"The greatest harbour in the world" : Sydney Harbour as a contested space in Australian culture

It is a matter of public record that the former Prime Minister of Australia, the Honourable Paul Keating, upset certain Australian architects with his intervention into the redevelopment of the 22-hectare “Barangaroo” site on Sydney Harbour. While Keating’s intervention continues to provide engaging theatre for Sydney residents the debate is also an interesting expression of the narrative of contestation that has been played out historically about the waters of Sydney Harbour. From a cultural studies perspective, the Harbour, and the Sydney Harbour Bridge, has been for many years a political and imaginative space that captures a diversity of local and national preoccupations. Keating’s announcement that planners have a “once-in-200-year opportunity to call a halt to the kind of encroachments we have seen in the past” is in fact another moment in the long history of disputation over the impact of the man-made environment on the natural landform in this area. This paper addresses the spaces of Sydney Harbour as represented in recent debates and in writing and film from previous decades. The argument suggests that the Harbour is a complex site of public and private enactment that is played out in a diverse range of cultural representations. In particular, the paper notes the work of Michel de Certeau on the mythic qualities of certain spaces in relation to the space of the Harbour. ‘The Greatest Harbour in the World’ argues that the Harbour, and the Bridge, fulfils a particular historical and cultural function that gives this space a set of meanings that are well beyond the typical parameters of urban development.

And the winner is...? : Thinking about Australian book awards in the library

Among their many duties, librarians occupy and must negotiate a space between the dreamed-of library and the all-too-real culture industries. This is perhaps most visible in the competition between pragmatism and idealism in text selection and collection development, and in one commonly-used tool thereof: the book award. This paper considers the possibilities and problematics of Australian book awards in libraries and librarianship.

Contemporary Australian masculinities and De Certeau’s concept of la perruqe in Christos Tsiolkas’ novel The Slap (2008)

This paper will focus on how Christos Tsiolkas the author of The Slap (2008) invites us to view the complex range of private lives of his male characters living in suburban Melbourne through their daily routines, conversations and innermost thoughts. On the surface most appear to be participating in and achieving a certain level of success in their lives. However, this novel reveals when we agitate and dig below the “practices of everyday life” there is often a disquiet simmering away under the facade of family harmony, male bravado and contentment. This paper will argue that as a result of dissatisfaction with the established order of their lives, each man has managed to create another level of meaning for himself, his own form of la perruque (De Certeau 2011: 29),the concept of living proposed by Michel De Certeau. A treatment of the characters in this article draws on, and is used to illustrate the paradigm.

The Australian beachspace : flagging the spaces of Australian beach texts

The Australian beach is a significant component of the Australian culture and a way of life. The Australian Beachspace explores existing research about the Australian beach from a cultural and Australian studies perspective. Initially, the beach in Australian studies has been established within a binary opposition. Fiske, Hodge, and Turner (1987) pioneered the concept of the beach as a mythic space, simultaneously beautiful but abstract. In comparison, Meaghan Morris (1998) suggested that the beach was in fact an ordinary or everyday space. The research intervenes in previous discussions, suggesting that the Australian beach needs to be explored in spatial terms as well as cultural ones. The thesis suggests the beach is more than these previously established binaries and uses Soja's theory of Thirdspace (1996) to posit the term beachspace as a way of describing this complex site. The beachspace is a lived space that encompasses both the mythic and ordinary and more. A variety of texts have been explored in this work, both film and literature. The thesis examines textual representations of the Australian beach using Soja's Thirdspace as a frame to reveal the complexities of the Australian beach through five thematic chapters. Some of the texts discussed include works by Tim Winton's Breath (2008) and Land's Edge (1993), Robert Drewe's short story collections The Bodysurfers (1987) and The Rip (2008), and films such as Newcastle (dir. Dan Castle 2008) and Blackrock (dir. Steve Vidler 1997). Ultimately The Australian Beachspace illustrates that the multiple meanings of the beach's representations are complex and yet frequently fail to capture the layered reality of the Australian beach. The Australian beach is best described as a beachspace, a complex space that allows for the mythic and/or/both ordinary at once.

On the beach : exploring the complex egalitarianism of the Australian beach

Australia, internationally, is known as a beach loving country, particularly in popular culture. The beach did not figure significantly in academic discussion before the 1980s when Fiske, Hodge, and Turner (1987, 54) researched the beach as a space of myth, seeing it as an integral part of the modern Australian identity. One common myth in Australia is that the beach is an equaliser, a place of multiple ethnicities, shapes, sizes, and genders (Dutton, 1985). I agree that the beach remains a significant aspect of Australian identity; however, limiting its meaning to a mythic space contributing to a homogenous national identity is not adequate. This paper will explore how Australian texts comment on or challenge the myth of the beach as an egalitarian space. I argue that recent Australian texts show a more complex, layered representation of this concept; and that the beach also in this respect can no longer be understood as a myth transcending difference.

