AustLit logo

AustLit

image of person or book cover 7477374499386693108.jpg
Franks in 2016
Travis Franks (International) assertion Travis Franks i(13356190 works by)
Born: Established: 1984 Texas,
c
United States of America (USA),
c
Americas, ;
Gender: Male
Visitor assertion Arrived in Australia: ca. 20 Feb 2017 Departed from Australia: ca. 20 Dec 2017
Heritage: American
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Works By

Preview all
1 Uncanny Encounters and Haunting Colonial Histories in Australia’s Reconciliation-era Narratives Travis Franks , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: Settler Colonial Studies , vol. 13 no. 3 2023; (p. 398-418) Settler literature is haunted by the colonial past. Motifs found in the Australian literary tradition signify this haunting-Aboriginal spectrality, uncanny Aboriginal ceremonial grounds, and taboo massacre sites being the most common. Settler authors typically use these literary devices in moments of social and political upheaval that disturb the foundational myths of settler belonging. Australia's Reconciliation agenda brought realities of colonial frontier violence and the scale of Aboriginal deaths to the fore of mainstream socio-political consciousness. Literary scholars have adapted Freud's concept of the uncanny to argue that settler belonging feels imperiled or strange when confronted with the distressing knowledge of Aboriginal modernity. Overwhelmingly, the manufacture of Aboriginal haunting in Australia's Reconciliation—era signifies settler anxiety and attempts to reclaim the authority unsettled by Indigenous alterity. Works by Henry Reynolds—Why Weren't We Told? (2000)—and Alex Miller-Journey to the Stone Country (2003)—are representative of a broader literary response to Reconciliation, after which depictions of Aboriginal death and burial, as well as new settler quests for belonging, proliferated. The essay concludes by reading Noongar writer Kim Scott's novel Taboo (2017) as a subversion of works like those by Reynolds and Miller.
1 Remaking Contact in That Deadman Dance : Australian Reconciliation Politics, Noongar Welcoming Protocol, and Makarrata Travis Franks , 2022 single work criticism
— Appears in: Ariel : A Review of International English Literature , October vol. 53 no. 4 2022; (p. 91-122) 'In this article, I make the case for Noongar novelist Kim Scott's That Deadman Dance (2010) to be seen as an exemplar of Aboriginal-centered literary imaginings of reconciliation based primarily on adherence to traditional Laws rather than the state's limited recognition of native title. The novel decenters settler contact narratives through its depiction of Noongar welcoming protocols, thus affirming pre-colonial Aboriginal sovereignty. Furthermore, I contend that, through the novel's culminating scene in which settlers fail to understand protagonist Bobby Wabalanginy's ceremonial dance, which calls for justice through truth-telling and peace-making, Scott narrativizes the settler nation's inability to understand or accept terms of apology, forgiveness, and reconciliation derived from Indigenous cultural and political beliefs. Recognizing That Deadman Dance is not merely historical fiction but a novel about remaking contact draws attention to the all-too-frequently superficial performativity of settler-centric reconciliation politics and calls for narratives that do more than just meditate on settler guilt and complicity.' 

(Publication abstract)
1 Settler-Aboriginal Alliance and the Threat of Foreign Invasion in Baz Luhrmann's Australia Travis Franks , 2020 single work criticism
— Appears in: Cinematic Settlers : The Settler Colonial World in Film 2020; (p. 38-49)
1 Geoff Rodoreda's The Mabo Turn in Australian Fiction Travis Franks , 2018 single work review
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 3 no. 18 2018;
— Review of The Mabo Turn in Australian Fiction Geoff Rodoreda , 2017 multi chapter work criticism

'Geoff Rodoreda earned his PhD from the University of Stuttgart, Germany, where he is now a lecturer in the English literature department. His first book, The Mabo Turn in Australian Fiction, is the result of Rodoreda’s doctoral project, with portions of some chapters having appeared in journals and anthologies published in Australia and Germany. Prior to his academic pursuits, Rodoreda worked in Adelaide and Darwin as a journalist for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.'  (Introduction)
1 y separately published work icon Contemporary Settler Literature : Resources for Students and Teachers Travis Franks , St Lucia : AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource , 2017 13356230 2017 single work multimedia bibliography

'Here you will find an introduction to settler colonial theory and contemporary settler colonial literature. This exhibition is intended to survey the major and minor authors, works, and ideas involved with settler colonial writing in Australia, and, to a lesser extent, the United States, since the 1990s.

'In addition to the overview statements on this page, you can click on other tabs to see timeline of publication dates in historical context, a glossary of common terms, an annotated bibliography of primary and secondary sources, brief discussions of themes and motifs useful for student researchers and teachers interested in including settler colonialism in their curricula, and information about comparative settler colonial studies between Australia and the US.'

Source: Abstract.
X