Dr Benjamin Authers
BA (Hons), LLB (Hons) (Adelaide), MA (Dalhousie), PhD (Guelph)
Visiting Fellow, RegNet
ANU College of Asia and the Pacific
Research interests
- Human Rights
- Law and Literature
- Canadian Literature (Contemporary and 19th Century)
- The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
- Victorian Literature
Biography
Benjamin Authers was educated in law and literary studies at the University of Adelaide, Dalhousie University (Canada) and the University of Guelph (Canada), and is a former Australian Research Council Laureate Postdoctoral Fellow at RegNet. In 2019 Benjamin’s monograph, A Culture of Rights: Law, Literature, and Canada, was awarded the Pierre Savard Award by the International Council for Canadian Studies. Benjamin is currently the Manager, Investigations, at the Office of the South Australian Ombudsman.
Researcher's projects
Benjamin's research examines how literary and other non-legal texts create meaning in the Canadian and international human rights systems, as well as the possibilities presented by cultural production for strengthening rights.
Publications
- Authers, B 2021, 'Telling Harm: Time, Redress, and Canadian Literature', in Linda M. Morra, Sarah Henzi (ed.), On the Other Side(s) of 150: Untold Stories and Critical Approaches to History, Literature, and Identity in Canada Hardcover, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, London, p. 13.
- Authers, B 2020, 'Analogies of harm: excess, expression, and obscenity in Margaret Atwood's Bodily Harm and the Supreme Court of Canada decision R v Butler', British Journal of Canadian Studies, vol. 32, no. 1-2, pp. 23-42.
- Authers, B, Charlesworth, H, Dembour, M et al. 2018, 'Introduction', Humanity (Hanover), vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 63-74.
- Authers, B, Snauwaert, M & Laforest, D 2017, 'Introduction', in Benjamin Authers, Maite Snauwaert and Daniel Laforest (ed.), Inhabiting Memory in Canadian Literature, The University of Alberta Press, Canada, pp. ix-xxxi.
- Authers, B, Snauwaert, M & Laforest, D, eds, 2017, Inhabiting Memory in Canadian Literature, The University of Alberta Press, Canada.
- Authers, B 2016, A Culture of Rights: Law, Literature, and Canada, University of Toronto Press, Toronto.
- Authers, B 2016, 'Introduction: Human rights, interdisciplinarity, and the time of utopia', Australian Journal of Human Rights, vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 1-15.
- Authers, B & Charlesworth, H 2014, 'The Crisis and the Quotidian in International Human Rights Law', Netherlands Yearbook of International Law, vol. 44, pp. 19-39.
- Authers, B 2014, 'Representation and suspicion in Canada's appearance under the Universal Periodic Review', in Emma Larking and Hilary Charlesworth (ed.), Human Rights And The Universal Periodic Review: Rituals and Ritualism, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom, pp. 169-186.
- Authers, B 2014, '"An Insane and Irresponsible Government": Louis Riel and the Representation of Responsibility', in Hans Vilhelm Hansen (ed.), Riel's Defence: Perspectives on His Speeches, McGill-Queen's University Press, Canada, pp. 224-246.
- Authers, B 2012, 'What had been many became one': continuity, the common law, and Crisis on Infinite Earths', Law Text Culture, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 65 - 92.
- Authers, B 2010, "Truth in the Telling: Procedure, Testimony, and the Work of Improvisation in Legal Narrative", Critical Studies in Improvisation (Etudes critiques en improvisation), vol. 6, no. 1.
- Authers, B 2009, "The Individual Is International: Discourses of the Personal in Catherine Bush's The Rules of Engagement and Canada's International Policy Statement", University of Toronto Quarterly, vol. 78, no. 2, pp. 782-799.
- Authers, B, Groeneveld, E, Jackson, E, et al 2007, "Engaging Academic Activism, a Preface", Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, vol. 29, no. 4, pp. 311-316.
- Authers, B, Groeneveld, E, Jackson, E, et al (eds.) 2007, The Review of Education, Pedagogy & Cultural Studies, vol. 29 no. 4. Special issue on academia, pedagogy, and activism.
- Authers, B 2005, "'I'm Not Australian, I'm Not Greek, I'm Not Anything': Identity and the Multicultural Nation in Christos Tsiolkas's Loaded", Association for the Study of Australian Literature Journal, vol. 4, no. 2005, pp. 133-145.
- Authers, B 2004-2012, Contributions to Orlando: Women's Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present. Susan Brown, Patricia Clements, and Isobel Grundy (eds.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006.
- Authers, B 2001, "Review of Authority and Influence: Australian Literary Criticism 1950-2000." Dalhousie Review vol 81, pp. 462-63.
Projects and Grants
Grants information is drawn from ARIES. To add or update Projects or Grants information please contact your College Research Office.
- Strengthening the international human rights system: Rights, regulation and ritualism (Secondary Investigator)
