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James McAuley Memorial Lecture University of Tasmania (publisher), series - publisher
1 y separately published work icon Writing the Nonhuman : The Octopus and I : Anthropomorphism and Posthumanism in Narrative Erin Hortle , Hobart : 2018 18507644 2018 single work thesis

'Representing a nonhuman animal consciousness in literature is problematic, because we human animals cannot know what nonhuman animals think, or indeed, how nonhuman animals think. This means that when we imagine a nonhuman animal consciousness, we have no choice but to use the tool we have available to us: human language. By shaping nonhuman animal thought with human language, we anthropomorphise the animal: we shape (morphos) its internal sequences with human (anthropos) language.

'This thesis mobilises recent debates in critical animal studies and posthumanism as a conceptual framework to investigate anthropomorphism as a narrative device. Drawing upon Bruno Latour’s conceptualisation of text as an anthropomorphous construct, and theoretical debates in the humanities spearheaded by Jacques Derrida, Cary Wolfe and Donna J. Haraway, which challenge structures of human privilege organised around a narrow and implicitly ableist conceptualisation of the human subject, this thesis contends that while a piece of writing will be anthropomorphic on a very fundamental level, it does not mean that it must be anthropocentric, and does not mean that it must serve or reify the speciest logic of humanism. Rather, the act of shaping nonhuman animal consciousness with human language forces us to bump up against the limits of humanism and so see the structure for what it is: a historically specific model of both comprehending the world and maintaining the supremacy of a specific idea of Man.

'This thesis is part exegesis, part artefact, and the two uneven halves are foreshadowed by an introduction. The exegesis is a theoretical meditation on anthropomorphism’s humanist and posthumanist potential. It takes as its case study Cerdiwen Dovey’s collection of short stories, Only the Animals—a sustained, creative examination of anthropomorphism as both a literary device and thematic concept. The novel is a story about a breast cancer survivor, some other humans, some mutton birds (or short-tailed shearwaters), some Australian fur seals, and some octopuses who make Eaglehawk Neck, on the Tasman Peninsula, and its surrounding waters, their home. While the majority of the novel is focalised through its human characters, this narrative is crosshatched with stories focalised through the nonhuman animals whose lives brush up against the lives of those humans. It is driven by the following questions: how might anthropomorphism, as a literary device, produce a posthumanist frame for, or thread of, the narrative? In other words, what might these anthropomorphic animal stories do to the larger human-focussed, or anthropocentric, narrative? How might they unleash new or different ways of experiencing the story? The novel is titled The Octopus and I.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

1 y separately published work icon Always Crackne in Heaven Grant William Finlay , Hobart : 2015 9144046 2015 single work thesis
1 y separately published work icon Identity and Nation in the Australian Public Library : The Development of Local and National Collections 1850s-1940s, Using the Tasmanian Public Library as a Case Study Heather Gaunt , Hobart : 2010 Z1792181 2010 single work thesis 'The major public reference libraries in the capital cities of Australia all maintain a 'heritage' role that is a central aspect of their function in their communities. All have acquired rich and extensive collections relating to the history and literature of their respective states and, in a number of cases, to the nation as a whole. However, this aspect of philosophy and practice has not always been part of the public library's institutional goals. When the major public reference libraries were established in the Australian colonies in the second half of the nineteenth century, the acquisition of a 'local archive' reflecting local colonial history and culture was desultory or non-existent in most cases. This thesis is a cultural history of the growth of the 'will to archive' in the public library in Australia over the course of a century, focusing on the period from the 1850s to the 1940s. It addresses how, when, and why the Australian public library came to be a repository of the local and national past, as distinct from (but never replacing) its role as a purveyor of Enlightenment culture and learning. The evolution of this function is situated within a broader framework of emerging historical consciousness, the growth of civic nationalism related to the federation of the Australian colonies in 1901, changing attitudes to the production of history and the new value accorded to accurate historical records, and efforts to establish a 'national' creative literature. The thesis argues that the archiving mentality that emerged in the last decades of the nineteenth century, stimulated by the emerging interest in local history, became naturalised in the twentieth century through the forces of nationalism and patriotism. The evolution of this function was complex, influenced variously by factors such as the degree and type of cultural philanthropic activity, historical 'amnesia' toward the colonial convict past, and residual 'cultural cringe' toward Australian literary production. While addressing local archiving practices across all the major 'state' public libraries, the thesis focuses on the Tasmanian Public Library. While providing an overview of the development of the local archive in Tasmania over a century, the thesis examines in detail the agency of key figures such as trustee James Backhouse Walker and philanthropist William Walker, and the effect of the local penal past on the formation of the local archive, exemplified by the 'life cycle' of convict text The Hermit in Van Diemen's Land by Henry Savery. This study emerges from the conviction that a close examination of the formation and stratification of library collections that symbolise and promote national identity contributes valuable information about emerging and changing 'worldviews' of communities, particularly the ways in which communities identify as members of a region and nation. Utilising the lens of public library philosophy and collections, the thesis offers a new way of reflecting on the formation of local and national identities in Australia.'
Source: Author's abstract
1 y separately published work icon The Captain's Lady : Mary Ann Bugg Kali Bierens , Tasmania : University of Tasmania , 2009 6941576 2009 single work thesis biography

'Bushrangers have a powerful grip on the Australian psyche. Ned Kelly is celebrated as Australia’s most popular folk hero. Bushranger Captain Thunderbolt has been immortalised in his home state of New South Wales, with a major highway named in his honour. For the town of Uralla in the New England District, the Thunderbolt legend looms large. He is a major tourist draw card for the region. The legend of Thunderbolt embodies a larger telling of a collective struggle against a system of injustice and oppression.'

