AustLit

'Surfing is a beautiful, romantic and mostly pointless pursuit: tanned bodies riding walls of water, waves blue and glittering, grey and heaving, green and wild, sunlight diffusing through the feathering peaks, people triumphantly exiting watery tubes or falling laughing into foam. The modern version of standup surfing that emerged from Hawai’i has been popular in Australia since the early 20^th century and has become an ideal of Australian coastal life and culture. Surfers themselves have come to be symbols of contemporary health and vitality for young and old, their tanned, fit bodies defining ideas of freedom, youth, play and leisure. But what does it all mean?' 

This project follows the various threads of surfing that weave through Australian literature that deepen our understanding of how surfing has shaped our relationships to beaches, coastlines and oceans, and how surfing has contributed to a sense of being Australian.