COLLEGE OF ARTS

ACL 2009
Australian Literature
Semester 1 2014
Footscray Park

Unit Co-ordinator/Lecturer
Pamela Niehoff

Available for consultation:
St Albans (available by appointment)

We acknowledge the Elders, families and forebears of the Wurundjeri and Boonwurrung tribes of the Kulin Nation who were the custodians of University land for many centuries. We acknowledge that the land on which we meet was the place of age old ceremonies of celebration, initiation and renewal and that the Kulin Nation people's living culture had and has a unique role in the life of this region.

UNIT CALENDAR

Week

Topic Lecturer

1

Introduction to Australian Literature

Pamela Niehoff

2

 Contemporary Australian Literature and the Cultural Cringe Pamela Niehoff
3

The Mis-Education of Christos Tsiolkas

Paul Mavroudis

4

 The Rise and Fall (and rise?) of Australian Literature Pamela Niehoff
5

Australia as Hell (First essay due this week)

 Pamela Niehoff

6

Sydney or the Bush

Pamela Niehoff

7

 The construction of Aboriginality Pamela Niehoff

8

 Aboriginal Voices Pamela Niehoff
  MID SEMESTER BREAK  

9

The Literary Politics of Gender

 Pamela Niehoff

10

 'A Fair Go' Pamela Niehoff

11

Study Week

 
12

Study Week

 

INTRODUCTION

This is a Literary Studies unit. It introduces students to the history and significant themes of Australian literature. Students will be required to read a series of important literary texts that indicate the diversity of content and form in Australian literature across the previous 230 years. The representation of Aboriginality will be one of the unit's central themes.

Students completing the unit will be able to identify some of the significant preoccupations of Australian literature. They will also be able to discuss the development of Australian writing in response to global issues.

Format:

The unit is designed so that each student attends one 1 hr lecture and one 2 hr tutorial per week for ten weeks. The lectures aim broadly to cover central themes and debates while the tutorials are sessions for closer discussion and argument about specific texts and the issues they raise. In the weekly outline below compulsory and optional texts are nominated. All the compulsory texts must be read.

Each tutorial will be initiated by one or more student presentations.

Because the questions for assessment range between general issues and specific topics, it will be necessary for students wishing to perform well to attend all lectures and tutorials.

Timetable

Timetable

Lecture

Wed 11:00-12:00 4C335

Tutorial

Wed 12:00 – 14:00 3N126 PN

Staff:

Class Materials:

Text Books

You are required to read all of the texts below.

  • Christos Tsiolkas, Barracuda
  • Kenneth Cook, Wake in Fright
  • Christopher Lee, ed, Turning the Century: Writing of the 1890s
  • Katharine Susannah Prichard, Coonardoo
  • Alice Pung, Unpolished Gem
  • Unit Reader
  • Other material to be handed out in class from time to time.

Some useful references for research

  • Bruce Bennett and Jennifer Strauss eds. The Oxford literary history of Australia Oxford University Press, 1998
  • Heiss, Anita and Peter Minter eds. Macquarie Pen Anthology of Aboriginal Literature, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2008
  • Nicholas Birns and Rebecca McNeer eds. A Companion to Australian Literature since 1900 Camden House, 2007
  • Ken Gelder and Paul Salzman After the Celebration: Australian Fiction 1989-2007 Melbourne University Press, 2009
  • Graham Huggan Australian Literature: Postcolonialism, Racism Transnationalism Oxford University Press, 2007
  • Nicholas Jose ed. Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature Allen & Unwin 2009
    Peter Pierce The Cambridge history of Australian Literature Cambridge University Press, 2009
  • Elizabeth Webby ed. Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature, Cambridge University Press, 2000
  • William H. Wilde, Joy Hooton and Barry Andrews eds. Oxford Companion to Australian Literature, Oxford University Press, 1994
  • Eleni Pavlides, Un-Australian Fictions: Nation, Multiculture(alism) and Globalisation, 1988-2008 Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2013. This book includes a chapter on Tsiolkas's Dead Europe and one on Alexis Wright, which discusses Carpentaria and other texts.
  • www.poetrylibrary.edu.au
  • www.austlit.edu.au
  • trove.nla.gov.au

Learning Outcomes:

  1. Students will learn to present literary arguments in a variety of verbal and textual settings and formats. (CGA 3 and 4)

  2. Students will be introduced to the practice of tutorial discussion and debate in which problem solving is an important aspect. (CGA 1 and 4).

  3. The literary texts studied will ensure students negotiate literary representations of diverse cultures. (CGAs 5)

Core Graduate Attributes:

  1. is an effective problem solver in a range of settings, including professional practice

  2. can locate, evaluate, manage and use information effectively (including "critical thinking", ICT and statistical skills)

  3. communicates effectively as a professional and as a citizen

  4. can work both autonomously and collaboratively as a professional

  5. can work effectively in settings of social and cultural diversity

UNIT OUTLINE

Key to readings

T compulsory text
UR from reader
FR further reading

Week 1 (Starts 24 February)

Lecture Introduction to Australian Literature

Tutorial: Introduction

  • Introductions and explanation of assessment, key terms and readings.
  • Allocating presentations

Useful web material

Further reading

Week 2 (Starts 3 March)

Lecture Contemporary Australian Literature and the Cultural Cringe

Tutorial Have we avoided the cringe in contemporary Australian Literature?