'A closer examination of events reveals that Thunderbolt’s Aboriginal wife, Mary Ann, was crucial to his survival. Yet she has been erased from the legend. Many of our folk heroes could not have survived without the support of Aboriginal Australians. However the mateship ethos continues to exclude both Aboriginal people and women. In documenting the life of Worimi woman Mary Ann and her partnership with Thunderbolt, the rhetoric of mateship is challenged. Reciprocal relationships that developed between Aboriginal and settler Australians will be investigated. It is important to consider the range of relationships that emerged on the frontier and the bearing that geography played in such encounters. By adopting a place-centred approach one is able to closely examine the complexity of race relations that existed in colonial times.'

'The violent encounters that occurred on the frontier between Aboriginal and settler Australians are well documented. However not all relationships were based on exploitation and violence. The union between Mary Ann’s Aboriginal mother and English convict father is celebrated by the Worimi today. Mixed marriage continues to be recognised as a central part of contemporary Worimi culture.' (Author's abstract)

1 y separately published work icon Unsettled Imaginings : Australian Novels of Asian Invasion Catriona Ross , Tasmania : University of Tasmania , 2008 18545586 2008 single work thesis 'This thesis examines novels that depict an imaginary invasion of Australia by an Asian country. It argues that novels of Asian invasion constitute a distinct body of formulaic literature - a subgenre - within the field of Australian popular fiction. This study undertakes a formative mapping of the subgenre of Asian invasion novels in three ways. It assembles the corpus of texts and provides an annotated bibliography. It delineates the generic form and content of the novels and monitors the resilience and evolution of the subgenre through changing historical and cultural contexts. It considers the ideological implications of the Asian invasion narrative through readings of race, nation and gender.' (Abstract introduction)
1 y separately published work icon Edmund Morris Miller : 1881-1964 University of Tasmania , Hobart : University of Tasmania , 2007 Z1435683 2007 website A website tracing the life and career of philosopher, psychologist, librarian, bibliographer and administrator E. Morris Miller. This site was mounted to accompany an exhibition at the University of Tasmania. The exhibition was curated by Gillian Ward and Zoe McKay with assistance from Heather Excell; graphic design by Gillian Ward.
1 y separately published work icon The Chief Protector Returns : Textual Representations of A.O. Neville Australia's Coloured Minority : Its Place in the Community Rebecca Dorgelo , Tasmania : 2007 14181244 2007 single work thesis

'This thesis examines the different ways in which representations of A. O. Neville—Chief Protector of Aborigines / Commissioner of Native Affairs in Western Australia from 1915 to 1940—operate in a select group of texts. I argue that Neville is a highly charged synecdochic figure who stands in, discursively, for all white, bureaucratic administrators, in order to distil changing anxieties about Australia and its past. I examine key texts from Neville’s own writing to a range of more recent, fictional texts. I utilise a postcolonial approach in my analysis of the figure of Neville, through a reading of his continuing incarnations in Australian literature and culture. This project seeks to do with A.O. Neville what Kay Schaffer’s In the Wake of First Contact: The Eliza Fraser Stories did with Eliza Fraser.'  (Publication abstract)

1 1 y separately published work icon An Annotated Edition of the Journals of Mary Morton Allport Joanna Richardson , Hobart : 2006 Z1403103 2006 single work thesis
1 y separately published work icon Ice Dreaming : Reading Whiteness in Kim Scott's Benang : From the Heart Kristyn Harman , Tasmania : 2004 8612232 2004 single work thesis

'Through a close reading of Kim Scott's Benang: From the Heart, this thesis interrogates what whiteness in an Australian colonial context looks like from an Aboriginal perspective. Its central proposition is that Scott's narrator, Harley, discovers whiteness as a consequence of discovering his Aboriginality...' (Source: Abstract)

