AustLit

'On November 2018, the Icelandic composer and ‘multi-instrumentalist’ Ólafur Arnalds walked onstage at Canberra Theatre and offered his first impression of the city before a packed house. ‘As we landed in your elusive capital,’ he began, ‘I wondered if we’d arrived in the right place. It felt as if we were in the middle of nowhere.’ Clearly enjoying himself, Arnalds grinned, before declaiming with one arm raised: ‘It’s such a beautiful place but it doesn’t look like a capital city.’ The audience erupted in laughter.' (Introduction)

'In this article I investigate four phases in Australian non-fiction publishing between the late 1950s and early 2000s, focused on works of current affairs, politics and popular history. Many such books, I argue, were published as part of a ‘cultural mission’ in Australian non-fiction book publishing, where an imperative for reform motivated many publishers to publish books they believed to be of greater than commercial importance. The paper first defines ‘cultural mission’ publishing. I then argue that such publishing has played a crucial role in Australian culture wars and struggles over national identity since the late 1950s and that these struggles have played out in four overlapping phases that reflect shifts in national debate and the commercial imperatives of book publishing. These consist of, first, a ‘renaissance’ phase from the late 1950s until roughly the late 1960s; second, an ‘insurrectionist’ phase from the late 1960s until the mid-1980s; third, a ‘reaction’ phase from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s, and fourth a ‘corporatist’ phase that gathered pace in the late 1990s.' (Introduction)

'In 1982, Michael Symons published One Continuous Picnic: A History of Eating in Australia. The twenty-fifth-anniversary edition extended the subtitle with the addition of the "g" word as a sign of national progress and maturation, so that it read, A Gastronomic History of Australian Eating. The main title, while remaining the same, originally read ironically, like Donald Horne's title for The Lucky Country, suggesting a settler culture lacking in discipline, ambition, or taste—whereas by the time of the anniversary edition, "the continuous picnic" had become a full-blown paradox, conjuring simultaneously both progress and decline. It speaks now of nostalgia for a more innocent time, the naiveté (some would say the perversity) of which lay in its self-satisfaction. So what exactly does the picnic signify in Australian culture? What was its original conception, and how has it evolved as a representative image of the Australian way of life?' (Introduction)