AustLit

'This paper surveys the ways in which women have been regarded, represented and treated in colonial and post-colonial Australia. In particular, the concept of matriduxy—the alleged dominance of women in Australian families—is explored, in part via a discussion of Christina Stead’s The Man Who Loved Children. Possible connections between matriduxy and colonial conditions are identified, specifically in the context of the imperialist ideals of masochistic fantasy.' (Publication abstract)

'This paper interrogates the links between Nick Cave’s The Death of Bunny Munro and Valerie Solanas’ SCUM Manifesto. It starts by situating Cave’s writing in relation to his status as an auteur, examines discourses of rock music and the murder ballad, before providing a close reading of misogynistic scenes in the novel. It offers several ways to read the novel and questions whether it can be labelled a parody, satire, or as scatological rhetoric. It concludes by drawing the discussion back to aesthetics and the intersection of literature and music in the audio book version of Bunny Munro and Cave’s success as a salesman.' (Publication abstract)

'Based on the author’s end-to-end walk of the Cape to Cape Track (C2C), this article presents a literary history of the Leeuwin-Naturaliste region traversed by the trail. The C2C is a continuous, 135-kilometre coastal pedestrian path from Cape Naturaliste to Cape Leeuwin south of Perth in the south-west corner of Western Australia. A relatively short route by long-distance trekking standards, the C2C reverberates with literary narratives, incidents and encounters. In 1831, explorers John Dewar and Andrew Smith walked northbound from Augusta to the Swan River, approximately following the modern-day orientation of the track. Known for tempestuous weather, Cape Leeuwin—the southern terminus of the C2C, near Augusta, where the Indian and Southern Oceans converge—was the model for “Lewin’s Land” referenced in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726) and later alluded to in D.H. Lawrence and Mollie Skinner’s The Boy in the Bush (1924). Drawing from theories of emplacement (de Certeau; Edensor; Gros; Ingold; Ingold and Vergunst; Merleau-Ponty; Michael; Solnit), this article describes walking as a medium for understanding the imbrications between bodies, landscapes, journeys, histories and stories.' (Publication abstract)

'Australian novelist Thea Astley became known for her inclination to stare down the good fortune (four Miles Franklin awards) of her literary success during her lifetime with a persistent and self-generating narrative of having been neglected as a writer. It was never true then, and certainly not now. In fact, from this vantage point, over a decade after her death in 2004, critical attention paid to this gifted novelist has possibly reached a high point.' (Introduction)