1 y separately published work icon Jottings Robyne Kerr (illustrator), Frances Anderson , Rose Bay : Frances Anderson , 2000 Z1388310 2000 selected work poetry
1 y separately published work icon Redefining Eve Langley: Eve Langley and her Editors Helen Vines , Hobart : 2000 Z1307122 2000 single work thesis This thesis explores the relationship between Eve Langley and her editors at Angus & Robertson after the publication of her first novel, The Pea Pickers. The chief sustenance of this relationship was letter writing. In 1977, the Mitchell Library purchased the collected letters, which cover the period from October 1941 to July 1975. This thesis argues that these letters offer a perspective on Langley's life which challenges the problematic profile drawn by Joy Thwaite's biography, The Importance of Being Eve Langley. The letters also reveal the editorial process of Australia's foremost editors.
1 y separately published work icon Poet of the Earth : The Pragmatic Romanticism of Barney Roberts Susan Grant , 1997 Z198826 1997 single work thesis
1 y separately published work icon Diary of Thoughts : poems Colin Terry , Sandy Bay : Colin Terry , 1993 Z1316928 1993 selected work poetry
1 y separately published work icon Deformity as Device in the Twentieth-century Australian Novel C. A. Cranston , Hobart : 1991 16505805 1991 single work thesis

'This study is based on several assumptions: it recognises that the person who is deformed has an existence both in the world and in the novel; it recognises that in both the world and the novel the deformed-being has borne a negative
stigma. It also recognises that a literature reflects its culture, as must the characters who exist within that literature. As Harry Heseltine states succinctly: 'No writer invents his metaphors ex nihilo; in the long run he finds them somewhere in the range of possibility that his culture makes available to him'. This study asks: can that most marginalised of all characters, the deformed-being, provide any revelations about the self, about the novel, the reader of the novel, and the culture within which all exist? The answer in each case is an unequivocal yes. Each chapter is devoted to a particular character in a major Australian novel; comparisons are made with other literary works, Australian and non- Australian. The individual chapters reveal the metaphors and symbolism attached to the character's particular deformity, and demonstrate how the deformed body informs the body of the text. The whole study presents an overall picture of deformity as a fairly consistent and an often-utilised metaphor. Chapter One provides a general survey of deformity as a metaphor. Chapter Two looks at Louis Stone's Jonah (1911), in which the hunchbacked larrikin character is a post-colonial interpretation of the traditionally conjoined outcast states, deformity and criminality. In Chapter Three the dwarf Jackie in Ruth Park's Swords and Crowns and Rings (1977) is seen as a metaphor for non-conformity during a time when Australia was signalling a resistance to the Old-World moulding. Chapter Four is also concerned with the post-colonial identity as revealed through the dwarf and half-caste Billy Kwan in C. J. Koch's The Year of Living Dangerously (1978); it questions an identity that is 'imposed', whether at a national or individual level. In Chapter Five the relationship of the hunchbacked dwarf Rhoda Courtney with her adopted brother, the artist Duffield, in Patrick White's The Vivisector (1970) places deformity in the tradition of the kunstlerroman. In Chapter Six, Koch's The Doubleman (1985) is shown to combine elements of the kunstlerroman while raising questions about the post-colonial identity through the dualities arising out of the doppelganger: spiritual, bodily, and cultural displacement are all focussed by the device of Richard Miller's lameness. Chapter Seven moves from deformity that is congenital or disease-originated, to disability or deformity that is human-caused (either by negligence or intervention), thus allowing a discussion of the importance of the etiology of deformity as a device: in Thea Astley's The Acolyte (1972) Jack Holberg's blindness is caused by fly-strike. Chapter Eight examines the use of terror evoked through archetypal evolution of the lame crone Hester Harper in Elizabeth Jolley's The Well (1985). In Chapter Nine the crypto-dwarf Arthur Blackberry in James McQueen's Hook's Mountain (1982) is portrayed with the accompanying baggage of dwarf mythology; his implicit demise raises questions about our responses towards the deformed. Chapter Ten is a literary history of eugenics, as seen primarily through Eleanor Dark's Prelude to Christopher (1934) and Christina Stead's The Man Who Loved Children (1940). The conclusion discusses the initial, problems of dealing with a taboo topic, along with reasons for excluding autobiographical treatments of deformity, biographical portrayals, war novels, and children's literature. Finally, Leslie Fiedler's comment that deformity is the reigning metaphor of our age is shown to be particularly apt in an Australian context.'

Source: Abstract.

1 y separately published work icon Poetry and Belief Chris Wallace-Crabbe , Hobart : University of Tasmania , 1990 Z225924 1990 single work criticism Poetry and Belief is the text of the 1989 James McAuley Memorial Lecture delivered on 24 October (Hobart) and 26 October (Devonport).
1 y separately published work icon The Poetry of Earth Barney Roberts , Hobart : University of Tasmania , 1989 Z1228830 1989 single work criticism
1 y separately published work icon Jottings Frances Anderson , Rose Bay : Frances Anderson , 1988 Z815698 1988 selected work poetry
1 y separately published work icon Tasmania and Australian Poetry Vivian Smith , Hobart : University of Tasmania , 1984 Z103086 1983 single work criticism
1 y separately published work icon Bishop John Edward Mercer : a Christian socialist in Tasmania. Richard Davis , Hobart : University of Tasmania , 1982 Z1288776 1982 single work biography
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