AustLit logo

AustLit

Barbara Holloway Barbara Holloway i(A27494 works by)
Born: Established: 1944 ;
Gender: Female
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 "Just Growing up in A Paddock" : E.O. Schlunke and Modes of Relationship in Regional Literature Barbara Holloway , 2024 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , 4 November vol. 23 no. 2 2024;

'Is there value in restoring little-known pre-Mabo regional fiction to Australian literary history? This essay asks that question of the fiction of E. O. Schlunke, author and farmer, raised in the community of German-speaking Lutheran immigrants in the south-eastern Wiradjuri/Riverina region of NSW from the 1930s to the '60s. At one level his fiction, primarily short stories published in periodicals, uses the simple narratives and realist style then expected to portray life in 'the bush' and small towns.

'Acknowledging the rich post-Mabo literature and saluting the First Nations writers who have celebrated Wiradjuri Country, the essay contends that First Nations' dispossession is the unacknowledged reality haunting Schlunke's work. Only two stories have First Nations' characters, he recognises prior custodianship only briefly and occasionally deploys offensive phrases characteristic of his era. Close reading of his superficially conventional practice uncovers irreconcilable tensions and emotions across class, cultures, ethnicities and species until one of his last stories voices disgust at the violence inflicted on First Nations people.

'After an outline of Schlunke's life and publishing history I follow Hughes D'Aeth's approach to regional literature as an 'interior apprehension of how life felt to people'. The essay  frames the many stories structured by farm work as georgian in mode. With distinctive inclusion of the other-than-human and rejection of standard farming practices, Schlunke may be read as political ecologist, skilfully giving voice and narrative roles to generate what Dipesh Chakrabarty calls 'a sense of kin' with the district's biosphere and concern for its well-being.' (Publication abstract)

1 The Federation of Clouds Barbara Holloway , 2019 single work prose
— Appears in: Dark Sky Dreamings : An Inland Skywriters Anthology 2019; (p. 84-91)
1 Writing on the Wind, Looking at the Local Barbara Holloway , 2019 single work
— Appears in: Westerly , vol. 64 no. 1 2019; (p. 93-99)
'There’s a building called the Tower of Winds in the ancient marketplace in Athens. Each of its eight sides is dedicated to the wind from a different direction; Skiron, Boreas and so forth. Once it had a wind-vane on top; it was an early weather station. The winds are universal but as the Tower suggests, they manifest uniquely and intimately as part of place. And then there’s the human culture wind calls up across languages and societies. The Greek word for wind is aerides, the basis of both ‘air’ and ‘to breathe’. Wind is a symbol for the spirit, the soul, but also it’s historically inseparable from sailing and thus trade, cultural exchange, colonisation. That only accounts for the direction, the velocity, perhaps the ferocity. The rushing air also gathers up multiple large, small and microscopic lives, it transposes and recomposes dust and fumes and moisture. Sparking hope and fear, symbolising change, the wind is specific to localities and seasons. Then it’s personalised, given names such as the mistral, Perth Doctor, Southerly Buster.' 

 (Introduction)

1 [Review] The Anthropocene Lyric Barbara Holloway , 2018 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Humanities Review , November no. 63 2018;

— Review of The Anthropocene Lyric : An Affective Geography of Poetry, Person, Place Tom Bristow , 2015 multi chapter work criticism

'People who have understood that ‘laws of nature’ on Planet Earth are changing rapidly, unpredictably and frighteningly have responded in different ways: by presenting scientific research and data to the public, by refuting the optimistic or self-interested arguments of sceptics, by attempting to get international action on CO2 emission reductions, on ecological systems or on rising sea-levels. A common concern has been to establish modes of understanding and research into the situations lumped under terms like ‘Anthropocene’, climate change or ‘environmental degradation’.'  (Introduction)

1 Review of D. H. Lawrence’s Australia : Anxiety at the Edge of Empire, by David Game Barbara Holloway , 2018 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , November vol. 33 no. 3 2018;

— Review of D. H. Lawrence's Australia : Anxiety at the Edge of Empire David Game , 2015 single work criticism

'Preconceptions of another country can take hold of an artist’s imagination – as ‘America’ did Kafka’s and Lorca’s – but who knew that D. H. Lawrence developed a comprehensive idea of ‘Australia’ long before his one hundred-day visit? Or how central that was to his later work? The objective of David Game, Honorary Lecturer at the Australian National University, is modestly expressed: to ‘throw new light on the significance of [Lawrence's] overall engagement with Australia – its place in his life and art’ (7). He does much more in a work of major scholarship.'

