AustLit

'The strategy that I wish to explore in this analysis of Gould's Book of Fish is the postmodern experimental narrativisation of the colonial past applied to a political critique of the national present. More specifically, through interpreting the novel through Lyotard's discussion of the postmodern sublime and a theory of bodily experience, it is possible to argue that Flanagan employs a postmodern aesthetic as a type of immanent critique in which the postmodern dialectic can be read as an extension of Enlightenment thinking. In the novel the past is shifting and, at least in a positivistic sense, ultimately irretrievable. This signals the notion of history as the postmodern sublime - a space of irretrievable loss and unfulfilled desire at the edges of the margins of history. While history and the colonial past shift and change in the novel, the representations of bodily experience anchor Flanagan's novel in the recognition that real lives, often individual and collective suffering, often motivate postmodern critiques.' (Author's abstract)

'In this essay I aim to acknowledge the efficacy of the liberal humanist discourse in Remembering Babylon, whilst interrogating some of its more problematic aspects. In particular, I want to examine the implications of the notion of "shared suffering" by discussing Malouf's representation of non-indigenous trauma' (70).

'According to a website containing collected photos of 'ghost orbs' - paranormal energy somehow captured through the act of photographing - the site of the Gatton Murders is a powerful centre of ghost activity, Unsolved murders, a tantalisingly close but ungraspable truth. Reality is in perception - how we see things. An orb. An eye.' (Introduction)

1. Refusing to be Silent 

While the early 1990's saw the Mabo and Wik land rights decisions and the mid-1990s the release of the groundbreaking Bringing them Home Report, the years that followed have brought little of what might be termed 'progress' in terms of racial equality. The twelve years of the Howard government (1996-2007) must be mentioned within this context as it is from this period that the most virulent expressions of racism and social conservatism emerged. This was partly to do with the conservative policies of the coalition and partly to do with an increasingly volatile global political climate. Considerable damage was done to the intellectual and cultural life of Australia during this time. After the wave of optimism following Rudd's election and the apology to Indigenous Australians, there has been a disappointing lack of practical action...' (Introduction)