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.
Latest Issues
AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'The contemporary study of Australian literature, as befitting that of a country that has been at the forefront of postcolonial studies, is a highly self-conscious and theoreticised enterprise, carried on now by academics across the globe and not just by Australians concerned to privilege a discourse of national assertion and specificity, as used to be the case. This volume accordingly deals with issues such as the tensions between literary and cultural studies, indigenous autobiography, postcolonial nostalgia, masculinity, the placing of Australia in the Pacific and in Asia, the uses of Australian literature in the United States, and includes the considerations of such widely-studied authors as Mudrooroo, Peter Carey and Patrick White.'
Source: Book jacket.
Notes
-
Editor's note: 'This group of studies first appeared in a special issue of Australian Studies, ISSN 0954-0954, Vol.15, No.2 (Winter 2000) published by Frank Cass and Co. Ltd.'
Contents
* Contents derived from the
Portland,
Oregon,
c
United States of America (USA),c
Americas,:
London,
c
England,c
c
United Kingdom (UK),c
Western Europe,
Europe,:Frank Cass Publishers
, 2002 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.-
Australian Literary Studies Bushwhacked?,
single work
criticism
(p. 1-16)David Callahan provides an introduction to the collection of essays, reflecting on the 'insecurity' felt within the discipline of Australian literary studies.
-
Cyberspace and Oz Lit : Mark Davis, McKenzie Wark and the Re-Alignment of Australian Literature,
single work
criticism
(p. 17-36)Ruth Brown argues that 'the globalised milieu in which any literature must now be read is so vastly different from anything that has gone before that it requires a complete re-think of what constitutes a "national" literature' (18). After analysing the arguments of Davis and Wark, she looks at the role of Australian studies offshore in this rethinking, both in terms of celebrity and commodity culture and in critical reflection.
- Ethnic Autobiography and the Cult of Authenticity, single work criticism (p. 37-62)
-
Melancholy in Mudrooroo's Dr Wooreddy's Prescription,
single work
criticism
(p. 63-83)The author writes: 'In this essay, I will focus on a recent Australian novel [Dr Wooreddy's Prescription for Enduring the End of the World] to support my contention that the concept of melancholy was being employed by indigenous writers in the 1980s, at the very time postmodernism was gaining ascendancy, precisely because of its oppositional potential. At the same time, in using a text by an Aboriginal writer, I hope to be able to shed some light on the question of the universal appeal of melancholy' (63).
- Abjection and Nationality in Patrick White's A Fringe of Leaves, single work criticism (p. 84-94)
-
Misogyny, Muscles and Machines : Cars and Masculinity in Australian Literature,
single work
criticism
(p. 95-111)Rebecca Johinke reads Peter Carey's short story 'Crabs' for 'insight into the self-defeating pursuit of normative masculinities in the Australian car culture' (95).
-
May in September : Australian Literature as Anglophone Alternative,
single work
criticism
(p. 112-132)Nicholas Birns considers that attractions of Australian literary studies for overseas scholars. In the second part of his essay, Birns offers close readings of several of Gerald Murnane's short stories to argue that paying 'heed to Australian writing can vividly and unpredictably renovate 'English' as a discipline' (128).
-
From European Satellite to Asian Backwater?,
single work
criticism
(p. 133-152)Lars Jensen reads Adib Khan's Seasonal Adjustments in order to discuss 'how Australia looks from a comparative Asian perspective' (134).
-
Australia in Oceania,
single work
criticism
(p. 153-172)Juniper Ellis argues: 'If Oceania properly includes Australia, an Australia that emerges anew when seen in the context of this long-standing Pacific panorama, then Australian post-coloniality must be comprised not only of local and national forces but also of regional ones' (155). Ellis reads the work of Albert Wendt, Sia Figiel, Vilsoni Hereniko and John Kasaipwalova for connections to and reflections on Australia.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Related Works
-
y
Australian Studies
vol.
15
no.
2
Winter
David Callahan
(editor),
2000
London
:
Frank Cass Publishers
,
2002
Z941634
2000
periodical issue
Last amended 25 Jan 2016 14:37:24
Export this record
