Mary Besemeres

Background

Mary Besemeres was born on the 26th of February, 1972 in Warsaw, Poland; the daughter of John Besemeres, an international relations analyst, and Anna Besemeres, a university professor and linguist.

Education

Mary Besemeres studied at Australian National University, where she earned her bachelor's degree with honors in 1993, then in 2000 she completed her Doctor of Philosophy degree.

Career

Mary Besemeres was a volunteer at Amnesty International from 1998 to 1999. She worked as a lecturer at Australian National University, Canberra in 2000. After that she was a postdoctoral fellow from 2000 to 2001 at National University of Singapore, Singapore and was a visiting fellow at Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western Australia in 2001 and in 2002 - a postdoctoral fellow. Mary Besemeres is an Honorary Lecturer in the School of Literature, Languages.

Mary Besemeres wrote "Translating One's Self: Language and Selfhood in Cross-Cultural Autobiography" in 2002. With Anna Wierzbicka, she co-edited "Translating Lives: Living with Two Languages and Cultures" in 2007. Now she serves on editorial board at Life Writing journal.

Achievements

• Mary Besemeres is a contributor to books including "Selves Crossing Cultures: Autobiography and Globalization" in 2002; "Exile, Language, and Identity" in 2003; "Anglophone Cultures in Southeast Asia: Appropriations, Continuities, Contexts" in 2003. She is also a contributor to periodicals including Biography, Auto/Biography Studies, Canadian Slavonic Papers, Russian Review, Journal of Australian Studies, Pragmatics and Cognition, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, and Polish Review. She was founding co-editor of the Routledge journal Life Writing.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Translating Lives: Living with Two Languages and Cultures

    (Recounting the personal experiences of 12 bilingual Austr...)

    2007
  • Translating One's Self: Language and Selfhood in Cross-Cultural Autobiography

    (Examining contemporary works of autobiography, fiction, a...)

    2002

Membership

Mary Besemeres is a member of the Amnesty International.

Interests

• Bush walking, reading poetry

Connections

Mary Besemeres is married to Nigel Little. They have a daughter, Elizabeth.

Father:

John Frank Besemeres

Mother:

Anna Wierzbicka

Anna Wierzbicka published seminal books on language and culture.

husband:

Nigel Little

Daughter:

Elizabeth Little