D., Lynch, S. & a’Beckett, C. (eds), Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Play: From Birth to Beyond. New York: Springer Publishing Company.
    • Proud, D., Pike, D. & a'Beckett, C. (2017).'Muckabout: Aboriginal Conceptions of Play' in Lynch, S., Pike, D. & a'Beckett, C. (eds), Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Play: From Birth to Beyond. Singapore & New York: Springer Publishing Company.
    • Pike, D. (2015).‘Objectless Love: The Vagabondage of Colette and Katherine Mansfield’ in Harvey, M. & Ailwood, S. (eds). Katherine Mansfield and Influence. Edinburgh: The University of Edinburgh Press.
    • Pike, D. (2015).‘The Russian Way of Happiness: Choice, Love and Community.’ Nelson, C., Pike, D. & Ledvinka, G. (eds). On Happiness: New Ideas for the Twenty-First Century. Crawley: University of Western Australia Publishing.
    • Nelson, C. & Pike, D. (2015). 'This Book Will Not Make You Happy' in Nelson, C., Pike, D. & Ledvinka, G.(eds). On Happiness: New Ideas for the Twenty-First Century. Crawley: University of Western Australia Publishing.
    • Pike, D. (2011). 'Politics and Bare Life in Yvonne Vera’s The Stone Virgins’. In P. Marks (Ed.) Literature and Politics: Pushing the World in Certain Directions (pp. 155-165). Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

  • Journal articles and proceedings

    • Pike, D. ‘The Humanities: What Future? Humanities 2023, 12(4), 85; https://doi.org/10.3390/h12040085
    • Pike, D. (2018) ‘"Masquerading as Herself": The Journalism and Short Fiction of Zelda Fitzgerald’, F. Scott Fitzgerald Review. Vol 16 (1). Pp. 130-148
    • Pike, D. (2006). ‘Sharon’s Wall and the Dialectics of Inside/Outside’, Borderlands: New Spaces in the Humanities, Vol. 5 (3), 2006.
    • Pike, D. (2003). ‘Love’s Reverberations’, The Australian Review of Public Affairs, June, 2003.
    • Pike. D. & Harvey, M. (eds) (2000). ‘Curious Eyes: Sites and Scenes of Modernism,’ Colloquy: Text Theory Critique, Issue 4

  • Conference papers

    • Pike, D. (2022) '1922: A Nomadic Reading' Keynote lecture. The Australasian Association for Modernism Conference. Western Sydney University, June.
    • Pike, D. (2019). 'Minor Moderns.' British Association for Modernisms Conference, Kings College, London, June.
    • Pike, D. (2018) Modernism Beyond the Canon. Literary Networks Conference. Australian National University, June.
    • Pike, D. (2017) “Humanities and the Future of English”, Reading and Writing in the Twenty-First-Century Classroom, The University of Queensland, June.
    • Pike, D. (2016) ‘Completing the World: Cosmology and Human Effort in Teilhard and Rilke’ Modernism and Work: AMSN3. The University of New South Wales. 29-31 March.
    • Pike, D. (2015) 'Sovereignty and Transnational Subjectivity in Henry Handel Richardson's The Fortunes of Richard Mahony'. Literary Networks Conference, University of Wollongong, 9 July.
    • Pike, D. (2014). 'Masquerading as Herself': The Flapper and the Modern Girl in Zelda Fitzgerald's Magazine Fiction'. Modernism Now! British Association for Modernism Conference, Senate House, the University of London, 26-28 June.
    • Pike, D. (2013). 'Playground of the Mind: Teaching Literature at University.' Probing the Boundaries of Play. Oxford University, Mansfield College. 2-4 July.
    • Pike, D. (2011). 'Insomnia, Waste and Melancholia' in Samuel Beckett's The Unnamable', London Beckett Seminar, Birkbeck College, University of London, October.
    • Pike, D. (2011). 'State of Play: Birth and Beyond.' Reconceptualising Early Childhood Education. University of East London, October 2011.
    • Pike, D. (2010). 'Childhood Depression and the Picture Book: Shaun Tan's The Red Tree.' Visual Literacies, Oxford. University, Mansfield College, July.
    • Pike, D. (2010) 'Vagabondage: Colette's influence on Katherine Mansfield'. The Blooms Berries: Katherine Mansfield Studies Conference. Melbourne, RMIT University, June.
    • Pike, D. (2009). 'Politics and Bare Life in Yvonne Vera's The Stone Virgins.' Australasian Association for Literature and Aesthetics. Sydney, the University of Sydney, June.
    • Pike, D. (2005). 'Sharon's Wall and the Dialectics of Inside/Outside', Rhetoric, Politics, Ethics Conference. Ghent, Belgium, April.
    • Pike, D. (2003). 'Letters from the Swiss Asylum: The Case of Zelda Fitzgerald.' Modernist Studies Association Conference, Birmingham, January.

  • Professional affiliations

    • NSW State representative of the Australian University Heads of English Group
    • Committee Member of the Australasian Association for Literature
    • Member the Australian Modernist Studies Association
    • Member of the British Association for Modernism
    • Member of the Katherine Mansfield Society
    • Member Social Justice Research Network

  • Awards

    • 2019 Nominee, Australian Awards for University Teaching - Teaching Excellence Award
    • 2018 Winner, Australian Awards for University Teaching Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning
    • 2017 Shortlist, AUHE Award in Australian Literary Scholarship for The Subversive Art of Zelda Fitzgerald
    • 2012 Nominee, Office of Teaching and Learning Citation in Outstanding Teaching
    • 2011 Nominee, Australian Teaching and Learning Council Teaching Excellence Award
    • 2011 Vice Chancellor’s Teaching Award Winner
    • 2009, 2010, Unijobs Lecturer of the Year top 5, UNDA
    • 2008 Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre Writer in Residence
    • 1999-2003 Australian Postgraduate Award University of Sydney
    • 2000 Winner: Kath O’Neil Travelling Fellowship

  • In the media

    • Pike, D. (2018). ‘Zelda Fitzgerald: A Creative Voice Curtailed Who Speaks to Our Cultural Moment’. https://theconversation.com/zelda-fitzgerald-a-creative-voice-curtailed-who-speaks-to-our-cultural-moment-90103
    • Pike, D. (2017). ‘Being Here: The Bold Artistic Vision and Short Life of Paula Modersohn-Becker www.theconversation.com/being-here-the-bold-artistic-vision-and-short-life-of-paula-modersohn-becker-81985
    • Pike, D. (2015).'Theatre of Dissaray': Review of Tabac Rouge www.theconversation.com/theatre-of-disarray-tabac-rouge-at-the-2015-sydney-festival-35020
    • Pike, D. (2015) 'An Ecstatic Dissonance': Review of Latvian Radio Choir www.theconversation.com/review-latvian-radio-choir-a-full-throated-vocal-celebration-35021.
    • Pike, D. (2006).‘Mise en Seine’, The Diplomat, November.
    • Pike, D. (2003).‘What is This Thing Called Love?’ Australian Financial Review, 5 June.

  • Professional affiliations

    • Vice President (Admin) The Australian University Heads of English Group
    • Committee Member of the Australasian Association for Literature
    • Member the Australian Modernist Studies Association
    • Member of the British Association for Modernism
    • Member of the Katherine Mansfield Society
    • Member Social Justice Research Network