image of person or book cover 6417610902542231379.jpg
Image courtesy of publisher's website.
Issue Details: First known date: 2016... 2016 Strangers at Home : Place, Belonging, and Australian Life Writing
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'What does it mean to belong? When we belong, how do we recognise it as belonging? What role does belonging play in the formation of self-identity?

'First and foremost, belonging is a kind of relationship, and the connection between self and place has a long philosophical tradition. Experienced across time and place, belonging may be configured through a range of contexts, from belonging to country, belonging to a suburb, a house, even a room within a house or an object. Places and spaces are fundamental to self-identity because the interpretation of our relationships with places and spaces gives rise to meaning, and it is through meaning that a sense of belonging emerges.

'To speak of belonging necessarily entails a sense of estrangement, a recognition of the complexity that is at the heart of the relationship between individuals and what they find in the world. Belonging, like identity, requires some nexus between self and something other; belonging requires, quite literally, something to belong to, a “home” in which we seek not to be a “stranger.” Together, belonging and estrangement map the connections through which self-identity is lived. Life writing necessarily inscribes ourselves into relationships and places and, as our relationship with the past evolves over the years, and as the ever-changing present offers new possibilities for the future, so those relationships are not just written but rewritten, reconfigured, re-imagined, and renegotiated with the time since lived and the forecast of future time.

'While there is a growing interest in our understanding of place and space, the focus of this attention has come mainly from philosophers and geographers. At the same time, life writing as a genre has enjoyed an almost exponential increase in both its readership and the number of life narratives being published. A survey of recent autobiographical writing makes it clear that our contemporary lives are significantly challenged by our connection to place. More particularly, in times of increasing mobility and disruptions to conventional family structures, connections to people and locations have become characterised as much by estrangement as by belonging. This book, therefore, brings recent theorising of place to consider a range of contemporary Australian autobiographies.

'Through a provocative discussion of contemporary Australian life writing, Strangers at Home examines what it means to belong and what belonging means for self-identity. Through an examination of the intersections between personal and social identities, Strangers at Home shows how place is essential to identity: contrary to the conventions of solipsism, a sense of self always entails that the self, even when it looks inward, must always locate that self by looking outward into the world, situating the body, and recognising that neither self nor body are either in or out of that place. This important study shows how writers constitute their selves socially, historically, relationally, communally and existentially, and how their sense of attachment—to belong or feel estranged from—realises these selves into some narrative coherence. From Drusilla Modjeska’s Poppy and Second Half First, to Rebecca Huntley’s An Italian Girl, Steve Bisley’s Stillways and many more, Strangers at Home invites readers to reconsider what it is to feel “at home.”' (Publication summary)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Amherst, New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Cambria Press ,
      2016 .
      image of person or book cover 6417610902542231379.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: xiv, 273 pp.
      Note/s:
      • Publication Date October 01, 2016
      ISBN: 9781604979343
      Series: y separately published work icon Cambria Australian Literature Series Susan Lever (editor), Cambria Press (publisher), Amherst : Cambria Press , 2008- Z1869108 2008 series - publisher criticism

      The Cambria Australian Literature Series focuses on critical studies of writing by Australians, with a particular emphasis on contemporary Australian fiction. In recent decades Australian fiction publishing has outstripped critical study, with the work of many important writers receiving little more critical attention than newspaper and journal reviews, with occasional articles in scholarly journals or collections by diverse critics. This series gives an opportunity for sustained consideration of a writer’s full career. In each book, an individual critic engages with the work of a writer, assisting other scholars, students and general readers in understanding its complexities. Each book seeks to find an appropriate, original and lively approach to the writer in question. In particular, the series places the writing not only within Australian culture but also in the context of international developments in the novel.

      Source: Publisher's website.

Works about this Work

Rev. of Strangers at Home: Place, Belonging, and Australian Life Writing Muireann Leech , 2019 single work review
— Appears in: A/b : Auto/Biography Studies , vol. 34 no. 2 2019; (p. 357-360)

— Review of Strangers at Home : Place, Belonging, and Australian Life Writing Jack Bowers , 2016 multi chapter work criticism
Dispatches from the Home Front Sara Dowse , 2017 single work review
— Appears in: Inside Story , July 2017;

— Review of Strangers at Home : Place, Belonging, and Australian Life Writing Jack Bowers , 2016 multi chapter work criticism
'Jack Bowers reveals a remarkable wealth of Australian autobiography'
Dispatches from the Home Front Sara Dowse , 2017 single work review
— Appears in: Inside Story , July 2017;

— Review of Strangers at Home : Place, Belonging, and Australian Life Writing Jack Bowers , 2016 multi chapter work criticism
'Jack Bowers reveals a remarkable wealth of Australian autobiography'
Rev. of Strangers at Home: Place, Belonging, and Australian Life Writing Muireann Leech , 2019 single work review
— Appears in: A/b : Auto/Biography Studies , vol. 34 no. 2 2019; (p. 357-360)

— Review of Strangers at Home : Place, Belonging, and Australian Life Writing Jack Bowers , 2016 multi chapter work criticism
Last amended 24 Nov 2016 06:27:59
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