AustLit logo

AustLit

y separately published work icon Journal of Australian Studies periodical issue   peer reviewed assertion
Issue Details: First known date: 2021... vol. 45 no. 1 2021 of Journal of Australian Studies est. 1977 Journal of Australian Studies
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Our first issue of 2021 brings with it the charge of a new year, a ticking over of the clock from the now infamous 2020. For many, this year is already no easier than the last, and the challenges of the pandemic continue for our global community. Despite this, there is always change in the wind. As we write this editorial, US President Trump’s last days in office signal a potential reset of the cooperative international relations required to address the other global threat somewhat overshadowed by the virus—the unfolding climate crisis—and La Niña has a hold on the weather patterns of the Australian continent, forestalling the catastrophic bushfires we saw last year, bringing with it much-needed rain across parts of the country. This collection of articles includes engagements with both climate crisis and Australian landscapes and regions, and takes us into diverse imaginative and poetic environments through a range of textual and historical explorations of Australian cultural life.' (Emily Potter, Brigid Magner : Land, Sky, Identity and Myth: Making and Unmaking Australian Imaginaries Editorial introduction)

Notes

  • Contents indexed selectively.

Contents

* Contents derived from the 2021 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
Horses Down Under : The Underdog Schematic Narrative Template and Australian Nationalism, Isa Menzies , single work criticism

'The underdog is a familiar figure in Australian popular culture. Yet Australian studies scholarship has tended to focus on the related, but somewhat broader, concept of egalitarianism. The figure of the underdog therefore remains a popular trope, rather than an object of serious study. This article seeks to critically engage with constructions of the underdog, arguing that this figure underpins some of the most significant narratives of Australian identity and is ripe for further analysis. I build on the work of American anthropologist James Wertsch, and what he has described as schematic narrative templates, to position the underdog narrative as an Australian iteration of his schema. In particular, I focus on narratives that feature the horse as significant. Touching on key cultural texts including “The Man from Snowy River” and the Silver Brumby series to illustrate this schema, I then draw more deeply on constructions of the racehorse Phar Lap to argue the template’s use in framing a nationally significant historical narrative. I contend that the underdog schematic narrative template and what I have termed the Australian “horse discourse” function to mutually reinforce the legitimacy of both, creating powerful sites for the expression of nationalism.' (Publication abstract)

(p. 18-32)
Looking at Gail Jones’s “The Man in the Moon” in Aestheticized Darkness, Valerie-anne Belleflamme , single work criticism

'When the first astronauts landed on the moon, they left unfading bootprints on its surface, testifying to our human violation of its aesthetic and symbolic autonomy. Starting from the premise that this lunar invasion has forever scarred the moon, making it a carrier of loss and an embodiment of grief, my article seeks to examine how Gail Jones, in her own fiction, aestheticizes the starry night sky in order to bring together the astronauts’ human disfiguration of the moon’s face with the human figuration by writers and artists of this very defacement. Through art’s redemptive function in the face of loss and destruction, I argue, Jones has found a way to reinstate a sense of the moon’s autonomy. In particular, this article will focus on how her short story “The Man in the Moon” addresses the possibility of creating alternative cosmologies through art. Both her essay “Without Stars”, which discusses Blanchot’s The Writing of the Disaster to investigate the metaphysics of suffering and the poetics of grief, and her essay “Five Meditations on a Moonlit Night”, which looks at nature writing to examine the aesthetics of grief and the ethics of the gift, will form the backdrop of this exploration.' (Introduction)

(p. 33-45)
A Happy and Instructive Haunting : Revising the Child, the Gothic and the Australian Cinema Revival in Storm Boy (2019) and Picnic at Hanging Rock (2018), Allison Craven , single work criticism

'A recent spate of remakes of film titles dating from the Australian cinema revival in the 1970s suggests a renewed interest in this significant corpus. It has a deeper resonance insofar as the original films also represent landmarks in Australian Gothic aesthetics. In two of these productions, Storm Boy (2019) and Picnic at Hanging Rock (2018), the renewal of the Gothic discourses and the allied figure of the child are inflected by an optimistic vein of “post-millennial Gothic”. It is apparent in the styling and in the post-feminist and cultural consciousness of both productions, and the sense in which both remakes provide resolutions to the earlier films and embed layers of contemporary social pedagogy in the revised Gothic scenarios. Both of these productions suggest a recognition that the films of the cinema revival may not speak to a current generation, and this dissonance is particularly apparent in the revised figure of the lost child in the remakes.' (Publication abstract)

(p. 46-60)
From the Origins of Gallipoli to an Orange Head : Incidents in the Friendship between Sidney Nolan and George Johnston, Paul Genoni , Tanya Dalziell , single work criticism

'This article presents results of research using the diaries of Sidney Nolan, recently made available by the National Library of Australia. In particular, it focuses on two matters relating to Nolan’s lengthy friendship with Australian journalist and novelist George Johnston: clarifying the origin of Nolan’s Gallipoli series, which is strongly associated with a period in 1955 and 1956 that Nolan spent with Johnston on the Greek island of Hydra; and secondly, providing evidence regarding a curiosity with the series of portraits known as the Adelaide Ladies, which Nolan painted after spending time with Johnston at the Adelaide Festival of Arts in 1964. With regard to the Gallipoli series, Nolan’s diaries establish that the origin of this series is considerably later than has previously been believed; likewise, our research suggests that the diaries support the contention that a portrait that has long been included among the Adelaide Ladies is in fact a portrait of Johnston.' (Publication abstract)

(p. 76-93)
[Review] A Bookshop in Wartime, Catherine Bishop , single work review
— Review of A Bookshop in Wartime Jenny Horsfield , 2020 single work biography non-fiction ;

'In essence, A Bookshop in Wartime is an eclectic collection of snapshots of people and events in Canberra against the backdrop of World War II, with the potential to resonate with readers familiar with the city. The bookshop of the title was run by Verity Hewitt and was at the heart of the city’s life during the 1930s and 1940s. While the blurb suggests it is a book about an entrepreneurial woman—and as a historian of businesswomen, my interest was piqued—it is better characterised as a work that seeks to capture the personalities and intellectual milieu of this particular time and place, using the bookshop as a linkage point.' (Introduction)

(p. 125-126)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Last amended 7 Apr 2021 13:04:44
Newspapers:
    Powered by Trove
    X