AustLit

Fosco speaks as a member of Post-Christian Society that has emerged from the Great Walk-Out from established religion but as one who cannot subscribe to the Economic Myth of Rational Humanism. Fosco's text, which he dubs My Reality, is republished in this volume, accompanied by six exploratory essays, ranging from the supportive to the dismissive, which seek to open up debate on the issues which he poses. Can we work towards a society in which humane values prevail, or must we accept that ours is, for lack of a better, the best of possible worlds? [Editors' abstract]

Despite the stereotype of post-colonial Australian society as secular and irreligious, a radical concept of the sacred, located in place, has pervaded its literature. Australian writers again and again break away from received, orthodox notions of religious experience, imagining a transformed post-colonial sacred in Australia.

For Indigenous and non-Indigenous societies 'place' has had a particularly post-colonial function in contesting imperial cultural forms, including received forms of religion. 'Horizonal' is the concept of space dominated by an apparently infinite horizon. This book reveals, in its discussion of contemporary literature, an Australian sacred emerging from the material, proximate and intimate experiences of the everyday. -- Back cover.