AustLit
Texts
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Goad Omen
Artarmon
:
Giramondo Publishing
,
2013
Z1923757
2013
selected work
poetry
(taught in 1 units)
'Goad Omen is Corey Wakeling's first full-length collection of poems, a vibrant and witty interplay of depths and resurfacings, portraying a world littered with grim foreshadowings and kitschy memorabilia alike.' (Publisher's blurb)
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Shadow Lines
Fremantle
:
Fremantle Press
,
2003
Z1051216
2003
single work
biography
(taught in 5 units)
'The story of Jessie Argyle, born in the remote East Kimberley and taken from her Aboriginal family at the age of five, and Edward Smith, a young Englishman escaping the rigid structures of London. In a society deeply divided on racial lines, Edward and Jessie met, fell in love and, against strong opposition, eventually married. Despite unrelenting surveillance and harassment the Smith home was a centre for Aboriginal cultural and social life for over thirty years.' (Source: back cover, 2003 edition)
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Truth
Melbourne
:
Text Publishing
,
2009
Z1594714
2009
single work
novel
crime
thriller
(taught in 2 units)
'Stephen Villani is the acting head of the Victoria Police homicide squad. But his first months on the job have not gone well: two Aboriginal teenagers shot dead in a botched operation he authorised in the provincial city of Cromarty; and, no progress on the killing of a man in front of his daughter outside a private girls' school.
Now five men are found dead in horrifying circumstances on the outskirts of the city. Villani's superiors and the media are baying for arrests. To add to his woes, some of the country's richest people are alarmed by the baffling killing of a young woman in the high-security tower where they live.
Villani, a man who has built his life around his work, begins to find the certainties of both crumbling. As the pressure mounts, he finds that he must contemplate things formerly unthinkable. Truth is a novel about murder, corruption, family, friends, honour, honesty, deceit, love, betrayal and truth.' (from Quercus website)
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Gilgamesh : A Novel
Sydney
:
Pan Macmillan Australia
,
2001
Z894113
2001
single work
novel
(taught in 4 units)
'Gilgamesh is the epic story of a mother's search for the father of her child - from Australia to Armenia via England and Mesopotamia - all under the shadow of the imminent, and soon to be very real, Second World War. Narrated in a clear, poetic voice, it is a portrayal of the different journeys we choose to take through life and what happens when ordinary people get caught up in extraordinary, seismic events.'
Source: Publisher's blurb (2018 ed.).
Description
This unit offers students the opportunity for specialist studies in Australian literature. It draws on innovative approaches to the study of writing and literary institutions in Australia, and aims to provide a contextualised study of Australian texts. The nature of this contextualisation may vary from time to time, depending on the interests of the staff members available to teach the unit. Students reflect on the shifting definitions of Australian literature, on nationalist, revisionist and transcultural approaches to national literary histories, and on a variety of genres, modes and ideological aspects of Australian literature through the close study of a group of texts. The unit also introduces students to current debates about methodology in Australian literary studies, and develops digital resources of primary and secondary texts.
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