AustLit

‘When James Clifford coined the phrase ‘Discrepant cosmopolitanisms,’ he had in mind the ‘cultures of displacement and transplantation that are inseparable from specific, often violent, histories of economic, political, and cultural interaction” (108). Because these histories of interaction are frequently the same ones that, at least indirectly, underpin the cosmopolitan freedom and prosperity of affluent metropolitan centers, the study of discrepant cosmopolitanism s often involves an understanding of how different sites in the global economy are related to each other. As Michael Davidson puts it, a bit more bluntly than Clifford, ‘the cosmopolitanism produced through globalization yokes together the elite and the abject, the globe trotting business man or the wealthy tourist, as well as the migrant labourer, sex worker, and political exile’ (735). In this essay I want to think about how contemporary fiction encounters this issue…’ (Author’s introduction p. 135)

'Australia and Chile both constitute large and extremely diverse environments, with ecosystems ranging from some of the driest to some of the wettest in the world. They are also relatively isolated: Australia is, of course, an island, while Chile is bordered by dramatic mountain ranges and coastlines. Nevertheless, their common geological heritage means that they share a surprising number of species of flora. They also share histories of colonization by European powers. This essay will involve a discussion of four poets and their relationships to these two colonized landscapes: Butcher Joe Nangan and Judith Wright from Australia, and Pablo Neruda and Paulo Huirimilla from Chile. What brings these poets together into this discussion is how their work raises questions about the relationship between poetry and colonized ecologies... '(Author's abstract p. 143)

Discusses 'the link between magical realism and fakery in the light of the antipodean nationalist appropriations of magical realism by the Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier in 1949 and by the black Australian writer Mudrooroo in the 1990s.' (p. 165)