Fiction as a form of change : a paper overview of a literature panel discussion

It is well established that literary work can promote insights that result in future change, whether on a personal or an institutional level. As Umberto Eco (1989) notes, the act of reading does not stop with the artist but continues into the work of communities. The papers delivered in this panel consider the regenerative role of literature within culture, arguing that the special properties of literature can convey an important sense of nature (Bateson 1973, Zapf 2008). These concepts are discussed in relation to writing about Australian flora and fauna. Using an ecocritical focus based on ideas about the relationship between literature and the environment the paper considers Australian works and the way in which literature enlivens this complex intersection between humans, animals and the environment. This engagement is investigated through three modes: the philosophical, the literary, and the practical. The novels discussed include Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria, Richard Flanagan’s Wanting, and Sonya Hartnett’s Forest, as well as a range of fictional and non-fictional works that describe the Blue Mountains region in New South Wales. The paper closes with a discussion of the role of story-telling as a way of introducing the public to specific environmental locations and issues.

Redrawing the Map : An Interdisciplinary Geocritical Approach to Australian Cultural Narratives

In this chapter we seek to interrogate the methods and assumptions underpinning geocriticism by engaging with and reframing dominant ways of analysing mediated representations of Australian space in cultural narratives, specifically film, literature, and theatre. What, we ask, might geocriticism contribute to the analysis of Australian texts in which location figures prominently? We argue a geocritical approach may provide an interdisciplinary framework that offers a way of identifying tropes across geographic regions and across media representations. Drawing on scholarship spanning Australian cinematic, literary and theatrical narratives, this chapter surveys published work in the field and posits that a refined geocritical mapping and analysis of the cultural terrain foregrounds the significance of geography to culture and draws different traditions of spatial enquiry into dialogue without privileging any particular textual form. We conclude by scoping possibilities for future research emerging from recent technological developments in interactive online cartography.

Australian eco-pastoral poetry

Les Murray and Judith Wright are two Australian poets who are widely read as landscape poets. While this framing offers valuable insights into their work it often fails to bring the importance into a contemporary context or to recognise the long tradition Australia has had with , to use Leo Marx’ term, “the complex pastoral”. As Ruth Blair reminds us in her chapter “Hugging the Shore: The Green Mountains of South-East Queensland” in The Littoral Zone: Australian Contexts and their Writers it is accepted that North America has a tradition of the complex pastoral mode but it should be remembered that Australia also has a long history of this form. Both Judith Wright’s and Les Murray’s poetry encourages active campaigning for the environment .These Australian poets are eco-pastoral poets whose poetry encourages active reading rather than passive reflections. Their poetry speaks to the strong connection between the lived everyday landscape and the imagination of past, present and future. Their work is imbued with a strong sense of ecocritical awareness while at the same time drawing on pastoral conventions. These two Australian poets do not offer idealistic pastoral notions but rather reveal the complexities of lived human/nonhuman relationships. This paper will discuss these complexities and how poetry can be experienced as literature in action—ways for readers to connect with and negotiate with the land they inhabit. The research for this paper was, in part, drawn from the responses that local community library groups offered after reading the works of these poets. What became evident from this research was the way the poetry made the readers think not only of landscape as a place of refuge from the urban technological world but also as a contemporary place with connection to agency that motivates readers into active change.

Touching Texts : Adaptations of Australian Picture Books for Tablets

In order to explore some of the possibilities and constraints of picture books on tablets, this chapter addresses adaptations of contemporary Australian picture books for tablet devices. It considers how publishing technologies shape form and meaning of picture books, and attends particularly to the impact of interactivity and adaptation on such meaning. After discussing some contextual issues for electronic literature, this chapter explores the print and tablet versions of three picture books: Libby Gleeson and Freya Blackwood’s Look, A Book! (2011), Nick Bland’s The Wrong Book (2009), and Shaun Tan’s Rules of Summer (2013).

Children's Literature Digital Resources Project

Children's Literature Digital Resources is a full text digital repository of Australian children’s literature from 1830 to 1945. Users can read online the complete texts of a selection of early Australian children’s literature, both popular and rare. Digitised items include children’s and young adult fiction, poetry, short stories, and picture books. Users can also read related full text critical articles that were digitised as part of the project.

How children's literature shapes attitudes to Asia

Australia’s relationship with Asia has always been a focus for heated debate and, often, misunderstanding. What role do books play in moulding this relationship? A research project underway at the Queensland University of Technology seeks to answer that question by investigating the role of children’s literature in shaping young readers’ attitudes to Australia’s past, present and future relations with Asia.