This paper introduces the concept of 'reading resilience': students' ability to read and interpret complex and demanding literary texts by drawing on advanced, engaged, critical reading skills. Reading resilience is a means for rethinking the place and pedagogies of close reading in the contemporary literary studies classroom. Our research was across four Australian universities and the first study of its kind in the Australian context. We trialled three working strategies to support students to become consistent and skilled readers, and to equip teachers with methods for coaching reading: 'setting the scene' for reading, surveying students on their reading experiences and habits, and rewarding reading within assessment. We argue that the nature and pedagogy of close reading has not been interrogated as much as it should be and that the building of reading resilience is less about modelling or outlining best practice for close reading (as has traditionally been thought) and more about deploying contextual, studentcentred teaching and learning strategies around reading. The goal is to encourage students to develop a broad suite of skills and knowledge around reading that will equip them long term (for the university and beyond). We measured the effectiveness of our strategies through seeking formal and informal student feedback, and through students' demonstration of skills and knowledge within assessment.

There have recently been a series of high-profile media controversies around inappropriate selfies taken by young self-portraitists at trauma memorial sites. Popular media critiques propose that the selfie is a self-centred and disrespectful response to traumatic histories. In this article, I consider such selfies in light of cultural shifts in second-person witnessing. I propose that these selfies prompt a rethink for theorists of witnessing. What can we learn from these selfies regarding the ways that young people, mobile technologies and social media are impacting the way people may respond to communal traumas?

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The 2011 reality television series Go Back to Where You Came From used established narrative modes of stunt memoir, testimony, and conversion to start a public conversation about Australia’s recent treatment of asylum seekers. This essay explores both the cultural possibilities and the pitfalls of the series’ textually-hybrid approach.

This article brings recent debates in literary studies regarding the practice of close reading into conversation with Derek Attridge's idea of 'readerly hospitality ' (2004) to diagnose the problem of students in undergraduate literary studies programme not completing set reading. We argue that the method of close reading depends on encouraging students to foster positive affective responses towards difficulty -semiotic, emotional and intellectual. Drawing on trials of teaching methods in literary studies' classrooms in four universities in Australia, we suggest that introducing students to the concept of 'readerly hospitality' -rather than assuming an appreciation of difficultycan better prepare students for the encounters they will have in set literary texts and strengthen the effectiveness of classroom teaching.