AustLit

'Contemporary Aboriginal fiction frequently emphasises the significance of being interrelated with the land, or Country, which is often described as a bodily feeling. In this chapter, I draw on recent approaches to embodiment to explore the various ways in which novels by Kim Scott, Alexis Wright, and Tara June Winch convey a notion of feeling the land through embodied simulation. Examining a range of textual markers that evoke bodily reactions, I seek to show how Aboriginal fiction implicates the reader’s body to convey the vitality of the land and to potentially elicit moments of corporeal interconnectedness. This chapter shows that linking attention to form with cognitive approaches constitutes a helpful framework to explain the political and cultural work Aboriginal narratives do as literary interventions into current discourses about humanity’s relationship with the environment.'

Source: Abstract.