Source: Abstract.

1 Rockolalia, Lithomania Barbara Holloway , 2013 single work prose
— Appears in: TEXT Special Issue Website Series , 17 April no. 17 2013;
1 The Tree and Its Voices : What the Casuarina Says Barbara Holloway , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australasian Journal of Ecocriticism and Cultural Ecology , Summer vol. 1 no. 2011;
'The tree known popularly and scientifically as the casuarina has been consistently noticed for the sounds made as wind passes through its unusual foliage of needles and leaf scales. The acoustic experience of the casuarina — with subspecies found throughout Australia — has been represented as 'haunted', 'grieving' and voicing the secret language of initiates. This essay traces intriguing conceptual and aesthetic representations of the 'voice' and its listeners found across both Aboriginal and white Australian cultures in traditional English verse, Aboriginal prose narrative, accounts of cultural practices, and hybrid blends of all three. The essay adopts the notion of 'listening to listening' to set out the many forms of story the tree's sounds generate their contribution to identifying places, and to suggest a specific Aboriginal song-line appears to underlie the divergent replications of tree-'voice' across southern Australia.' (Author's abstract)
1 Round Australia with Keith and Merle Barbara Holloway , 2010 single work prose travel humour
— Appears in: Halfway House : The Poetics of Australian Spaces 2010; (p. 299-309)
1 2 y separately published work icon Halfway House : The Poetics of Australian Spaces Jennifer Rutherford (editor), Barbara Holloway (editor), Crawley : UWA Publishing , 2010 Z1746913 2010 anthology criticism essay

'Halfway House is a collection of original, scholarly and inventive essays and images. It brings together writers who are both noted and new voices in contemporary discussions of Australian engagement with place. Rather than attempting to impose a uniform concept of Australian poetics, the contributors to Halfway House have investigated revealing situations, occasions and technology.

Using poetics in many senses, Halfway House is an exciting, original and provocative contribution to how Australians use, confront or avoid the place we live, its history, its environment and culture.' (Publisher's blurb)

1 Decent Intervals Barbara Holloway , 2006 single work prose satire
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 66 no. 2 2006; (p. 66-77)
1 The Logic of Birds Barbara Holloway , 2004 single work essay
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 64 no. 2 2004; (p. 136-146)
1 Wind, a Subject Enquiry Barbara Holloway , 2002 single work essay
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 62 no. 1 2002; (p. 66-77)
1 Untitled Barbara Holloway , 1998 single work review
— Appears in: Muse , February no. 170 1998; (p. 26)

— Review of Pressing the Flesh : Stories by ACT Region Writers 1997 anthology short story
1 In a Ficitonal (sic) Place Barbara Holloway , 1998 single work column
— Appears in: Muse , December-January (1998-1999) no. 180 1998; (p. 3)
1 Negative and Positive: Dorothy Hewett in Visual Images Barbara Holloway , 1995 single work criticism
— Appears in: Dorothy Hewett : Selected Critical Essays 1995; (p. 115-126)
1 Tarlo Comes to Mind I: Monologues and Dialogues Barbara Holloway , 1994 single work short story
— Appears in: Picador New Writing 2 1994; (p. 243-253)
1 "Woman" in Federation Poetry Barbara Holloway , 1993 single work criticism
— Appears in: Debutante Nation : Feminism Contests the 1890s 1993; (p. 150-162; notes 239-240)
1 Finding a Position: Non-Aboriginal Reviewing of Aboriginal Women's Writing Barbara Holloway , 1993 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Women's Book Review , March vol. 5 no. 1 1993; (p. 20-21)
1 What Made the Sick Stockrider Sick? The Function of Horses and Fever in A.L. Gordon's `The Sick Stockrider' Barbara Holloway , 1993 single work criticism
— Appears in: Westerly , Autumn vol. 38 no. 1 1993; (p. 35-42)
1 White Steps on the Way to the International Year of Indigenous People: The Difficulties and Lines of Flight of Mary Gilmore Barbara Holloway , 1993 single work criticism
— Appears in: Span , December no. 37 1993; (p. 93-107)
X