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Kathryn James Kathryn James i(A70199 works by)
Gender: Female
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1 y separately published work icon Death, Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Adolescent Literature Kathryn James , New York (City) : Routledge Taylor & Francis Group , 2009 Z1790145 2009 single work criticism
1 'There's a Black Boy Dead and a Migloo Holding a Gun' : Death, Aboriginality and History in Australian Adolescent Literature Kathryn James , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Papers : Explorations into Children's Literature , vol. 19 no. 1 2009; (p. 5-16) 'In 'Preying on the Past: Contexts of Some Recent Neo-Historical Fiction', Peter Pierce argues that, over the last five or so decades, Australian historical fiction has turned away from 'unconstrained and idealistic affirmations about Australia's future' to empathise instead with those figures in the historical landscape who were previously marginalised: 'victims of imperialism, patriarchy, racism, capitalism' (p.307).
This trend is particularly applicable to historical literature for younger readers, which now often tries to renegotiate history by providing a counterpoint to the metanarratives of the past (Stephens 2003, xii-xiii). Reflecting and responding to developments in the disciplines of historiography and, more generally, the humanities, texts in this genre are representative of the attempt to interrogate monolithic versions of Australian history - often called the 'three cheers' view - in which positivity, achievement and the peaceful settlement of the nation are key themes.
At issue in these novels is thus the redressing of past wrongs, particularly with respects to the violent aspects of colonisation when so many members of the Indigenous population either died or were forcibly displaced. Each of the three adolescent novels I focus upon in this paper - Melissa Lucashenko's Killing Darcy (1998), Gary Crew's No Such Country (1991) and Mark Svendsen's Poison Under Their Lips (2001) - is equally idiosyncratic in its approach to narrativising Australia's problematic colonial past' (Author's abstract).
1 Over Her Dead Body : Expelling The Monstrous-Feminine in Touching Earth Lightly Kathryn James , 2006 single work criticism
— Appears in: Papers: Explorations into Children's Literature , May vol. 16 no. 1 2006; (p. 25-32) Kathryn James' close analysis of Margo Lanagan's Touching Earth Lightly (1996) explores the 'sex-leading-to-death' motif and the inextricable link between death and sex/sexuality that is a pervasive part of the Western cultural imagination. James draws from the work of Foucault and Kristeva, to argue that the repression of cultural anxieties regarding death in Western societies re-emerge as an erotic pleasure which is a 'symbolic response to the uncontainable threat of mortality through the figure of the dead feminine body' (25). James argues that Lanagan's novel highlights how 'literal or symbolic death represents one of the ways that the 'perverse' body can be removed from the sexual economy and thus work to reinforce the heterosexual norm' (p25). In Lanagan's text, this is signified through Janey, a sexually promiscuous girl with a sordid family life, who exceeds the boundaries of acceptable sexuality in adolescents and dies violently and brutally at the end of the novel. James argues that the conclusion of the text 'locates the female subject firmly within phallocentric systems of representation' through the containment of Janey's 'dangerous sexuality'. James concludes that the representation and resolution of Janey as a sexual threat fundamentally supports the underlying ideology of heterosexual romance and its demand that female sexuality remain contingent upon masculine desires (p.30).
1 Subversion or Socialization? : Humour and Carnival in Morris Gleitzman's Texts Kathryn James , 2004 single work criticism
— Appears in: Children's Literature in Education , December vol. 35 no. 4 2004; (p. 367-379) "Like their counterparts elsewhere, Australian children favour humorous novels; comedic writers consistently dominate the preteen and early teen fiction market in Australia. Regardless of its popularity, however, in comparison to more serious writing, humorous literature has received little critical attention. Of the studies aimed at this area, most have tended to concentrate on the various stages of development in childrens preferences for humor, its strategies, forms and appeal, with very few examining the ideological assumptions informing particular texts. Yet, this article argues, humorous books are no less concerned with culture, value and meaning than any other kind of fiction for children. As Morris Gleitzmans texts illustrate, by highlighting the cultural processes involved in the construction of language and meaning, inviting readers to play with ideas about language, social roles and behaviors, and creating characters who act in ways which are oppositional to usual socializing expectations, humorous literature, especially in carnivalized forms, has the potential to problematize unquestioning acceptance of various ideological para-digms, values, social practices and rules."
1 Shaping National Identity: Representations of the Ocean in Some Australian Texts Kathryn James , 2000 single work criticism
— Appears in: Papers : Explorations into Children's Literature , December vol. 10 no. 3 2000; (p. 12-22) This analysis examines four Australian children's texts, Australia at the Beach, Looking for Crabs, The Silver Fox, and Sailing Home and the ways in which they utilize the landscape, specifically seascapes, to gauge how they function in the shaping of national identities. James points out that, 'Beachscapes...work in a similar way to agricultural landscapes by evoking the literary pastoral, and particularly by association with the ideal of childhood', adding that 'It is on the beach that the Australian ideals of nature, classlessness, friendliness, community and egalitarianism are perceived to combine' (12). The comparative reading of the four works concludes that 'the centrality of the coast to the Australian culture suggests that seascapes should be marked as sites of special interest in analysis concerned with cultural discourse' (21).
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