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Issue Details: First known date: 2017... 2017 (Re)claiming Barbara Baynton’s Gothic Creek : An Analysis of Gillian Mears’ Foals’ Bread and Jessie Cole’s Deeper Water
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'The creek is a threatening site for women in Barbara Baynton’s Bush Studies (1902). The female characters in her stories are routinely represented as vulnerable, drowning, or murdered at the creek, and the slippery banks and murky waters have been established by Baynton as an Australian gothic space where women (and their bodies) are denied agency. Gillian Mears and Jessie Cole are two contemporary writers who challenge Baynton’s representation of the gothic creek. The female protagonists in their most recent Australian gothic novels, Noah in Mears’ Foal’s Bread (2011) and Mema in Cole’s Deeper Water (2014), understand the creek as a subversive site that accommodates alternative female corporeal experiences. While Noah in Foal’s Bread finds body autonomy in her use of the creek as a birthing space for her firstborn child, Mema in Deeper Water experiences body empowerment in her use of the creek as a space of sexual awakening. Though the gothic creek is a fearful site for women in Baynton’s establishing Australian gothic text, Bush Studies, both Foal’s Bread and Deeper Water demonstrate that the contemporary gothic creek is able to (re)negotiated as a site of female body autonomy and empowerment.'  (Publication abstract)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Etropic vol. 16 no. 2 2017 13424937 2017 periodical issue

    'On the 20th of January this year, the American people ushered in a serial misogynist as President of the so-called free world. A known womaniser,an alleged rapist with a long list of women accusing him of sexual harassment and a public record consisting of a tirade of derogatory remarks about women,Trump’s sexism is incontestable. Further, his various positions and policies—from the Mexican wall and the Muslim travel-ban,to his stand against undocumented immigrants and his commitment to repeal Obamacare, among many others—stand to adversely affect society’s most vulnerable. As we watched that election take shape from across the Pacific we felt as if we were powerless bystanders witnessing a fateful and horrific collision unfold as a nightmarish slow-motion spectacle. The implication was clear: hard-won gains for women worldwide risked slipping backward, precipitously.' (Victoria Kuttainen, Ariella Van Luyn : Editor's introduction)

    2017
Last amended 23 Mar 2018 11:50:11
https://journals.jcu.edu.au/etropic/article/view/3618/3486 (Re)claiming Barbara Baynton’s Gothic Creek : An Analysis of Gillian Mears’ Foals’ Bread and Jessie Cole’s Deeper Watersmall AustLit logo Etropic
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