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Borders, Identity, Literature single work   essay  
Issue Details: First known date: 2020... 2020 Borders, Identity, Literature
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'In a previous issue of Meanjin, Winnie Dunn wrote, ‘A critically conscious reader can see Australia through the literature that is missing just as equally as they can through the literature that exists.’ For Dunn, the literature that is ‘missing’ is work by Australians from minority and migrant communities, Indigenous Australians and people of colour or those from non-Anglo backgrounds. While I do not disagree with Dunn, I’d like to suggest that a critically conscious reader—whether in Australia or elsewhere—will further ask: what is missing when we read literature as a reflection of national boundaries, as a site where national identity is represented and given narrative shape? This is an important but deeply challenging question since the field of literary studies has long used the nation to categorise fiction, and has explained literature’s function through its capacity to define a nation’s culture and identity.' (Introduction)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Meanjin The Next 80 Years vol. 79 no. 4 Summer 2020 21111248 2020 periodical issue

    'In December's 80th birthday edition of Meanjin, writers address the edition's theme: The Next 80 Years.

    'The issue opens with reflective contributions from all of Meanjin's living past editors. Tara June Winch and Behrouz Boochani offer a conversational meditation on time and the very notion of a future. Bruce Pascoe writes on the strange relationship non-Indigenous Australians have with trees, and wonders when we will realise that the forest is a friend. Jennifer Mills encounters ... herselves ... in a future archive. Peter Doherty sees a future world of worries-many of them viral-but settles on hope and the necessity of individual responsibility. Jess Hill wonders whether existing models of policing are fit for purpose in countering domestic abuse. Michael Mohammed Ahmad writes on whiteness and the idea of 'real Australians'. Jane Rawson looks at dramatic changes in Australian nature and wonders 'who belongs here?' And Raimond Gaita writes on the moral challenges that have been presented by Covid19 and the challenge to our future presented by Black Lives Matter and the quest for Indigenous sovereignty.' (Edition summary)

    2020
Last amended 25 Feb 2021 09:08:00
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