Issue Details: First known date: 2016... 2016 Footloose in Tasmania : Patsy Adam-Smith and Middlebrow Travel Writing, 1950–1973
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'In her loose collection of travel stories, Footloose in Australia (1973), Patsy Adam-Smith writes that Tasmanians bear little relationship to Australians: “Their folk culture is different, their struggles have been different; their pace, outlook, and environment are so different that they are a separate people, as tough and tenacious as the ‘mainlanders’ [...] but different” (32). This essay examines Adam-Smith’s Tasmanian travel stories, many of which were printed in the influential magazine Walkabout. It situates Adam-Smith’s stories in relation to the field of middlebrow writing and its wide sphere of influence at the time of Walkabout’s run (1934–1974), drawing from her Walkabout articles, travel books and two volumes of autobiography. An examination of Adam-Smith’s travel writing raises questions of gender and spatiality. While Adam-Smith boldly asserted her presence in marginalised space as a female traveller, her texts demonstrate the unstable discursive position occupied by women in mid-twentieth-century Australia. This essay considers how Adam-Smith’s movement beyond the private (and feminised) space of the home reflects and challenges predominantly masculine performances of space.'

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  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Studies in Travel Writing Travel Writing and Tasmania vol. 20 no. 1 2016 24008285 2016 periodical issue 2016 pg. 67-83
Last amended 16 Mar 2022 11:35:11
67-83 Footloose in Tasmania : Patsy Adam-Smith and Middlebrow Travel Writing, 1950–1973small AustLit logo Studies in Travel Writing
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