Critical theories & approaches

Parses the difference between nationalism and the nation. 'To show the oppressive, homogenising and frankly racist operations of nationalism—to suggest why historically and as a…

The publication of two essays on 'the state of the discipline' (to borrow a title from the ADE Bulletin) is not a response to…

The author critiques the ways in which a set of novels by women writers published in the period 1980-2005 represent ‘wounded men’, and analyses the…

Discusses Lehmann's use of both Roman history and to Australian setting/theme in his poetry, with particular attention to Ross' Poems.

‘The extent to which a notional Australia is at stake in new ventures in Australian literary history is … a timely and productive question. These…

Paper first presented at the Conference of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL) in July 2000 in Hobart. It is concerned with…

The article discusses the critical reception of the work of Brian Castro, especially the responses to his use of critical theory in his novels. In…

Castro discusses the relationship of his work to literary theory, questions of authorship, style and genre, and the purpose of literature.

Devanny’s novel Sugar Heaven was re-released in 2002 some 65 years after its first publication. The momentous historical and political changes since the time of…

Examines the mode of characterisation prevalent in Australian fiction, a mode which presents character as “the product of social, extrinsic determinants rather than as the…

The essay uses Bourdieu’s theories to show the ways in which some key female characters in institutions in Lilley’s Summer Heights High and Jolley’s fiction…

Discusses the different approaches to Wright’s poetry over the period from her first collection The Moving Image (1946) to her Collected Poems(1994) in the…

For an outsider who began to familiarise himself with the literature from Australia and the concomitant critical debate on its history, its nature and status…