AustLit logo
y separately published work icon A Radical Life : The Autobiography of Russel Ward single work   autobiography  
Issue Details: First known date: 1988... 1988 A Radical Life : The Autobiography of Russel Ward
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.

Contents

* Contents derived from the South Melbourne, South Melbourne - Port Melbourne area, Melbourne - Inner South, Melbourne, Victoria,:Macmillan , 1988 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
Geelong and the Centre (from A Radical Life : The Autobiography of Russel Ward), Russel Ward , extract (p. 92-120)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Notes:
illus; port

Works about this Work

'This Union-Jacked Time : Memories of Education as Post-Imperial Positioning Astrid Rasch , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: Life Writing , vol. 13 no. 2 2016; (p. 255-270) Life Writing after Empire 2017;

'The end of the British Empire saw profound changes to collective narratives of identity in former colonies—changes which did not leave individuals untouched. This essay examines how individuals use their autobiographical memories of education to position themselves within the new discursive and aesthetic frameworks of their postcolonial societies. Australian historian Russel Ward and Canada-based Barbadian novelist Austin Clarke both wrote their autobiographies in the 1980s and their texts reflect the after empire context in strikingly similar ways. As they recall their education, they link a curriculum focused on Britain to alienation from their local surroundings and associate their adoption of English speech patterns with snobbery. Clarke and Ward employ different positioning strategies in terms of their former selves, suggesting either their complete immersion in an imperial world view or their budding criticism of the curriculum. However, both authors signal to their postcolonial audiences that they now reject the politics of their schooling and by extension the imperial system which it is retrospectively made to represent.'

Source: Abstract.

Country and Lives : Australian Biography and Its History Melanie Nolan , 2015 single work criticism
— Appears in: Cercles , no. 35 2015;
'There have been attempts to relate national characteristics “by reference to climate, habitat and soil and investing the collective subject with psychological attributes” for over two millennia. More recently historians of modern nationalism developed elaborate typologies often citing Martin Heidegger’s arguments that “the being of the human finds its essence in the being of place — the belonging together of being and topos” [MALPAS 2012 : 5-6]. And yet the challenge to the ontological connection between self and place, what Jeff Malpas describes as the “topological analysis of self and identity”, has a long philosophical tradition, too. This debate over experience, biography and nation has implications for historians who have raised empirical questions about the development of collective sensibilities over time among recent emigrant peoples, their physical peculiarities, behaviourial quirks and emergent national character. In this paper I consider the role that biography writing played in the construction of an Australian national identity geared to what Pierre Nora famously termed as the “roman national”, or the collective discourse on the history of the nation and its place in the world. I argue that Australian historians played a significant role in the history of biograpy writing and, related to it, the debate over collective Australian identity.' (Introduction)
Revisiting the Frontier, from Miles Franklin's Brindabella to South Australia's Eyre Peninsula Jill Roe , 2013 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Colonial History , no. 15 2013; (p. 169-182)

'As a South Australian by birth and an early enthusiast for urban history, I was not deeply impressed by Russel Ward in my youth. However, that was a long time ago. Since then I have come to appreciate The Australian Legend (1958) and to feel that it could be better understood. No doubt my own work on Miles Franklin, and my days on South Australia's Eyre Peninsula, some of which I will be referring to shortly, has had good deal to do with it; but so too has an increasing awareness of the challenges now facing rural and regional Australia. In what follows, I start with the young Russel Ward and what led him to focus on the pastoral frontier of eastern Australia. Next comes a consideration of the Legend's relevance to two very different regions, the Brindabella area in the southern mountains of New South Wales, and Eyre Peninsula, the western most peninsula of South Australia, both of which as it happens were first colonised by Europeans in the 1840s. Lastly, by way of conclusion, I offer some observations on the changing face of 'the frontier' since the 1950s, drawing on my own experience. That may sound rather presumptuous. But it is more or less in line with the task that Ward set for us in the final paragraph of his book, which reads in full: It is generally agreed that without a distinctive national tradition a people lacks cohesion, balance, and confidence. It is usually assumed that in a young country like ours, inherited attitudes exert less influence than in old one. The truth maybe that, because of its relative youth, our tradition is at once too dominating and too rigid, and that we tend compulsively to worship it as, so to speak, a fair though sacred cow. But nothing could be more thoroughly within the tradition than 'to give it a go' - to venture boldly on new courses of action, and so modify, and even create, traditions as the anonymous bushmen, and, later, the men of the 'nineties did. Today's task might well be to develop those features of the Australian tradition which still seem valid in modern conditions.' (Introduction)

The Heroic Type in Australian Nationalist Autobiography Joan Newman , 1992 single work criticism
— Appears in: Myths, Heroes and Anti-Heroes : Essays on the Literature and Culture of the Asia-Pacific Region 1992; (p. 175-184)
Warm Man, Cold War Stuart Macintyre , 1989 single work review
— Appears in: Overland , May no. 114 1989; (p. 94)

