AustLit
Latest Issues
Contents
- Arrivals, single work biography (p. 7 -17)
-
Necessary Idiocy and the Idea of Freedom,
single work
criticism
biography
I would like to tell you a simple story. This story comes to me by way of Robert Bly, the American poet. Writers, he says, need to preserve their frogskins. Frog-skins, not foreskins; though writing can be something of a circumcision when forced into categories — some-thing between public ritual and private pain. To counteract this phallocentrism let me offer you the metaphor of writing as woman, not only as the re-pressed, but as the source. (Introduction)
- Memoirs of a Displaced Person, single work biography (p. 39 -58)
- Masked Balls: Or, All Translators are Faithless, single work criticism biography (p. 125 -136)
- Writing Asia, extract criticism (p. 139 -171)
- The Last Ten Years, single work prose (p. 172 -178)
- Lesions, single work criticism (p. 179 -202)
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Dangerous Dancing : Autobiography & Disinheritance,
single work
prose
Brian Castro talks about why, at this time, he is drawn to the fabrication of autobiography over that of the novel. He asks and rehearses questions about writing and risk relative to family, memory and subjectivity in view, or in shadow, of contemporary Australian literature and politics.
- Departures, single work biography (p. 253 -258)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Nation, Identity, and Subjectivity in Globalizing Literature
2014
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Coolabah , no. 13 2014; (p. 1-12)'Since the end of the 20th century, particularly after the Cold War ended, national borderlines have been redrawn many times in the areas of the Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and a wide range of Asia, and people started crossing national borderlines to immigrate to other countries. As a result, the definition of a modern nation with one ethnicity, one language, and one culture collapsed. Under the policy of multiculturalism, Australia accepts immigrants from all over the world, and Australian literature at present is characterized as being ethnically, culturally, and linguistically hybrid. In this paper I look at Australian writers such as Brian Castro and Nam Le and compare them with other writers who are considered post-colonial writers, such as Salman Rushdie, V.S. Naipaul and Kazuo Ishiguro. I focus on how these writers attempt to present their identities along with their subjectivities. I also compare them with a Japanese writer, Haruki Murakami, whose literary works are widely read throughout the world, crossing cultural, ethnic, and language barriers, even though he writes in Japanese and has a mono-cultural background. I investigate the reason why Murakami’s works are accepted by many contemporary readers worldwide. I finally explore the meaning of national identity and subjectivity in the globalizing world, and clarify the transformation of modern literature.' (Author's abstract)
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Transcultural Writers and Transcultural Literature in the Age of Global Modernity
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Transnational Literature , May vol. 4 no. 2 2012; -
Writing Hybridity : The Theory and Practice of Autobiography in Rey Chow's "The Secrets of Ethnic Abjection" and Brian Castro's Shanghai Dancing
2011
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 25 no. 2 2011; (p. 125-130) Katherine Hallemeier employs a close reading of Rey Chow's essay "The Secrets of Ethic Abjection' (2012) and Brian Castro's autobiographical essays in Looking for Estrellita (1999) and his fictional autobiography Shanghai Dancing (2003) and argues that both authors 'are similar insofar as their writing challenges essentialist understanding of hybrid identity by in fact straddling the genres of autobiography and theory'. (p. 125)
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"Grammars of Creation” : An Interview with Brian Castro : 24 November 2008
Marilyne Brun
(interviewer),
2011
single work
interview
— Appears in: Journal of the European Association for Studies on Australia , vol. 2 no. 1 2011; 'This interview with contemporary Australian writer Brian Castro addresses a number of themes and concepts that are central to his critical work and fiction. In the interview, Castro discusses his oeuvre as a whole, providing insights into the starting point for his first eight novels. He comments on the concepts of transgression, hybridity, polyphonia, cosmopolitanism and play, underlining the central significance of grammar, ethics and aesthetics in his work. The interview also includes reflections on the development of Asian Australian studies and the importance of translating novels. In the final sections of the interview, Castro discusses the relation between his critical work and his novels and reflects on the common conflation of the novelist and the theorist in much literary criticism.' Source: Marilyne Brun. -
Writing Chinese Diaspora : After the 'White Australia Policy'
2009
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Reading Down Under : Australian Literary Studies Reader 2009; (p. 263-270) Australian Made : A Multicultural Reader 2010; (p. 158-172) An overview of Chinese-Australian writing.
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African Chicken
1999
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , December-January no. 217 (p. 12-13)
— Review of Looking for Estrellita 1999 selected work prose criticism biography -
Essaying Some Home Truths
1999
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 25 December 1999; (p. 8)
— Review of Looking for Estrellita 1999 selected work prose criticism biography ; The Quality of Sprawl : Thoughts about Australia 1999 selected work prose autobiography criticism essay -
He Says, She Says
2000
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 8 January 2000; (p. 11)
— Review of Looking for Estrellita 1999 selected work prose criticism biography -
[Review] Looking for Estrellita
2000
single work
review
— Appears in: Imago : New Writing , vol. 12 no. 2 2000; (p. 89-92)
— Review of Looking for Estrellita 1999 selected work prose criticism biography -
Untitled
2000
single work
review
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , no. 65 2000; (p. 215-216)
— Review of Looking for Estrellita 1999 selected work prose criticism biography -
Writing Chinese Diaspora : After the 'White Australia Policy'
2009
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Reading Down Under : Australian Literary Studies Reader 2009; (p. 263-270) Australian Made : A Multicultural Reader 2010; (p. 158-172) An overview of Chinese-Australian writing. -
Taking the Multicultural Out of Culture
2000
single work
criticism
biography
— Appears in: The Sunday Age , 3 September 2000; (p. 10) -
Discourses of Uprooting, Discourses of Re-Routing : Autobiographical Discourse and Cultural Nomadism in Foucault, Castro and Flusser
2007
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Polyculturalism and Discourse 2007; (p. 121-60) -
"Grammars of Creation” : An Interview with Brian Castro : 24 November 2008
Marilyne Brun
(interviewer),
2011
single work
interview
— Appears in: Journal of the European Association for Studies on Australia , vol. 2 no. 1 2011; 'This interview with contemporary Australian writer Brian Castro addresses a number of themes and concepts that are central to his critical work and fiction. In the interview, Castro discusses his oeuvre as a whole, providing insights into the starting point for his first eight novels. He comments on the concepts of transgression, hybridity, polyphonia, cosmopolitanism and play, underlining the central significance of grammar, ethics and aesthetics in his work. The interview also includes reflections on the development of Asian Australian studies and the importance of translating novels. In the final sections of the interview, Castro discusses the relation between his critical work and his novels and reflects on the common conflation of the novelist and the theorist in much literary criticism.' Source: Marilyne Brun. -
Writing Hybridity : The Theory and Practice of Autobiography in Rey Chow's "The Secrets of Ethnic Abjection" and Brian Castro's Shanghai Dancing
2011
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 25 no. 2 2011; (p. 125-130) Katherine Hallemeier employs a close reading of Rey Chow's essay "The Secrets of Ethic Abjection' (2012) and Brian Castro's autobiographical essays in Looking for Estrellita (1999) and his fictional autobiography Shanghai Dancing (2003) and argues that both authors 'are similar insofar as their writing challenges essentialist understanding of hybrid identity by in fact straddling the genres of autobiography and theory'. (p. 125)