Simon During

During studied as an undergraduate at Victoria University, Wellington and then at the University of Auckland, before completing his PhD at the University of Cambridge. In 1983, he joined the English Department at the University of Melbourne as a tutor, where, ten years later and after visiting positions at the University of Auckland and the Rhetoric Dept, UC Berkeley, he was appointed to the Robert Wallace chair. After establishing the Cultural Studies, Media and Communications and Publishing programs at Melbourne, he left for Johns Hopkins University in 2001, and taught in the English department there for nine years.{{cite web |title=Simon during |url=http://politicsslashletters.org/features/literary-academia-simon-reflects-part/ |website=Politics Slash Letters |access-date=30 November 2024}}

Between 2010 and 2017 he was a Research Professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Queensland and in 2018 was appointed a [https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/profile/12576-simon-during Professorial Fellow] at the University of Melbourne. He has also held visiting positions at the Frei Universität Berlin, Universität Tübingen, the American Academy of Rome, Princeton University, the University of Cambridge, Université de Paris and elsewhere. In 2001 he was awarded a Centenary Medal by the Australian Prime Minister for services to the humanities. In 2019 he lectured and travelled in Kerala as a recipient of Kerala's Higher Education Council's Erudite Scholar award.{{cite web |title=Erudite Lectures |url=https://sol.mgu.ac.in/erudite-lectures/ |website=School of Letters |access-date=30 November 2024}} He was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities  in 2000. {{Cite web |title=Fellow Profile: Simon During |url=https://humanities.org.au/fellows/fellow-profile/?fellow_id=338 |access-date=2024-05-02 |website=Australian Academy of the Humanities |language=en-AU}}

He is listed as “Foucault consultant” in the film Ghosts of the Civil Dead by John Hillcoat and Nick Cave.{{Citation needed|date=July 2024}}

During’s scholarly work has covered a wide range of topics. The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Criticism and Theory notes that he was the first to use the term “post-colonialism” in its current sense, and in the 1980s helped show the degree to which the West’s culture has been shaped by imperialism.{{cite book |last1=Groden, Kreiswirth, Szeman |title=The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism |date=2005 |publisher=The Johns Hopkins University Press |location=Baltimore, Maryland |pages=759 |edition=2 |ref=poco}} Patrick Evans, in The Penguin History of New Zealand Literature, claimed that his 1980s work on New Zealand literature and culture constituted “one of the most important observations ever made” on that culture.{{cite book |last1=Evans |first1=Patrick |title=The Penguin History of New Zealand LiteraTure |date=1990 |publisher=Penguin Books |page=250 }}  His Patrick White (1996) controversially introduced postcolonial and queer understandings to the study of Australian literature.{{cite web |title=A paler shade of White |date=21 June 2003 |url=https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/a-paler-shade-of-white-20030621-gdgyqd.html}} His anthology The Cultural Studies Reader remains a standard textbook in the field, and helped popularize cultural studies as a discipline globally. Wang Ning has said that During’s cultural studies work was “the most widely quoted” in China.{{cite web |last1=Wang Ning |title=A Paler Shade of White |date=21 June 2003 |url= https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/a-paler-shade-of-white-20030621-gdgyqd.html) |access-date=30 November 2024}}

More recently During has contributed to the study of British literary history, and analysed secularism, conservatism and the humanities generally.  He has also been associated with postcritique.[4] Andrew Dean has argued that the shift of his intellectual interests across career is emblematic for his generation as a whole.{{cite journal |last1=Dean |first1=Andrew |title=Simon During, Crisis Talk and the Legacies of the 1980s |journal=Australian Literary Studies |date=30 October 2023 |volume=38 |issue=2 }} For the past decade, During's work has mainly focused on the history and theory of the humanities. Humanities Theory, co-authored with Amanda Anderson is expected from Oxford University Press in 2025. He also has a longstanding interest in relations between Anglicanism and literature between 1688 and 1945.

During's great–aunt was the Czech artist Gertrud Kauders who died in Theresienstadt in 1942.{{Cite journal |last=Chapple |first=Geoff |date=10 October 2020 |title=To Prague, with love |journal=Listener |pages=11–15}} His father, who was a prominent soil scientist, changed his name from Cornelius Kauders to Peter During on arrival in New Zealand in the 1940s. His mother, Dr Zoe During, was a pioneering medical officer of health in South Auckland and elsewhere.{{cite web |url=https://www.earlymedwomen.auckland.ac.nz/2024/05/12/zoe-petronella-during-nee-smuts-kennedy/ |title=Zoë Petronella During (Nee Smuts-Kennedy) |date=12 May 2024 }} The neuroscientist Matthew During was his brother. During is married to the Australian academic Lisa O’Connell and has two children, Nicholas and Cornelia During.{{Citation needed|date=July 2024}}

His work has been translated into many languages.  His books include Foucault and Literature (Routledge 1991), Patrick White (Oxford 1994),  Cultural Studies: a critical introduction (Routledge 2005), Exit Capitalism, literary culture, theory and post-secular modernity (Routledge 2010) and, most recently, Against Democracy: literary experience in the era of emancipations (Fordham 2012). Perhaps his best-known book is Modern Enchantments: The Cultural and Secular Power of Magic (Harvard, 2002), which argues that stage magic and special effects have possessed a cultural power neglected by cultural historians. {{cite journal |last1=Reed |first1=Brian |title=Modern Enchantments: The Cultural Power of Secular Magic (review) |journal=MLQ: Modern Language Quarterly |date=April 12, 2004 |volume=64 |issue=4 |pages=605–608 |doi=10.1215/00267929-65-4-605 }}{{cite news |title=Modern Enchantments |newspaper=The Guardian |date=27 September 2002 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/sep/28/highereducation.news |last1=Flint |first1=James }}

• {{cite book |title=The Cultural Studies Reader |year=1993 |isbn=9780415077095 |last1= |first1= |publisher=Routledge}}
• {{cite book |title=Foucault and Literature |year=1993 |isbn=9780415012423 |last1= |first1= |publisher=Psychology Press}}
• Patrick White (1996) ISBN 9780195534979
• {{cite book |title=Modern Enchantments: The Cultural Power of Secular Magic |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=2002 |isbn=9780674006072}}
• {{cite book |title=Cultural Studies: A Critical Introduction |publisher=Routledge |year=2005 |isbn=9780415246569}}
• {{cite book|title=The Cultural Studies Reader|edition=Third|year=2007}}
• {{cite book |title=Exit Capitalism: Literary Culture, Theory and Post-Secular Modernity |publisher=Routledge |year=2009 |isbn=9780203872642}}
• {{cite book |title=Against Democracy: Literary Experience in the Era of Emancipations |publisher=Fordham University Press |year=2012 |isbn=9780823242542}}

{{Reflist}}

• [http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/26/najafi.php Modern Enchantments: An Interview with Simon During]
• [http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2010/12/10/endgame-capitalism-an-interview-with-simon-during/]

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Category:1950 births

Category:Historians of magic

Category:University of Melbourne alumni

Category:Living people

Category:New Zealand emigrants to Australia

Category:Immigrants to Australia

Category:Fellows of the Australian Academy of the Humanities