— Review of A Radical Life : The Autobiography of Russel Ward Russel Ward , 1988 single work autobiography
Warm Man, Cold War Stuart Macintyre , 1989 single work review
— Appears in: Overland , May no. 114 1989; (p. 94)

— Review of A Radical Life : The Autobiography of Russel Ward Russel Ward , 1988 single work autobiography
The Heroic Type in Australian Nationalist Autobiography Joan Newman , 1992 single work criticism
— Appears in: Myths, Heroes and Anti-Heroes : Essays on the Literature and Culture of the Asia-Pacific Region 1992; (p. 175-184)
Country and Lives : Australian Biography and Its History Melanie Nolan , 2015 single work criticism
— Appears in: Cercles , no. 35 2015;
'There have been attempts to relate national characteristics “by reference to climate, habitat and soil and investing the collective subject with psychological attributes” for over two millennia. More recently historians of modern nationalism developed elaborate typologies often citing Martin Heidegger’s arguments that “the being of the human finds its essence in the being of place — the belonging together of being and topos” [MALPAS 2012 : 5-6]. And yet the challenge to the ontological connection between self and place, what Jeff Malpas describes as the “topological analysis of self and identity”, has a long philosophical tradition, too. This debate over experience, biography and nation has implications for historians who have raised empirical questions about the development of collective sensibilities over time among recent emigrant peoples, their physical peculiarities, behaviourial quirks and emergent national character. In this paper I consider the role that biography writing played in the construction of an Australian national identity geared to what Pierre Nora famously termed as the “roman national”, or the collective discourse on the history of the nation and its place in the world. I argue that Australian historians played a significant role in the history of biograpy writing and, related to it, the debate over collective Australian identity.' (Introduction)
'This Union-Jacked Time : Memories of Education as Post-Imperial Positioning Astrid Rasch , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: Life Writing , vol. 13 no. 2 2016; (p. 255-270) Life Writing after Empire 2017;

'The end of the British Empire saw profound changes to collective narratives of identity in former colonies—changes which did not leave individuals untouched. This essay examines how individuals use their autobiographical memories of education to position themselves within the new discursive and aesthetic frameworks of their postcolonial societies. Australian historian Russel Ward and Canada-based Barbadian novelist Austin Clarke both wrote their autobiographies in the 1980s and their texts reflect the after empire context in strikingly similar ways. As they recall their education, they link a curriculum focused on Britain to alienation from their local surroundings and associate their adoption of English speech patterns with snobbery. Clarke and Ward employ different positioning strategies in terms of their former selves, suggesting either their complete immersion in an imperial world view or their budding criticism of the curriculum. However, both authors signal to their postcolonial audiences that they now reject the politics of their schooling and by extension the imperial system which it is retrospectively made to represent.'

Source: Abstract.

Revisiting the Frontier, from Miles Franklin's Brindabella to South Australia's Eyre Peninsula Jill Roe , 2013 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Colonial History , no. 15 2013; (p. 169-182)

'As a South Australian by birth and an early enthusiast for urban history, I was not deeply impressed by Russel Ward in my youth. However, that was a long time ago. Since then I have come to appreciate The Australian Legend (1958) and to feel that it could be better understood. No doubt my own work on Miles Franklin, and my days on South Australia's Eyre Peninsula, some of which I will be referring to shortly, has had good deal to do with it; but so too has an increasing awareness of the challenges now facing rural and regional Australia. In what follows, I start with the young Russel Ward and what led him to focus on the pastoral frontier of eastern Australia. Next comes a consideration of the Legend's relevance to two very different regions, the Brindabella area in the southern mountains of New South Wales, and Eyre Peninsula, the western most peninsula of South Australia, both of which as it happens were first colonised by Europeans in the 1840s. Lastly, by way of conclusion, I offer some observations on the changing face of 'the frontier' since the 1950s, drawing on my own experience. That may sound rather presumptuous. But it is more or less in line with the task that Ward set for us in the final paragraph of his book, which reads in full: It is generally agreed that without a distinctive national tradition a people lacks cohesion, balance, and confidence. It is usually assumed that in a young country like ours, inherited attitudes exert less influence than in old one. The truth maybe that, because of its relative youth, our tradition is at once too dominating and too rigid, and that we tend compulsively to worship it as, so to speak, a fair though sacred cow. But nothing could be more thoroughly within the tradition than 'to give it a go' - to venture boldly on new courses of action, and so modify, and even create, traditions as the anonymous bushmen, and, later, the men of the 'nineties did. Today's task might well be to develop those features of the Australian tradition which still seem valid in modern conditions.' (Introduction)

Subjects:
  • Charters Towers, Charters Towers area, Far North Queensland, Queensland,
  • Perth, Western Australia,
  • Adelaide, South Australia,
  • Geelong area, Geelong - Terang - Lake Bolac area, Victoria,
  • Canberra, Australian Capital Territory,
Newspapers:
    Powered by Trove
    X