Cirrus@Austlit

'In the context of the "transnational turn" in Australian literary studies, I consider the dynamics of writing and reading by and around Aboriginal literature. Positioning of authors, books and readings across, through and beyond nation spaces has particular challenges for Indigenous writers who locate identity on "country", with reception determined largely by a national framing. Informed by work from Lynda Ng, Chadwick Allen and others, the article examines the transnational movements of and around the fiction of Tara June Winch.' (Publication abstract)

'This essay seeks to understand how J. M. Coetzee's In the Heart of the Country elaborates a response to the suffering body through linguistic indeterminacy, including its formal and structural presentation of numbered and often contradictory passages and through the liminality of the narrator Magda's consciousness. Grounding the paper on the possibility that In the Heart of the Country functions through its lacunae, I argue that Magda rewrites the oppressive language she has inherited by pointing to realities words cannot grasp, including the irreducible witness of the body in pain. The body stands as an incontrovertible presence just outside the reach of language, where, in its refusal to be codified, it catalyses new, transgressive attempts at speaking. Such attempts function as a body-speech that could transform the speaking-about of Magda's monologue into the speaking-to of reciprocity. It is a language that Magda, however, ultimately fails to articulate. She remains suspended in potentiality, reading the signals "in conformations of face and hands" that communicate, incompletely, the mysteries of another's being. But perhaps the act of speaking to another must always remain poised on the brink of failure: response to the unknown of another's being requires an unrecorded grammar. Thus, in the lacunae of his unfixed text, Coetzee offers a linguistic event as response to actual suffering.' (Publication summary)
 

'Having an accent in spoken English is a common linguistic reality for many migrants and their subsequent generations. In reality, having a linguistic variation can result in "othering", prejudice, discrimination, and racism. I wanted to explore and respond to what it means to have an accent, for both speakers and listeners. This essay includes moments of the personal with cultural, critical, and contemporary responses; poetic interruptions and instances of first language loss; of how accented language can be used to exclude and identify, but should be used to include.' (Publication abstract) 
 

'With a view to increasing cross-cultural interaction and introducing readers to contemporary poetry from different parts of the world, Transnational Literature includes a small guest editor slot in its poetry section, curated by - and partly featuring the work of - an established poet from a country where English is not the first language. In this issue were honoured to have a selection of Chinese poetry curated by award-winning poet iris Fan Xing. Fan draws attention to the importance of translation as an act of cultural exchange and as a vehicle for enriching and informing languages.' (Publication abstract)