AustLit

'The thirty papers in this volume are the product of a Conference of the Centre for the International Study of Literatures in English at Innsbruck University hosted by the School of Irish Studies at Concordia University Montreal. They examine how Literatures in English are increasingly influenced by globalization and hybridity stemming from national and international cross-cultural encounters. Particular attention is paid to the thematic aesthetics emanating from the changes in national identities and value systems as a result of increasing multicultural and minority voices within nation states, the growing cultural and linguistic networks of transnational interrelations, and more overt literary exploration of subjects such as law, religion and racism. These concerns by writers in English may result from actual migrations and border crossings but may also stem from imaginative processes which envision identities that transcend or eschew concrete manifestations of socially or nationally constructed selves.' (Publisher's blurb)

Author's/publisher's abstract: 'This book investigates a wide range of representations of Australian Indigenous identity formations and elaborates an interculturally appropriate research model, viewed from an anti-colonial perspective. Attention is focussed on (anti-)colonial power strategies within these formation processes, as well as on the socio-political relevance of reception processes in reply to these representations. The concepts of "difference" as to their relevance within intercultural transformations are explored.

In this context, the tensions between essentialist and non-essentialist perspectives on identity discourse are pointed out.

The broad spectrum of Aboriginality is investigated within the discourse analysis of a selection of contemporary Black Australian poetry ... The syncretic reading method interrogates the reader's experience as effects rather than methodologically determined acts of reception. The analysis does not dismiss the relevance of literary aesthetics for text interpretations, yet it exemplifies that the assessment criteria need to be grounded in the Aboriginality of the poems. The quintessence of this book lies in the author's firm conviction that the anti-colonial perspective on Indigenous identity constructions is metonymic in its visions of universal mental constructs, while at the same time advancing the visions of contemporary Aboriginality.