AustLit logo

AustLit

Robert Foster Robert Foster i(A113853 works by)
Gender: Male
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.

Works By

Preview all
1 Review : The Forgotten War Robert Foster , 2014 single work review
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , September vol. 38 no. 3 2014; (p. 363-364)

— Review of Forgotten War Henry Reynolds , 2013 single work non-fiction
1 3 y separately published work icon Out of the Silence: The History and Memory of South Australia's Frontier Wars History and Memory of South Australia's Frontier Wars Robert Foster , Amanda Nettelbeck , Kent Town : Wakefield Press , 2012 Z1883476 2012 single work non-fiction When South Australia was founded in 1836, the British government was pursuing a new approach to the treatment of Aboriginal people, hoping to avoid the violence that marked earlier Australian settlement. The colony's founding Proclamation declared that as British subjects, Aboriginal people would be as much 'under the safeguard of the law as the Colonists themselves, and equally entitled to the privileges of British subjects'. But could colonial governments provide the protection that was promised? Out of the Silence explores the nature and extent of violence on South Australia's frontiers in light of the foundational promise to provide Aboriginal people with the protection of the law, and the resonances of that history in social memory. What do we find when we compare the history of the frontier with the patterns of how it is remembered and forgotten? And what might this reveal about our understanding of the nation's history and its legacies in the present? -- Cover description.
1 Untitled Robert Foster , 2011 single work review
— Appears in: Aboriginal History , November no. 35 2011; (p. 237-238)

— Review of The Secret War : A True History of Queensland's Native Police Jonathan Richards , 2008 single work non-fiction
1 Thoughts in the Middle of a Career Robert Foster , 2009 single work biography
— Appears in: The Monthly , April no. 44 2009; (p. 62-64)
1 Writing William Willshire Robert Foster , Amanda Nettlebeck , 2005 single work
— Appears in: Living History: Essays on History as Biography 2005; (p. 79-89)
1 White Indigeneity: The Life and Fiction of William Willshire Amanda Nettlebeck , Robert Foster , 2004 single work criticism
— Appears in: Placing Race and Localising Whiteness 2004; (p. 133-142)
1 y separately published work icon Fatal Collisions : The South Australian Frontier and the Violence of Memory Robert Foster , Amanda Nettelbeck , Rick Hosking , Wakefield Press , 2001 Z1574380 2001 single work non-fiction

'In 1849, James Brown, a south Australian pastoralist, was charged with shooting dead nine Aboriginal people. Unable to find witnesses, the crown was forced to drop the case even though the magistrate was convinced of his guilt. Two generations later, a glowing biography of Brown's life noted merely that he was involved in a charge of poisoning an Aboriginal man, but emerged from trial with a clean slate. Why had the story changed so much: from shooting to poisoning, from nine victims to one, from evading trial to being found innocent? What forces were at play in reshaping the memory of this event? 

'Fatal Collisions is about violence on the South Australian frontier and the ways in which it has been remembered in Anglo-Australian accounts of the past. The stories it tells take place in that fluid zone where history, memory and myth meet in popular consciousness.' (Publication summary)

1 y separately published work icon Sketch of the Aborigines of South Australia : References in the Cawthorne Papers W. A. Cawthorne , Robert Foster (editor), Adelaide : Aboriginal Heritage Branch , 1991 Z805558 1991 selected work autobiography bibliography prose

Compilation of material gathered by W. A. Cawthorne, including extracts from his diaries and journals 1842-1859; and copies of:

a) 'Sketch of the Aborigines of South Australia' c1845; p. 63-92; which includes information about physical characteristics; government; weapons - spears, spearthrowers, shields, clubs, daggers; recreation - toys; corroborees; music; domestic utensils - climbing sticks , baskets, fire sticks; clothing; food and food preparation; hunting and gathering; shelters; ornaments; initiation - circumcision, cicatrization; beliefs - celestial phenomena, the earth; burial and mourning; marriage; sickness; magic; tribal meeting; short word list;

b) 'Aborigines and Their Customs' 1864; p. 84-92; which elucidates Cawthorne's views on the significance of racial and cultural differences; language; religious orientation; territorial division;

and

c) other miscellaneous published material.

X