AustLit logo
Oliver Haag Oliver Haag i(A121337 works by)
Gender: Male
Heritage: Austrian
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 [Review] “And There'll Be NO Dancing”. Perspectives on Policies Impacting Indigenous Australia Since 2007 Oliver Haag , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: International Journal of Critical Indigenous Studies , February vol. 10 no. 1 2017;

— Review of 'And There'll Be NO Dancing' : Perspectives on Policies Impacting Indigenous Australia since 2007 2017 anthology criticism
1 Translating a Genre : A Comparative Analysis of the Popularity of Indigenous Australian Autobiographies in Australia and Germany Oliver Haag , 2015 single work criticism
— Appears in: Zeitschrift für Australienstudien , December no. 29 2015; (p. 27-47)
1 Becoming Privileged in Australia: Romany Europe, Indigenous Australia and the Transformation of Race Oliver Haag , 2014 single work criticism essay autobiography
— Appears in: Ngapartji Ngapartji, in Turn, in Turn : Ego-histoire, Europe and Indigenous Australia 2014; (p. 125-139)

'This chapter explores the different discourses of race as they affected my position as a German-speaking scholar of Indigenous Australian studies. There are difficulties, at times even impossibilities, in translating Australian meanings of race into a German-speaking context. The silencing of ‘race’ in German-speaking academia, especially in leftist circles, has led to a difficulty to reclaim difference. This silencing was cracked in Australia, where I had suddenly ‘inherited’ more than one race. The retranslation of these discourses into German-speaking contexts meant, again, a loss of my race and proved a difficulty for German-speaking scholars to handle a concept so profound for (Indigenous) Australian studies: race.' (Introduction)

1 Introduction: ‘Ngapartji Ngapartji: In Turn, In Turn’—Ego-histoire and Australian Indigenous Studies Vanessa Castejon , Anna Cole , Oliver Haag , Karen Hughes , 2014 single work criticism
— Appears in: Ngapartji Ngapartji, in Turn, in Turn : Ego-histoire, Europe and Indigenous Australia 2014; (p. 3-19)

'These are stories, histories. They emerged in part from encounters between scholars from Australia and Europe that offered a transnational way to think about culture, class, ethnicity, identity, inbetweenness and whiteness in Australian Indigenous studies. Our intention was to weave together professional and personal accounts of studies that have Australia and Indigeneity at their heart. The origins of this book lie in a discussion between Anna Cole and Vanessa Castejon that took place after a European Australian Studies conference at the Universitat de Barcelona’s Centre d’Estudis Australians in 2008. Over breakfast they wondered why many of the Australian scholars speaking on Indigenous topics at the conference did not reflect on their role in representing Indigenous Australia in and to Europe, despite the achievements of self-determination and self-reflexivity. That this conversation took place one morning in Barcelona—the place that Vanessa’s parents had been exiled from during the Spanish civil war—was significant. The power of place to unlock stories and to allow them to be felt and have an impact was something we had learned to articulate from working alongside Indigenous Australian historians and cultural custodians. So Vanessa and Anna started with themselves, trying to understand more about how their histories fed their motivations to work in Australian Indigenous history. Subsequently Anna and Vanessa were invited by John Docker, Ann Curthoys and Frances Peters-Little to publish these ego-histoires in Passionate Histories (Peters-Little, Curthoys & Docker, 2010) and so began the process of taking ego-histoire out of its strictly European origins and into ‘a broader history of colonialism and postcolonialism’ (Curthoys, 2012).' (Introduction)

1 1 y separately published work icon Ngapartji Ngapartji, in Turn, in Turn : Ego-histoire, Europe and Indigenous Australia Vanessa Castejon (editor), Anna Cole (editor), Oliver Haag (editor), Karen Hughes (editor), Acton : Australian National University Press , 2014 8146885 2014 selected work criticism essay

''These are stories, histories. They emerged in part from encounters between scholars from Australia and Europe that offered a transnational way to think about culture, class, ethnicity, identity, inbetweenness and whiteness in Australian Indigenous studies. Our intention was to weave together professional and personal accounts of studies that have Australia and Indigeneity at their heart. The origins of this book lie in a discussion between Anna Cole and Vanessa Castejon that took place after a European Australian Studies conference at the Universitat de Barcelona’s Centre d’Estudis Australians in 2008.' (Source: Introduction)' (Source: Introduction)

