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'At the heart of the Gothic novel proper lies the discursive binary of self and other, which in colonial literature was quickly filled with representations of the colonial master and his indigenous subject. Contemporary black Australian artists have usurped this colonial Gothic discourse, torn it to pieces, and finally transformed it into an Aboriginal Gothic. This study first develops the theoretical concept of an Aboriginal Gothic and then uses this term as a tool to analyse novels by Vivienne Cleven, Mudrooroo, Kim Scott, Sam Watson, and Alexis Wright as well as films directed by Beck Cole and Tracey Moffatt. It centres on the question of how a genuinely European mode, the Gothic, can be permeated and thus digested by elements of indigenous Australian culture in order to portray the current situation of Aboriginal Australians and to celebrate a recovered cultural identity.' (Publisher's blurb)
Contents include:
Contents include:
- Aboriginal Gothic
- Aboriginal Appropriations
- Re-Biting the Canon: Mudrooroo's Vampire Trilogy
- De-Composing the Epic: Sam Watson's The Kadaithcha Sung
- Un-Singing Historiography: Kim Scott's Benang
- Con-Juring the Phantom: Spectral Memories
- Trans-Muting Cinema: Tracey Moffatt's Films
- Conclusion: Creation in Resistance
Contents
* Contents derived from the
Goettingen,
c
Germany,c
Western Europe,
Europe,:Bonn University Press
, 2010 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.-
Introduction : Resistance to the Un-Australian,
single work
criticism
(p. 1-10)'The Australian mind seems to be obsessed with the invocation of its 'un-national' apart from newspaper headlines, advertisements on television, or in signs tacked to lamp-posts in suburban Sydney, even the Macquarie Dictionary shows a preoccupation with the 'un-Australian'. Having introduced the lemma only as recently as 2001 in their Federation edition, the lexicographers already updated it in the subsequent 2005 edition by adding a fourth entry to account for the increased use of the word in the popular domain:' violating a pattern of conduct, behaviour, etc., which, it is implied by the user of the term, is one embraced by Australians'. Despite this zeal for determining the' un-national', little attention has been paid to its positive counterpart, thus making it easier to exclude people on grounds of their 'un-Australianness' than to welcome a national diversity.' (Author's introduction)
-
Aboriginal Gothic,
single work
criticism
(p. 11-29)In this essay, Althans ‘treats the Gothic as being a mode which continues to endow genres with a certain set of menacing stock elements and unstable characteristics of which the interrogation of boundaries, binaries, and identity are particularly useful in an Aboriginal Australian context’. (p.11-12)
- Re-Biting the Canon : Mudrooroo's Vampire Trilogy, single work criticism (p. 32-88)
-
De-Composing the Epic : Sam Watson's The Kadaitcha Sung,
single work
criticism
(p. 89-102)Althan's analysis of Sam Watson's The Kadaitcha Sung shows that the 'hybridity identified in the amalgamation of the profane and the sacred takes a turn for the darker and joins different aspects of white and black Australia in a Gothic critique of colonialism and its consequences'. (p89-90)
- Un-Singing Historiography : Kim Scott's Benang, single work criticism (p. 103-115)
- Con-Juring the Phantom : Spectral Memories, single work criticism (p. 116-146)
-
Trans-Muting Cinema : Tracey Moffatt's Films,
single work
criticism
(p. 147-182)In this essay, Althans analyses two of Tracey Moffatt's films: Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy (1989) and BeDevil (1993).
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
-
Writing Indigenous Vampires : Aboriginal Gothic or Aboriginal Fantastic?
2014
single work
criticism
— Appears in: M/C Journal , August vol. 17 no. 4 2014; 'The usual postmodern suspicions about diligently deciphering authorial intent or stridently seeking fixed meaning/s and/or binary distinctions in an artistic work aside, this self-indulgent essay pushes the boundaries regarding normative academic research, for it focusses on my own (minimally celebrated) published creative writing’s status as a literary innovation. Dedicated to illuminating some of the less common denominators at play in Australian horror, my paper recalls the creative writing process involved when I set upon the (arrogant?) goal of creating a new genre of creative writing: that of the ‘Aboriginal Fantastic’. I compare my work to the literary output of a small but significant group (2.5% of the population), of which I am a member: Aboriginal Australians. I narrow my focus even further by examining that creative writing known as Aboriginal horror. And I reduce the sample size of my study to an exceptionally small number by restricting my view to one type of Aboriginal horror literature only: the Aboriginal vampire novel, a genre to which I have contributed professionally with the 2011 paperback and 2012 e-book publication of That Blackfella Bloodsucka Dance! However, as this paper hopefully demonstrates, and despite what may be interpreted by some cynical commentators as the faux sincerity of my taxonomic fervour, Aboriginal horror is a genre noteworthy for its instability and worthy of further academic interrogation.' (Introduction) -
Gothic Imagination or Maban Reality?
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Women's Book Review , vol. 22 no. 2 2010;
— Review of Darkness Subverted : Aboriginal Gothic in Black Australian Literature and Film 2010 multi chapter work criticism
-
Gothic Imagination or Maban Reality?
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Women's Book Review , vol. 22 no. 2 2010;
— Review of Darkness Subverted : Aboriginal Gothic in Black Australian Literature and Film 2010 multi chapter work criticism -
Writing Indigenous Vampires : Aboriginal Gothic or Aboriginal Fantastic?
2014
single work
criticism
— Appears in: M/C Journal , August vol. 17 no. 4 2014; 'The usual postmodern suspicions about diligently deciphering authorial intent or stridently seeking fixed meaning/s and/or binary distinctions in an artistic work aside, this self-indulgent essay pushes the boundaries regarding normative academic research, for it focusses on my own (minimally celebrated) published creative writing’s status as a literary innovation. Dedicated to illuminating some of the less common denominators at play in Australian horror, my paper recalls the creative writing process involved when I set upon the (arrogant?) goal of creating a new genre of creative writing: that of the ‘Aboriginal Fantastic’. I compare my work to the literary output of a small but significant group (2.5% of the population), of which I am a member: Aboriginal Australians. I narrow my focus even further by examining that creative writing known as Aboriginal horror. And I reduce the sample size of my study to an exceptionally small number by restricting my view to one type of Aboriginal horror literature only: the Aboriginal vampire novel, a genre to which I have contributed professionally with the 2011 paperback and 2012 e-book publication of That Blackfella Bloodsucka Dance! However, as this paper hopefully demonstrates, and despite what may be interpreted by some cynical commentators as the faux sincerity of my taxonomic fervour, Aboriginal horror is a genre noteworthy for its instability and worthy of further academic interrogation.' (Introduction)
Last amended 27 Nov 2012 11:35:01
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