Unit Co-ordinator/Lecturer
Ian Syson
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
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
Mon 13:00-14:00 G372
Tutorial
- Mon 14:00 – 16:00 C226 PN
- Mon 16:00 – 18:00 C226 PN
- Thu 13:00 – 15:00 PB107 PM
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Staff:
Class Materials:
Text Books
You are required to read all of the texts below.
- Kenneth Cook, Wake in Fright
- Christopher Lee, ed, Turning the Century: Writing of the 1890s
- Katharine Susannah Prichard, Coonardoo
- Christos Tsiolkas, Loaded
- Sonya Hartnett , Surrender
- 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
- 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 Dead Europe and one on Alexis Wright, which discusses Carpentaria and other texts.
Learning Outcomes:
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Students will learn to present literary arguments in a variety of verbal and textual settings and formats. (CGA 3 and 4)
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Students will be introduced to the practice of tutorial discussion and debate in which problem solving is an important aspect. (CGA 1 and 4).
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The literary texts studied will ensure students negotiate literary representations of diverse cultures. (CGAs 5)
Core Graduate Attributes:
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is an effective problem solver in a range of settings, including professional practice
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can locate, evaluate, manage and use information effectively (including "critical thinking", ICT and statistical skills)
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communicates effectively as a professional and as a citizen
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can work both autonomously and collaboratively as a professional
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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 22 July)
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 29 July)
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 5 Aug)
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.
Week 4 (Starts 12 Aug)
Reading week
Week 5 (Starts 19 Aug)
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
- Richard White, Inventing Australia, Allen and Unwin 1981
- Graeme Turner, National Fictions, Allen and Unwin 1986
- Patrick White, Voss (any edition)
Week 6 (Starts 26 Aug)
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)
- Catterson, Simon, 'The Best Australian Film You've Never Seen' UR
- Les Murray poems UR
- Ania Walwicz, 'Australia'
Useful web material
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
Week 7 (Starts 2 Sept)
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
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 9 Sept)
Lecture Aboriginal Voices
Tutorial Aboriginal Voices
- Presentation topic: Do Aboriginal voices differ from non-Aboriginal ones?
- Key Terms: Indigeneity, 'earthspeaking'
Reading
- Carpentaria (excerpt) UR
- Kath Walker (Oodgeroo Noonuccal) poems UR
- Lionel Fogarty poems UR
- Melissa Lucashenko, 'Not Quite White in the Head' UR
- Larissa Behrendt, 'Law Stories and Life Stories: Aboriginal Women, the Law and Australian Society', UR
- Brenda Saunders, 'Caring for Country: The EcoWisdom of Australian Aboriginal Poetry' UR
- Alexis Wright, 'A Weapon of Poetry' UR
- Alexis Wright, 'On Writing Carpentaria' http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21853571-5001986,00.html
- Warumpi Band, My Island Home
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
Week 9 (Starts 16 Sept)
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
- Barbara Baynton, 'Squeaker's Mate', 'The Chosen Vessel' T (Lee)
- Henry Lawson, 'The Drover's Wife' UR
- Marilyn Lake, 'The Politics of Respectability', UR
- Schaffer, Kay, 'Barbara Baynton: A Dissident Voice from the Bush' UR
- Julieanne Lamond 'Stella vs Miles: Women Writers and Literary Value in Australia' Meanjin vol 70, no. 3, Spring 2011, pp. 32-39.
- Judith Wright, 'South of my Days'
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/
MID SEMESTER BREAK WEEK BEGINNING 23 Sept
Week 10 (Starts 30 Sept)
Lecture Other Voices from the Margins
Tutorial Unreliable Narrators in Contemporary Fiction
- Presentation topic: Who is speaking in Sonya Hartnett's novel Surrender? What writing strategies does she use to tell this story?
- Key Terms: narrative and truth; authenticity and voice
Reading
- Cate Kennedy ‘Cold Snap' UR
- Sonya Hartnett, Surrender T
- Joseph Furphy 'Social Status on an Australian Station' T (Lee, 269)
- Henry Lawson, 'The Union Buries its Dead' T (Lee, 313)
- Henry Lawson, 'Faces in the Street' T (Lee, 263)
- Peter Carey, 'Crabs' UR
- Olga Masters, 'The Rages of Mrs Torrens' UR
- jas duke poems UR
- Les Murray poems UR
Further reading
Web resources
Week 11 (Starts 7 Oct)
Lecture Christos Tsiolkas: Toward a Suburban Hell (Paul Mavroudis)
Tutorial The Suburbs: Hell or Sanctuary?
- Presentation topic: How is suburbia represented in Australian literature?
- Key Term:suburbia
Reading
- Christos Tsiolkas, Loaded, T
- Christos Tsiolkas, The Slap or Dead Europe (optional text for those presenting this week or writing a focused essay on Tsiolkas)
- Kirkby, Joan. 'The pursuit of oblivion: in flight from suburbia' [online]. Australian Literary Studies, v.18, no.4, 1998: 1-19. UR
- Brooks, Karen. Shit creek: suburbia, abjection and subjectivity in Australian 'grunge' fiction [online]. Australian Literary Studies, v.18, no.4, 1998: 87-100.
- Coral Hull, 'Liverpool' UR
Web resources
Week 12 (Starts 14 Oct)
Lecture 'Fair Suck of the Sauce Bottle' and 'cooking with gas'
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
- 'North Wind' UR
- 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 Monday 21 October.
Choose one of the following topics, but do not answer a question that relates directly to your class presentation
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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?
- Compare Christos Tsiolkas's Loaded with either his Dead Europe 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% write-up)
The presentation is based on the week's readings. You will need to read the material and make connections between the various texts set down for each week, paying attention to the key words and tutorial topics listed below. 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. Some of the material in the reading list will be held on reserve in the library.
You will write up the presentation taking into account the discussion in class and hand it in to your tutor's pigeon hole no later than one week after delivery. The write-up 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 |