  • Presentation topic: Have we avoided the cringe in contemporary Australian Literature?
  • Key Term: 'cultural cringe'

Reading

Further reading

Week 3 (Starts 10 March)

Lecture The Mis-Education of Christos Tsiolkas

Tutorial

  • Presentation topic: How is suburbia represented in Australian literature?
  • Key Term:suburbia

Reading

  • Christos Tsiolkas, Barracuda, T
  • Alice Pung, Unpolished Gem T
  • Jennifer Mills 'Barracuda and middle-class self-hatred' Overland Nov 2013,
  • Nathanael O’Reilly, ‘Introduction’, Exploring Suburbia, Teneo, Amherst, New York, 2013, pp. xi-xli UR
  • Rosemary Sorensen, ‘Barracuda: A graphic study of Australian masculinity’ Australian Book Review, no. 356, Nov. 2013 UR
  •  www.barracuda.net.au/extras.html
  • Julieanne Lamond 'The Australian Face' Sydney Review of Books  29 Nov 2013
  • Kirkby, Joan. 'The pursuit of oblivion: in flight from suburbia' [online]. Australian Literary Studies, v.18, no.4, 1998: 1-19. UR
  • Coral Hull, 'Liverpool' UR
  • Those presenting this week or writing a focused essay on Tsiolkas may choose to read Loaded and/or The Slap for this week

Web resources

Week 4 (Starts17 March)

Lecture The rise and and fall (and rise?) of Australian Literature

Tutorial Where have all the literary novels gone?

  • Presentation topic: Where have all the literary novels gone?
  • Key Term: 'literary novel'

Reading

Further reading

  • Mark Davis, 'Literature, Small Publishers and the Market in Culture', Overland 190.
  • David Carter ‘Boom, bust, or business as usual? Literary Fiction Publishing’ David Carter & Anne Galligan eds., Making Books: Contemporary Australian Publishing, UQP, St Lucia, 2007, pp. 231-246
  • Katherine Bode ‘Publishing and Australian Literature: Crisis, Decline or Transformation?’ Cultural Studies Review, vol. 16, no. 2, 2010, pp. 24-48

Week 5 (Starts 24 March)

Lecture Australia as Hell

Tutorial Australia as Hell

  • Presentation topic: How does Hell function in the literature of Australia?
  • Key Terms: Hell, Paradise, Australia
Reading

Useful web material

Further reading

  • Graeme Turner, National Fictions, Allen and Unwin 1986
  • Patrick White, Voss (any edition)

Week 6 (Starts 31 March)

Lecture Sydney or the Bush

Tutorial The Hell Within

  • Presentation topic: How important is the city/country binary in Australian literature? Do any texts resist its terms?
  • Key Terms: the city and the bush
Reading
  • Henry Lawson, 'The Drover's Wife' UR
  • William Lane, 'Sweating in the Sydney Slums' T (Lee)
  • Judah Waten, 'To a Country Town' UR
  • The Lawson/Paterson debate T (Lee p355)
  • Caterson, Simon, 'The Best Australian Film You've Never Seen' UR
  • Les Murray poems UR
  • Ania Walwicz, 'Australia'
  • Margaret Rooney, ‘“A heart that could be strong and true”: Kenneth Cook’s Wake in Fright as Queer Interior’, Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, vol 11, no 1, 2011, pp. 1-15. UR
  • Jacqueline Kent ‘The Unsentimental Bloke: Kenneth Cook and Wake in Fright’ Australian Book Review no 316 Nov 2009, pp. 37-39 UR
  • Coral Hull ‘Liverpool’ UR

Useful web material

  • Wake in Fright , Part 1

Further reading

  • Vance Palmer, The Legend of the Nineties, any edition, (1954)
  • Christopher Lee, City Bushman: Henry Lawson and the Australian Imagination, Curtin UP, 2004
  • Kate Jennings on Wake in Fright
  • John Carroll, Intruders in the Bush: The Australian Quest for Identity, OUP, Melb, 1992 2nd edn.

Week 7 (Starts 7 April)

Lecture The construction of Aboriginality

Tutorial The representation of Aboriginality

  • Presentation topic: Discuss the representation of Aboriginality in Coonardoo and other texts by non-Aboriginal writers
  • Key Terms: Aboriginality, Aborigine, representation

Reading

  • Coonardoo T
  • Rosa Praed, 'The Corroborree' T (Lee, 133)
  • Corbould, Clare, 'Rereading Radical Texts: Coonardoo and the Politics of Fiction' UR
  • Neil Murray poems UR
  • Warumpi Band, My Island Home
  • Mudrooroo poems UR
  • Mishra, Vijay, 'Aboriginal Representations in Australian Texts'
  • Glenn R Cooke ‘Kitsch or Kind: Representations of Aborigines in Popular Art’ Artlink 15.4 UR

