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Contents
- Border-Crossings : By Way of Introduction, single work criticism (p. 9-12)
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Invasion and Pathology : Australia, Mabo, McGahan and Malouf,
single work
criticism
'...this section addresses what was, symbolically, at least, undoubtedly the most significant event in the recent history of indigenous Australia: the 1992 High Court 'Mabo' decision, which confirmed the ongoing validity of native title. Tragically Mabo appears to have had relatively little impact on Australian culture (just as it has had only a minor impact on the real practices of restoration of indigenous land ownership). One of the few literary texts to have directly registered the invisible seismic reverberations of Mabo was Andrew McGahan's The White Earth (2004) which this chapter analyzes in terms of the text's domination metaphor, that of disease.' (From author's introduction, Imaginary Antipodes : Essays on Contemporary Australian Literature and Culture 13)
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Boundary Trouble : Trauma Fiction and Postcolonialism in Tim Winton's The Turning,
single work
criticism
Victoria Kuttained traces the interconnections between trauma and postcolonialism in Tim Winton's The Turning - a collection of seventeen interrelated short stories.
- Sonnet IIi"When you strode up, I realised", single work poetry (p. 88)
- Sonnet XXi"The dark curls, like a rare fringe, are turning grey", single work poetry (p. 89)
- Sonnet XXXVIIIi"Spotted dove lands on roof antenna,", single work poetry (p. 90)
- Sonnet XLIIi"Wave after wave of heat. Where is the cool", single work poetry (p. 91)
- Sonnet XLVIi"The gull's plaintive cry, high pitched", single work poetry (p. 92)
- Sonnet Li"I thirst. I hunger. This grief is long.", single work poetry (p. 93)
- Sonnet LIIi"Your words, liquid gold, transform my song,", single work poetry (p. 94)
- Sonnet LVIIIi"The purple light of fire diminishes,", single work poetry (p. 95)
- Gimeli"in this desert words of love stand shimmering between the sand", single work poetry (p. 204)
- Rainbowi"it can happen at night", single work poetry (p. 205)
- Creature of Flighti"at fourteen I rode my horse through the suburbs to meet", single work poetry (p. 206)
- Dumuzii"upon her return from abduction, he", single work poetry (p. 207)
- Snowi"that thing beneath the white", single work poetry (p. 208)
- Blind Spoti"as kids we galloped air horses", single work poetry (p. 209)
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African Chicken and Transonant Subject in Brian Castro's Shanghai Dancing,
single work
criticism
'In Brian Castro's fictional autobiography Shanghai Dancing the narrator, Antonio Castro, takes a ferry to Hong Kong. During the passage he remembers his birth of a similar ferry many years previously when, as he describes it, his mother hesitated 'between one step and the next' (212) as her labour came on. After finally arriving in the world, the newborn child lies on the threshold of life 'unbreathing for some time' - an action that, the narrator tells us, is repeated throughout his life as 'stretching breath to stopper utterance' (212). This curious depiction of hesitant arrival and of suspension in-between states underwrites the entire narrative of the book, in which Antontio [sic] Castro returns from his adopted home in Melbourne to that of his birthplace in Shanghai. He goes there carrying his father's photos in an attempt to 'reconstruct a story' by finding 'the missing pieces' (12). Yet the narrative of his family history discovers not a unified and coherent story of origin, family, and nation, but rather a radically complicated and chequered diorama of migration and dispersal that compromises any singular notion of identity or culture.' (Author's introduction)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Aspects of Australian Poetry in 2012
2013
single work
review
— Appears in: Westerly , June vol. 58 no. 1 2013; (p. 68-91)'T he act of reading for appraisal rather than pleasure is a privilege that brings me to a deepened understanding of the contemporary in Australian poetry, the way the past is being framed, its traditions, celebrities and enigmas washed up in new and hybrid appearances or redressed in more conventional, sometimes nimbus forms. Judith Wright wrote that the ‘place to find clues is not in the present, it lies in the past: a shallow past, as all immigrants to Australia know, and all of us are immigrants.’ The discipline of reading to filter such a range of voices underlines my foreignness, making reading akin to translation, whilst reciprocally inviting the reader of this essay to become a foreigner to my assumptions and conclusions.' (Introduction)
-
Aspects of Australian Poetry in 2012
2013
single work
review
— Appears in: Westerly , June vol. 58 no. 1 2013; (p. 68-91)'T he act of reading for appraisal rather than pleasure is a privilege that brings me to a deepened understanding of the contemporary in Australian poetry, the way the past is being framed, its traditions, celebrities and enigmas washed up in new and hybrid appearances or redressed in more conventional, sometimes nimbus forms. Judith Wright wrote that the ‘place to find clues is not in the present, it lies in the past: a shallow past, as all immigrants to Australia know, and all of us are immigrants.’ The discipline of reading to filter such a range of voices underlines my foreignness, making reading akin to translation, whilst reciprocally inviting the reader of this essay to become a foreigner to my assumptions and conclusions.' (Introduction)