Projects per year
Personal profile
Biography
I specialise in literature, screen media, and culture from the nineteenth century onwards, with an emphasis on biblical reception, religion and literature, emotions, gender, and sexualities.
Author of Touching God: Hopkins and Love (2012) and Gender, Sexuality, and the Song of Songs in Victorian Literature and Culture (forthcoming 2019), and co-editor of Queer Victorian Families: Curious Relations in Literature (2015), my articles have appeared in such journals as Australian Literary Studies, Victorian Literature and Culture, Victorian Poetry, Religion and Literature, Literature and Theology, and The Hopkins Quarterly.
I am currently a Research Fellow in Media and Communication at UWA, working on an ARC-funded project exploring the reception of queer Australian film and television.
I also specialise in improving systems in higher education. I have written policy reports on research-informed teaching and am the lead author of a 70-page research report about the LGBT student experience at UWA. The resultant report is the first of its kind in Australia and includes recommendations to UWA and the Student Guild to improve LGBT student inclusion.
Current projects
I have a contract with The Ohio State University Press to publish my next book, Gender, Sexuality, and the Song of Songs in Victorian Literature and Culture. Appearing in their series 'Literature, Religion, and Postsecular Studies', the book explores how the Song of Songs was used to fashion, and to contest, the norms of romantic love, sexual relations, gender roles, and marriage in Victorian and early twentieth-century literature and culture. The project was funded by an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award.
I am working on a new research project about Christian publishing and female readerships in the US, UK, and Australia.
Funding overview
University of Western Australia
Alumni Fund Grants (2016)
Total funding: $20,000
Australian Research Council
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (ARC DECRA) (2013-2016)
Total funding: $295,363
University of Western Australia
UWA ECR Fellowship Support Program (2013-2016)
Total funding: $29,142
University of Western Australia
Australian Postgraduate Award (APA) (2000-2003)
Total Funding: $60,295
University of Western Australia
Winthrop Scholarship (2000)
Total funding: $7,500
Travel awards from the North American Victorian Studies Association, Australasian Victorian Studies Association, UWA Faculty of Arts, UWA Alumni Funds.
Previous positions
After being awarded my PhD, and before returning to the university sector, I worked in health communication for several years at the WA Mental Health Commission. Specialising in publications, public relations, and marketing, I established and became the first Editor of a statewide mental health magazine aimed at a general readership (the first of its kind in Australia), developed strategic proactive and reactive media approaches, and was the head speechwriter for the Mental Health Minister and the Mental Health Commissioner. I have also worked in the areas of strategic marketing, inclusion and diversity, and policy development.
Teaching overview
I have taught widely, from film to TV, to canonical literature, gender studies, professional writing, history, media, advocacy, and health promotion. Highlights include teaching James Joyce's Ulysses over several weeks, and co-teaching -- with Fred Roden at the University of Connecticut -- Alfred Tennyson's In Memoriam.
Research interests
Current and Future
Literature from the nineteenth century onwards
Literature and religion
Christian publishing
Feminist, black, and queer reception of the Bible
Emotions
Sexualities
Film and television
Digital media
Female authors and readers
Higher Education policy
Keywords
- Victorian literature
- Contemporary Literature
- Literature and theology
- Biblical reception
- Emotions
- Sexualities
- Christian publishing
- Female readers
- Female authors
- Film and TV
- Digital media and cultures
- Pornography and erotica
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Projects 2013 2015
- 2 Finished
The Song of Songs in Victorian Literature and Culture
University of Western Australia
1/01/13 → 31/12/15
Project: Research
The Song of Songs in Victorian Literature & Culture
ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards
1/01/13 → 31/12/15
Project: Research
Research Output 2003 2019
Gender and Sexuality
Dau, D., 2019, (Accepted/In press) The Routledge Handbook of Victorian Literature. Denisoff, D. & Schaffer, T. (eds.). New York: RoutledgeResearch output: Chapter in Book/Conference paper › Chapter
'Stronger than death’: The Song of Songs in Michael Field’s Poetry and Life-writing
Dau, D., 2019, In : Religion and Literature.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
Ethics
Dau, D., 30 Aug 2018, In : Victorian Literature and Culture. 46, 3-4, p. 684-687 4 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
‘I love her and, as to different, well, she’s a lizard’: Queer and Interspecies Relationships in Doctor Who
Gerzic, M. & Dau, D., 14 Dec 2018, In : Neo-Victorian Studies. 11, 1, p. 111-140 29 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
The Song of Songs for Difficult Queers: Simeon Solomon, Neil Bartlett, and A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep
Dau, D. T., 2017, Queer Difficulty in Art and Poetry: Rethinking the Sexed Body in Verse and Visual Culture. Kim, J. J. & Reed, C. (eds.). Abingdon, UK: Routledge, p. 34-47 14 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference paper › Chapter
Prizes
The Vice-Chancellor’s Research Award for Early Career Investigators
Duc Dau (Recipient), 2014
Prize/award: Prize
Press / Media
Fifty shades of erotica: how sex in literature went mainstream
13/02/17
1 media contribution
Press/Media: Press / Media
After Cate McGregor and Caitlyn Jenner, what now for trans rights?
6/05/15
1 media contribution
Press/Media: Press / Media
Religion par excellence: can the Bible be useful to atheists?
31/03/15
1 media contribution
Press/Media: Press / Media