Further reading

  • Richard White, Inventing Australia, Allen and Unwin 1981
  • Bob Hodge and Vijay Mishra, Dark Side of the Dream: Australian Literature and the Postcolonial Mind, Allen and Unwin, 1990

Week 8 (Starts 14 April)

Lecture Aboriginal Voices

Tutorial Aboriginal Voices

  • Presentation topic: Do Aboriginal voices differ from non-Aboriginal ones?
  • Key Terms: Indigeneity, 'earthspeaking'

Reading

Further reading

  • Bob Hodge and Vijay Mishra, Dark Side of the Dream: Australian Literature and the Postcolonial Mind, Allen and Unwin, 1990
  • Mudrooroo, The indigenous literature of Australia: Milli milli wangka Hyland House, 1997
  • Michele Grossman ed, Blacklines: Contemporary Critical Writing by Indigenous Australians , MUP, 2003

MID SEMESTER BREAK WEEK BEGINNING 21 April

Week 9 (Starts 28 April)

Lecture The Literary Politics of Gender

Tutorial Women in Australian Literature

  • Presentation topic: Were women written out of Australian literature and history? Are women written out of Australian literature and history?
  • Key Terms: gender and writing; gender and history

Reading

Further reading

  • Carole Ferrier, ed, Gender, politics and fiction: Twentieth century Australian women's novels , UQP, 1992
  • Fay Ferres, ed, The Time to write : Australian women writers 1890-1930 , Penguin, 1993
  • Drusilla Modjeska, Exiles at home : Australian women writers 1925-1945 , Sirius Books, 1984
  • Rosemary Moore, Barbara Baynton: Liar or Truth-teller
  • On the Representation of Women Writers – Jo Case www.killyourdarlingsjournal.com/2011/05/

 

Week 10 (Starts 5 May)

Lecture 'A Fair Go'

Tutorial Fighting Among Ourselves

  • Presentation topic: According to this session's texts, do we live up to the idea of 'the fair go'?
  • Key Terms: mateship, battlers

Reading

  • John Morrison, 'North Wind' UR
  • John Morrison, Night Shift UR
  • Peter Carey, 'Crabs' UR
  • Olga Masters, 'The Rages of Mrs Torrens' UR
  • jas duke poems UR
  • Les Murray poems UR
  • Jim Page, 'Is Mateship a Virtue?' Australian Journal of Social issues Vol. 37 No. 2 May 2002

Further reading and web material

ASSESSMENT

All assessment must be submitted and/or performed. Failure to perform/submit any piece will mean failure of the unit. The assessment for this unit is as follows:

All assessment must be submitted and/or performed. Failure to perform/submit any piece will mean failure of the unit. The assessment for this unit is as follows:

1. Short essay (600-800 words) 20% Due in the tutorial week 5.

Essay topic will be posted here in week 2.

2. Long essay (1600 words) 50% Due on Friday 30 May.

Choose one of the following topics, but do not answer a question that relates directly to your class presentation.

  1. In a post-national and globalised world, what does or what can the term Australian literature mean? Answer your question with reference to at least 3 compulsory book-length texts.
  2. Compare and contrast the representation of Aboriginality in 3 book-length texts by both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal authors. You should also focus on a number of texts in which Aboriginality achieves marginal or no representation.
  3. Is mateship fundamental to Australian life? Discuss the way at least 2 of the compulsory book-length texts and some (at least 4) stories answer this question.
  4. Whose fault is it when "blood stains the wattle"? Discuss the representation of violence in Barracuda and 2 other book-length texts and 3 or 4 shorter texts.
  5. Why are the city and the bush such important figures in Australian culture? How is the division between the two represented in 3 book-length texts and some (at least 3) poems? Do any of the texts covered in this unit transcend this binary?
  6. Compare Christos Tsiolkas's Barracuda with either his Loaded or The Slap. Comment on anything you see fit in relation to the interests of the unit. Pay attention to the continuities in Tsiolkas's work as well as noting the aspects which seem to have changed

3. Formal Presentation 30% (10 % presentation; 20% short essay)

The presentation is based on the week's readings. You will need to read all the material and make connections between the various texts set down for each week, paying attention to the key words and tutorial topics listed therein. You will be expected to speak to your papers for 10-15 minutes and then raise questions and problems to be thrown open in the group. .

You will write a short essay taking into account the discussion in class and hand it in to your tutor's pigeon hole no later than one week after delivery. This essay should be 800-1000 words.

 

Handing in assignments

Hard copy assignments are to be submitted in the tutor's pigeon hole.

Penalties for late assignments

Late assignments (without an extension) will be graded at a reduction of 25 per cent per week late.

Special consideration

If you feel that illness or personal difficulties have impaired your performance you may ask for Special Consideration which can facilitate late submission, and alternative arrangements for assignments. This can cover both emotional and physical difficulties. You need to contact a student counsellor to arrange this.

Guidelines for Assessment Criteria

STUDENTS' RIGHTS & RESPONSIBILITIES

A NOTE ABOUT PLAGIARISM FOR ALL ARTS STUDENTS