AustLit logo

AustLit

Maureen Clark Maureen Clark i(A66807 works by)
Gender: Female
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 Colonialism, Racial Violence and Loss : The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith and The Roving Party Maureen Clark , 2015 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , 30 May vol. 30 no. 1 2015;

'Thomas Keneally’s The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1972) and Rohan Wilson’s The Roving Party (2011) resonate with the violence of the colonising process. The books relate, respectively, to murders that took place in New South Wales in 1901 just prior to Federation, and in Tasmania during the 1820s. Both novels employ elements of the Gothic mode to represent social disorder, and equate systematic racism with the mechanics of moral corruption in a hostile colonial environment. In their efforts to make sense of the past each, in its own way, has something to say about how opportunism and upward social mobility are linked to the possession of whiteness. Each taps into an historical frame of reference in which whiteness is understood, not simply as skin colour, but as something essential to the founding vision of Australia as a nation.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

1 Silencing and Subjugation Masquerading as Love and Understanding : Sonya Hartnett's The Ghost's Child Maureen Clark , 2014 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Looking Glass : New Perspectives on Children's Literature , vol. 17 no. 3 2014;

'Astrid Lindgren Award winner Sonya Hartnett's work is always many-layered, intriguing and thought-provoking. This study considers The Ghost Child, a fictional memoir of families and relationships, in a post-colonial context and, while it speaks of timeless universal human interests such as resilience, love, loss and longing, dependency and betrayal, it also works allegorically as a reminder that how we see ourselves is shaped by the historical and cultural discourses which define us. More specifically, the novel brings to light the power-imbalances often found across cultures in the practice of everyday post-colonial life.

'Therefore, this paper argues that the authority contained in Hartnett’s principal character’s “living” voice masks colonial discourses of silencing and subjugation in play. When considered in these terms, The Ghost Child becomes an artistic forum for the unearthing of how colonialism’s self-serving, discursive representations have, historically, spoken for colonised individuals, children and adults alike, denying them equal participation in the affairs of life.' (Publication abstract)

1 Storytelling Permutations in the Performance of Life Narrative Betty Roland’s Caviar for Breakfast Maureen Clark , 2013 single work criticism
— Appears in: Transnational Literature , November vol. 6 no. 1 2013;

Betty Roland (1903-1996), a little-known figure in Australian literary circles, was a prolific storyteller. Whilst there are few zones of literature into which she did not venture between the late 1920s and 1990, Roland is perhaps best remembered as a dramatist. Her Australian outback melodrama, The Touch of Silk, was first performed by the Melbourne Repertory Company in 1928, and is still produced today. Reviewers of the time described the play as ‘a beautiful and abiding piece’ of theatre, and named Roland as Australia’s first genuine playwright. Silk’s bleak twists and far-reaching insights into authoritarian bourgeois morality, helped to make it the first among a number of successful radio serials for Roland and paved the way for later film scripts. Perhaps because she was a playwright rather than a novelist at the time, Roland has never been grouped with Australia’s celebrated women writers of the 1920s and 30s, such as Miles Franklin, Eleanor Dark and Katharine Susannah Prichard. Roland was, however, engaged in a burgeoning cosmopolitan print-culture that extended well beyond those years as well as Australian borders. (Author's introduction)

1 Postcolonial Vampires in the Indigenous Imagination : Philip McLaren and Drew Hayden Taylor Maureen Clark , 2013 single work criticism
— Appears in: Transnational and Postcolonial Vampires : Dark Blood 2013; (p. 121-137)
1 The Black-White Man in Mudrooroo's The Kwinkan Maureen Clark , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Frontier Skirmishes : Literary and Cultural Debates in Australia after 1992 2010; (p. 247-260)
1 1 Rainforest Narratives : The Work of Janette Turner Hospital by David Callahan Maureen Clark , 2009 single work review
— Appears in: JASAL , no. 9 2009;

