AustLit

Potter is concerned with analysing how representations of masculinity draw upon 'multiple masculine discourses present within a culture at any given time', in ways which ultimately support the dominant configuration of hegemonic masculinity (p.28). He looks at two Australian realist fictions for young adults, Boys of Blood and Bone (Metzenthen) and Burning Eddy (Gardner), arguing that they are 'constrained by elements of the normative and to some extent mythic Australian masculinity' in ways that reinforce Australian masculinist traditions (p.34). Potter contends that both texts maintain and perpetuate patriarchal systems of dominance and oppression by constructing the notion of masculinity at the expense of women's subordination. However, he makes the point that Gardner's use of hybridization introduces the possibility of challenging masculine biased discourses by privileging an alternative sexuality that is a 'hybrid of masculine and feminine traits' (p.33).

This paper is concerned with the 'textual and extratextual' constraints imposed upon a work when it is translated, specifically how certain Australian cultural signifiers are transferred from the original source text to a German target text through the acts of translation (p.51). Gerber uses the novel Deadly, Unna? as an example of the complexities and possible problems involved in translating narratives which highlight a specific cultural context, in this case, relations between the indigenous and non-indigenous people of a small rural community which culminate around the town's local football team.