Associate ProfessorPeter Kirkpatrick

Peter Kirkpatrick’s research is in Australian literature and cultural history. He is the author of The Sea Coast of Bohemia: Literary Life in Sydney’s Roaring Twenties (2^nd edn, 2007), and co-editor of Serious Frolic: Essays on Australian Humour (2009) and Republics of Letters: Literary Communities in Australia (2012). He is especially interested in poetry, and his latest book The Wild Reciter: Poetry and Popular Culture in Australia, 1890 to the Present (2024) was shortlisted in the Australian History category of the 2025 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. His current research project is a study of Australian gothic literature and film. As a poet he has published three collections, most recently The Hard Word (2021), and is working towards a fourth.