— Review of Rainforest Narratives : The Work of Janette Turner Hospital David Callahan , 2009 single work criticism
1 Power, Vanishing Acts and Silent Watchers in Janette Turner Hospital's The Last Magician Maureen Clark , 2008 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , no. 8 2008; (p. 107-120)
In Janette Turner Hospital's fifth novel The Last Magician this world-wandering daughter of Australian literature returns to the place she still calls 'home'. The novel is set mainly in central Sydney, however, the narrative could well take place in any city of the developed new world, whether real or illusionary, and still anxious for self-definition. The narrative is grounded in the notion that a sense of the surreal will always remain in the mental landscape of any social and geographical space that refuses to admit the interaction of the marginalised, or alienates and denies the value of difference. Among other things, this paper argues that the novel declares an unwillingness to accept woman's value as determined and measured by the already spoken rules and expectations of patriarchal discourse. Woman's silence is wielded here as a weapon of resistance -- an unconventional, anti-establishment form of power that recognises how language deceives and wishes to give the silences their say (120). (Author's abstract)
1 5 y separately published work icon Mudrooroo : A Likely Story : Identity and Belonging in Postcolonial Australia Maureen Clark , Brussels : Peter Lang , 2007 Z1443002 2007 single work criticism Contents (from publisher's catalogue): An important new perspective on the debate over Johnson's identity linked to the analysis of his fiction - The complexities of identity formation tied to the notions of belonging within the constraints of Australia's racial boundaries and power relations - Issues of 'in/authenticity' and the future place of the author's creative body of work in Australian literature - The complex notionof 'passing' within the trans-cultural coded exegesis of racial classification in Australia - The textual appropriation of the Indigenous female body as a stage for masculinist (colonial) discourses.
1 Untitled Maureen Clark , 2006 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , October vol. 22 no. 4 2006; (p. 521-523)

— Review of Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Writings of Thomas King and Colin Johnson (Mudrooroo) Clare Archer-Lean , 2006 single work criticism
1 Terror as White Female in Mudrooroo's Vampire Trilogy Maureen Clark , 2006 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Journal of Commonwealth Literature , vol. 41 no. 2 2006; (p. 121-138)
'The article reads the trilogy mainly through Barbara Creed's theorization of the monstrous feminine and examines the ways in which Mudrooroo presents his post-conquest female vampire as castrating and all-consuming. It also argues that it is possible to see Mudrooroo's female monster as a textual representation of the legendary soulless mother who would devour her own son to feed her sense of self and reality - with all the connotations of the author's descredited claim to Aboriginal identity this implies.'
1 Mudrooroo : Crafty Imposter or Rebel with a Cause Maureen Clark , 2004 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , October vol. 21 no. 4 2004; (p. 101-110)
1 Reality Rights in the Wildcat Trilogy Maureen Clark , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: Mongrel Signatures : Reflections on the Work of Mudrooroo 2003; (p. 43-64)
1 Mudrooroo and the Death of the Mother Maureen Clark , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: New Literatures Review , Winter no. 40 2003; (p. 83-102)
Discusses the ongoing debate regarding Mudrooroo's claim to Aboriginal ancestry, particularly relating to his mother's English/Irish rather than Aboriginal heritage. Includes biographical details about Mudrooroo's life and that of his mother, Elizabeth Johnson (nee Barron), and her ancestry.
1 Unmasking Mudrooroo Maureen Clark , 2001 single work essay criticism
— Appears in: Kunapipi , vol. 23 no. 2 2001; (p. 48-62)
The author investigates the authenticity of Mudrooroo's claims to Aboriginal heritage and "stolen generation" institutionalised childhood, noting Mudrooroo's sister's account of their family background, and discussing what actually constitutes Aboriginal identity. She notes similarities between Mudrooroo and the historical George Augustus Robinson, who features in various forms in his novels.
1 Grim Wit and Family Outings in Janette Turner Hospital's The Ivory Swing Maureen Clark , 2000 single work criticism
— Appears in: New Literatures Review , Summer vol. 37 no. 2000; (p. 1-13)
X