AustLit logo

AustLit

Robin Pope Robin Pope i(A31653 works by)
Born: Established: 1941 ;
Gender: Unknown
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 Introduction Robin Pope , single work criticism
1 Class Matters in Some Recent Australian Children's Fiction Australasian Children's Literature Association for Research (ACLAR) Conference. (3rd.,: Melbourne 1999) Robin Pope (editor), single work criticism Here Pope looks at representations of social class in two Australian novels, The Best Thing (1995, Lanagan) and Stony Heart Country (1999, Metzenthen). She approaches class as 'performative', drawing on Judith Butler's notion of gender performativity to analyse the codes and conventions which signify social status and argues that both texts 'work towards an acceptance of existing class differences through a humanist and universalizing view of people which ignores the limitations class divisions create' (pp.39, 43). Pope's concern is that as tools of socialisation, 'texts position their readers...to occupy particular subject positions' and as such, 'provide oppurtunities to explore different subjectivities, to reinforce or confirm existing ones, or...to subvert them' (p.39). As social class is a crucial factor in influencing how we exist and how we are seen by others, it is extremely important, says Pope, to critique the ideological assumptions which underpin representations of class in children's fiction as the dominant ideologies 'continue to represent the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of their existence' and this ensures the ongoing hegemony of hierarchical class divisions (p.43).
1 Class Matters in Some Recent Australian Children's Fiction Robin Pope , 2001 single work criticism
— Appears in: Papers : Explorations into Children's Literature , April vol. 11 no. 1 2001; (p. 38-43) Pope looks at two examples of Australian adolescent literature, The Best Thing by Margo Lanagan and Stony Heart Country by David Metzenthen, to address the infrequent attention given to the representation of social class in Australian children's texts. She posits that the conservative approach of Australian politics, particularly the Liberal Government's attitude towards unions and union labour, means that the Marxist definition of social class still has relevance in terms of understanding the effects of industrial and economic power. As Pope points out, 'Social class contributes markedly to our sense of self , our subjectivity. Literary texts can provide opportunities to explore different subjectivites, to reinforce or confirm existing ones, or alternately to subvert them' (39). Pope's analysis concludes that while both texts offer a 'fair representation of the working classes' they both work towards dismantling class difference through a 'humanist and universalizing view of people' which ultimately 'ignores the limitations that class divisions create' (42-43). She argues that both novels essentailly naturalize the class divisions which underpin Australian economic and social structures which positions the reader to accept rather than challenge the notion that social hierarchies are inevitable.
1 Challenging Places : England vs the Antarctic End of the World Robin Pope , 1999 single work criticism
— Appears in: Something to Crow About : New Perspectives in Literature for Young People 1999; (p. 42-49) An analysis of Englishman William Howitt's work for children, A Boy's Adventure in the Wilds of Australia, and the ways in which its depiction of both the Australian landscape, and Australia's Aboriginal people, reflects an 'imperialist discourse'.
1 Competing Discourses in 'The Kangaroo Hunters' Robin Pope , 1998 single work criticism
— Appears in: Papers : Explorations into Children's Literature , December vol. 8 no. 3 1998; (p. 36-46)

Pope's detailed analysis of the novel, The Kangaroo Hunters, or, Adventures in the Bush, contends that while author Bowman 'makes her protest about received ideas regarding masculinity and empire, it is a modified statement which is itself subverted by the power of the dominant discourses which construct imperial discourse.' (46). Pope discusses the composition of Bowman's fictive constructions arguing that stories offer 'moral' truths rather than verifiable truths or probabilities and links this to the tendency of women writers to (traditionally) write in genres in which the 'truth status of the work was less questioned', such as nursery rhymes and fairy tales. In 1858, women writing about travel adventures for the young was rare and 'probably risky' considering that 'accounts of travel which demonstrated women as confronting and overcoming difficult circumstances in their own were presumed to be lies or gross exaggerations' (36-37). Pope critiques the text from the position that 'within imperial discourse other discourses circulate within their own systematic sets of ideas' and establishes how Bowman engages with discourses of race and (white) racial superiority, religion and Christianity, science and class in ways which 'frequently exceed or transgress the limits and conventions of what was accepted at the time' (37). However Pope argues that the discursive frameworks which the text attempts to challenge ultimately prevail in reinforcing the fundamental ideologies of masculine dominance (46).
1 A Review of 'Old Neighbours, New Visions' Robin Pope , 1998 single work criticism
— Appears in: Papers : Explorations into Children's Literature , April vol. 8 no. 1 1998; (p. 45-48) Pope discusses a selection of papers from the inaugural Australian Children's Literature Association for Research conference (ACLAR) held at the University of South Australia in April 1997. The formation of this conference entitled Old Neighbours, New Visions, is driven by 'the desire by those working in the discipline to promote children's literature as a field of research in order to gain recognition for the area in mainstream literary studies and provide a source of collegial support for researchers' (45). Pope briefly discusses a number of essays from the collection, all of which 'consider various representations of Australia as a nation, and of characters and implied readers as Australian subjects; and how those representations, past and present, are encoded in children's literature' (48).
1 Editorial Robin Pope , 1998 single work column
— Appears in: Papers : Explorations into Children's Literature , April vol. 8 no. 1 1998; (p. 3-4) Pope introduces the focus for the next five issues of Papers, which examine the literature Australian children read in the nineteenth and early twentieth century from the position that children's stories are powerful tools of socialisation and novels in general are 'direct expressions of cultural consciousness' (3). The texts discussed are all located in Australia and described as frontier texts which draw on the three most common perceptions of Australia in relation to British Imperialism: Australia as the New World; Australia as alien and threatening; and early conservation texts which challenge 'the masculine narratives of action and success' (4)
1 Captivating Narratives : Reeling in the Nineteenth-Century Child Reader Robin Pope , 1997 single work criticism
— Appears in: La Trobe Library Journal , Spring no. 60 1997; (p. 134-147)
1 y separately published work icon Making It Real : Proceedings of the Fourth Children's Literature Conference Robin Pope (editor), Burwood : Deakin University. School of Literary and Communication Studies , 1997 Z577975 1997 anthology criticism biography
1 y separately published work icon Making Sense of Humour : Proceedings of the Third Children's Literature Conference, 10 September, 1994 Robin Pope (editor), Burwood : Deakin University , 1995 Z1342174 1995 anthology criticism
X