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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'Writing has long been recognised as a way of locating the self. As a concept, this functions in multifaceted ways, from the importance of cultural expression and representation, to philosophical and linguistic conceptualisations of subjectivity in language. Emile Benveniste wrote of the fall into language :
'it is in and through language that man constitutes himself as a subject, because language alone establishes the concept of 'ego' in reality, it its reality which is that of the being. '
(From the Editors 8)
Notes
-
Epigraph:
Story-telling, the pleasure of sitting in close company and listening to a story, allowing oneself to float free in the moment and enter, both in the senses and in imagination, into the story’s events so that the story becomes our own, must be one of the oldest and earliest of our pleasures—a function of that uniquely human faculty in us, the capacity to step beyond the actual into the possible.
- ‘A Unique and Necessary Form’ by David Malouf
-
Only literary material within AustLit's scope individually indexed. Other material in this issue includes:
Wayne Price If You Can't See Me, I Can't See You
Carrie Etter The Message
Vahni Capildeo Divination: Linen and Dolphins
Mariko Nagai Occupied State
Jane Monson The Patchwork Boy
Holly Iglesias Suitable for Framing
Contents
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A Unique and Necessary Form,
single work
essay
'Story-telling, the pleasure of sitting in close company and listening to a story, allowing oneself to float free in the moment and enter, both in the senses and in imagination, into the story's events so that the story becomes our own, must be one of the oldest and earliest of our pleasures - a function of that uniquely human faculty in us, the capacity to step beyond the actual into the possible.' (Introduction)
- (Without You)i"to hear the chatter by eyes as if through a pane", single work poetry (p. 16)
- Namatjira's Ghost Gumsi"Arrernte man", single work poetry (p. 17)
-
Sovereignty, Self-Determination and Speaking Our Freedoms : An Interview with Julie Dowling,
Elfie Shiosaki
(interviewer),
single work
interview
'Julie Dowling yarned up her exhibition Yagu Gurlbarl (Big Secret) with Westerly's Editor of Indigenous Writing, Elfie Shiosaki. This exhibition is touring with Art on the Move in 2018.' (Introduction)
- Fracturesi"I was part of a book, and the sentences that possessed me were eloquent", single work poetry (p. 35)
- Rackoffteursi"Whenever I go down on you", single work poetry (p. 36-37)
- Take Iti"don't trust this poem", single work poetry (p. 38)
- All of the Relatives, single work short story (p. 39-40)
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The Northam Noongar Poetry Project,
single work
essay
'In 2017, CAN (Community Arts Network) ran its 'Rekindling Stories on Country' program with the Northam Noongar community on Ballardong Country. The participating group chose poetry as a form to share memories, anecdotes an expressions of place, family and local history. Some participants had written poetry in private for many years. Others were keen to try their hand at poetry as a starting point for documenting personal and family stories.' (Introduction)
- Bilya Kepi"Nitja ngulla bilya-kep koorliny.", single work poetry (p. 43)
- A Bush Walki"A small crowd has gathered,", single work poetry (p. 44-45)
- Story of My Lifei"Taken far away as a child, from my dad and mum", single work poetry (p. 46)
- Humble Mani"A gentle face with a trophy smile.", single work poetry (p. 47)
- Rise Up and Be Strongi"Day after day, week after week, month after month", single work poetry (p. 48)
- The Pool, single work short story (p. 49-55)
-
Writer as Translator : On Translation and Postmodern Appropriation in Nicholas Jose's The Red Thread : A Love Story,
single work
criticism
'In 'The Death of the Author', Roland Bathes develops a post-structuralist approach to the issues of reading, writing, and the relationship between texts and the signs that comprise them. Barthes begins the paper with an illustration of the novella Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac, in which a castrato is disguised as a woman, and of whom Balzac writes the following sentence :'This was woman herself, with her sudden fears, her irrational whims, her instinctive worries, her impetuous boldness, her fussings, and her delicious sensibility' (Balzac in Barthes 142). (Introduction)
- Hotel Del Coronadoi"The past is so easy to photograph.", single work poetry (p. 68)
- Robin, Morghyn, Motheri"Morghyn, weave me a nest", single work poetry (p. 69)
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Removed : An Excerpt from Shared Lives on Nigena Country,
single work
biography
'Faces swollen and sticky with tears and dust, they clung to one another.'
Jimmy Casim was a teenager when he came to Australia in the 1880s. He was a deckhand on an Indian cargo vessel, of which his uncle was the bosun (Fraser: 2003). At that time, ships from the subcontinent delivered teams of Afghan cameleers and their camels to Australian ports for the 'opening up' of the inland. They were heady days when his uncle's ship made several trips a year back and forth from Karachi to Fremantle (State Records Office). Jimmy became ill on one of those voyages so with his uncle's encouragement to seek help he 'jumped ship' only to remain the Western Australia for the rest of his life (Fraser: 2013; Goodall et al. 57). Like others from his part of the world the young seafarer merged into a life of indentured labour, and he merged with Aboriginal peoples. Jimmy Casim was my maternal great-grandfather.' (Introduction)
- The Mañana Approach, single work short story (p. 84-89)