1 Racializing the Social Problem : Reception of Samson and Delilah in Germany Oliver Haag , 2014 single work criticism
— Appears in: Continuum : Journal of Media & Cultural Studies , vol. 28 no. 5 2014; (p. 666-677)
'This article examines elements of German reception of the Aboriginal Australian film Samson and Delilah (2009). There is a discrepancy between the film's recognition at the Cannes Film Festival and its less enthusiastic audience reception. On the basis of qualitative interviews with German viewers, this article traces some of the patterns of reception and shows that audiences did not recognize the cultural codes of Aboriginal sovereignty and agency contained in this film. Instead, Samson and Delilah has largely been interpreted through dominant German cultural frameworks on race and racism. The film's reception has thereby resulted in the opposite effect of a racialized construction of social problems conferred upon Aboriginal Australians. The main reason for different comprehension of the film's cultural codes, as this study argues, lies in the lacking rendition of culturally unfamiliar codes...'
1 A Persisting Fascination : German Interest in Aboriginal Australians Oliver Haag , 2014 single work criticism
— Appears in: Social Alternatives , vol. 33 no. 2 2014; (p. 18-22)
'This article examines the German translations of Jeannie Gunn's The Little Black Princess (1905) (Die kleine schwarze Prinzessin, 2010) and William Peasley's The Last of the Nomads (1982) (Die letzten Nomaden, 2007). The focus rests on the translation of Australian historical and political contexts into the foreign context of German target culture. It argues that the specifics of inter-racial Australian history evident in the two books have been rendered invisible, without the very contexts having completely disappeared. Rather, the translations have reproduced Australian racisms and German ideas of Aboriginal authenticity and traditionalism, as reflected in the notions of the harmonious Naturvolk (natural people). Both translations, the article ultimately contends, testify to the persistency of German ideas of Aboriginal Australia, construing Aboriginal people as timeless, unchanging and pre-modern.' (Publication summary)
1 European Translations of Australian Aboriginal Texts Danica Cerce , Oliver Haag , 2013 single work criticism
— Appears in: A Companion to Australian Aboriginal Literature 2013; (p. 71-88)

'Though the number of translated works written by Australian Aboriginals reflects the increasing interest in their culture, the way these books are translated and marketed often distorts the author's original intentions and distorts how Australian Aboriginals are perceived by many European communities.' In this essay the authors focus on Sally Morgan's My Place and Doris Pilkington's Rabbit Proof Fence to illustrate how European translations have misrepresented the original text for the purpose of adapting translated text to their targeted audience's culture.

1 [Untitled] Oliver Haag , 2013 single work review
— Appears in: Reviews in Australian Studies , vol. 7 no. 5 2013;

— Review of Australien : Realitat - Klioschee - Vision 2012 anthology criticism
1 Representations of Aboriginality in German Translations of Aboriginal Literature : A Study of Peritexts Oliver Haag , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 26 no. 2 2012; (p. 203-208)
In this essay, Haag argues 'that the study of dustcovers and introduction/epilogues assists in scrutinizing the German imagining of Aboriginal culture. Thus the objective of this study is to identify how German publishers of translations have imagined Aboriginal literatures and cultures.' (203)
1 Transcending the National in Australian Studies Bruce Bennett’s Influence on a Discipline Oliver Haag , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: Coolabah , no. 9 2012;
1 A Ruby Langford Ginibi Bibliography, 1988-2012 Oliver Haag , 2012 single work bibliography
— Appears in: Journal of the European Association for Studies of Australia , vol. 3 no. 1 2012; (p. 126-139)
'This article presents a comprehensive list of writing by and about Ruby Langford Ginibi. It is divided into two sections, the first including book chapters, articles and interviews by Ginibi, the second encompassing scholarly analyses, journal articles and reviews about her life and work.' (Author's abstract)
1 ‘Bumping Some Bloody Heads Together’ : A Qualitative Study of German-Speaking Readers of Ruby Langford Ginibi’s Texts Oliver Haag , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of the European Association for Studies of Australia , vol. 3 no. 1 2012; (p. 114-125)
'The writing of Ruby Langford Ginibi has been read, not only within Australia, but also overseas. Often, Indigenous literature is regarded as a primarily national literature, addressed to first and foremost white Australian readers. This article places Ginibi's writing in an overseas context and examines the reactions that Germanspeaking readers have shown to her texts. Drawing on qualitative interviews with readers in Germany and Austria, this study explores the individual techniques of German-speaking readers to connect to the cultural foreign contexts of Ginibi's texts and make sense of them. It also reflects on the author's personal connections to Ginibi's texts and how her writing relates to his own racial contexts in Central Europe.' (Author's abstract)
1 A Life for the Truth : A Tribute to Ruby Langford Ginibi Oliver Haag , Linda Westphalen , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of the European Association for Studies of Australia , vol. 3 no. 1 2012; (p. 1-7)
'One of the most significant Indigenous Australian authors, Ruby Langford Ginibi, a member of the Bundjalung Nation and the Sydney Koori community, took the courageous step in 1988, the year of the Bicentenary of British colonisation of Australia, of telling a largely ignorant non-Aboriginal audience about what it was like to live her life. She recorded this life in a pivotal text: Don't Take Your Love to Town. This book, as the pages which follow indicate, had a lasting impact on many readers, both in Australia and worldwide. Thus began an extraordinary writing career, a career seemingly out of step with an equally extraordinary life lived in bush camps and subsidised housing, raising nine of her own children and many of other people's, working in backbreaking menial jobs not considered suitable for 'white' women. This edition of the Journal of the European Association for Studies on Australia is to honour the life of Dr Aunty Ruby Langford Ginibi, her works and her contributions, large and public, larger and private, to literature and history, in Australia and worldwide, to institutions and individuals.' (Authors introduction, 1)
1 Indigenous Australian Autobiography and the Question of Genre: An Analysis of Scholarly Discourse Oliver Haag , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: Acta Neophilologica , vol. 44 no. 1-2 2011; (p. 69-79, 163-164)
1 1 Aboriginal Literature in Austria: A Discussion of Three Audiobooks Oliver Haag , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Aboriginal Studies , no. 1 2011; (p. 51-64)

