AustLit
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Notes
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Contents indexed selectively.
Contents
- The Impact of Literature, single work criticism (p. 1-12)
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Ideas about the Thing, Not the Thing Itself : Impact and Other Abstractions and the Politics of Research Performance Measurement,
single work
criticism
In this essay, Guy Redden sets out to 'examine the discourses sponsoring quantification in research evaluation, the mechanisms and effects of it, and the relations between them' (15).
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Indigenous Literature and the Extractive Industries,
single work
criticism
Phillip Mead discusses 'two contemporary extensions of the discourse about the social and economic reality of extractive industries on the Indigenous plane of the literary field: Marcia Langton's cultural and ecomonic histories of mining and Alexis Wright's novel Carpentaria' ( 32).
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Displaced Selves in Contemporary Fiction, or the Art of Literary Activism,
single work
criticism
Tony Simoes da Silva writes: 'I explore how at times well-intentioned work is undermined by the very knowledge it seeks to create, and by the vocabulary in which it aims to do so. I have in mind in this instance a recent anthology edited by well-known Australian authors Thomas Keneally and Rosie Scott, A Country Too Far (2013). As I aim to show in a discussion of selected texts, the book is a significant example of the ways in which a desire to have an impact and the best of intentions do not always have the intended outcome' (66).
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'His Grief Is the Plague' : Poetry of Loss and the Risk of Losing One's Readers,
single work
criticism
This article discusses the book Lalomanu, a selection of poetry by Spanish-Australian writer, Jorge Salavert, written in response to the death of his daughter Clea in the tsumani that struck Samoa just after dawn on 29 September 2009. Salavert’s poetry is an attempt to come to terms with catastrophe, personal loss and grief. The poet knows that for many, a literature of grief and pain may produce not understanding or even empathy, but a turning away. In the haiku “Unmanageable” Salavert writes: “His grief is the plague. / Pain is too raw to handle. / Silence prevails.” For some readers, this literature of grief and mourning may move them only to the extent that they keep their distance; they do not respond, or do not even read, in order to avoid being affected by this very personal pain. And yet, in its expressions of grief and mourning, Salavert’s poetry also has the potential to move readers in ways that extend far beyond the personal. The majority of the collection appears in English, but a number of the poems appear in bilingual form, either Spanish and English, or Catalan and English, and this multilingual format, I will argue, is especially important in relation to the poet’s mourning. This essay's reading of Lalomanu is organised around three central concerns: literature and mourning; mourning and language; and the social engagement resulting from a literature of mourning. [Author's abstract]
- Words, Sticks and Stones : Keneally, Literature and Social Impact, single work criticism (p. 90-105)
- Kenneth Leslie Goodwin, single work obituary (p. 118-119)
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[Review] An Unsentimental Bloke: The Life and Work of C. J. Dennis,
single work
review
— Review of An Unsentimental Bloke : The Life and Works of C.J. Dennis 2014 single work biography ; (p. 120-127) -
Untitled,
single work
review
— Review of Scenes of Reading : Is Australian Literature a World Literature? 2013 anthology criticism ; (p. 127-130)