'The author discusses the overseas marketing of translated Aboriginal literature which has received scant scholarly attention. The paper examines three examples of Aboriginal literature that have been translated into German and produced as audiobooks by two Austrian publishers...this paper focuses on the translation and promotion of these audiobooks by their Austrian publishers and argues that an understanding of the representation of Aboriginal people in these audiobooks is informed by different aspects of translation and advertisement as well as the format of the medium itself' (Source: Abstract).

1 1 Indigenous Literature in European Contexts : Aspects of the Marketing of the Indigenous Literatures of Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand in German and Dutch-Speaking Countries Oliver Haag , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of the European Association for Studies on Australia , vol. 2 no. 1 2011; (p. 47-69)
'The development of the presence of translated Indigenous Australian and New Zealand literature in continental European-markets exhibits striking similarities: they both emerged at roughly the same time and have often been published by the same European presses. Drawing on bibliographical data, this study seeks to explore a vital aspect of the translation histories of both types of literature - the ways publishers have promoted the respective translations. The present analysis focuses on the most immediate marketing point – dustcovers - and encompasses German- and Dutchspeaking countries.' Source: Oliver Haag.
1 Untitled Oliver Haag , 2011 single work review
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , March vol. 35 no. 1 2011; (p. 118-119)

— Review of Imagined Australia : Reflections around the Reciprocal Construction of Identity between Australia and Europe 2009 anthology criticism
1 Tasteless, Romantic and Full of History : The German Reception of Australia and Rabbit-Proof Fence Oliver Haag , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Studies in Australasian Cinema , vol. 4 no. 2 2010; (p. 115-130)
This article traces the reception of the films Australia (2008) and Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002) in German-speaking countries. Both films were dubbed and shown in well over one thousand cinemas across Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The release of these films has introduced many aspects of Australian culture and history to a broader, non-academic, consciousness in these countries. The two films have had very different levels of success among German-speaking audiences, both in economic and in intellectual terms.
This article endeavours to scrutinize some aspects of their reception. It is organized into three main parts: first, it expounds some of the broader discourses about Australia in German-speaking countries; second, it critiques German reviews and marketing of both films and elaborates on the crucial context of their reception in German; third, it presents and analyses the results of empirical research on the reception of both films by these German-speaking audiences (Author abstract)
1 Australia and Its German-Speaking Readers. A Study of How German Publishers Have Imagined Their Readers of Australian Literature Oliver Haag , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , Special Issue 2010;
'The article is concerned with the German-speaking readers of Australian literature. It analyses the dust jackets (blurbs and cover illustrations) of 401 translated Australian books. It asks: what are the specific strategies of making Australian literature appealing to German-speaking readers? How are German-speaking readers of Australian literature thus invented? And are there any historic shifts in re-inventing the German-speaking reader? One of the findings is that the construction of Australia and its German-speaking readers has not been homogeneous throughout history but has undergone perceptible change. I also argue that the invention of a specifically gendered readership has been a crucial component of the marketing of Australian literature in German translation.' (Author's abstract)
X