Cirrus

The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Latest Issues

VIEW ALL ISSUES (24308989)

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'The politico-historical settings of Christos Tsiolkas’s novels The Jesus Man (1999) and The Slap (2008) compromise the expressions of self manifested by his transcultural characters. The failure of Howard-era multicultural policies combines with the economic rationalising of the culture wars and the xenophobic hysteria spread by Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party to haunt those marginalised by the Eurocentricity of Australian culture. As a result, the transcultural characters of The Jesus Man are forced to externalise an augmented version of their performative selves, compromised as they are by such cultural homogenisation; in The Slap, the failure of neoliberal multicultural policies manifests in the anxieties experienced by the characters. The characters of both novels are forced to confront these sociocultural, historical and psychological conflicts in a space laden with historical tensions, cultural erasure and political uncertainty. This article argues that Tsiolkas’s real-world fictional settings problematise the performance of his multicultural characters in ways that unsettle hegemonic constructions of Australian culture. In particular, I contend that from this tension, a blurred space emerges that offers a way forward for transcultural subjects: it is a liminal space in which cultural syncretism is encouraged, cultural performance is delimited, and hegemonic cultural norms are mitigated.'(Publication abstract)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Appears in:

y Journal of Australian Studies Christos Tsiolkas and Contemporary Australia—The Outsider Artist vol. 46 no. 1 2022 24308385 2022 periodical issue Abstract
'Christos Tsiolkas is regularly acknowledged as one of the most important writers working in Australia—indeed, the world—today. However, his proclivity for the public essay (in venues such as The Monthly), as well as his willingness to speak out on important social and political issues (such as refugees and marriage equality), casts him not only as an important writer, but also as a critical public figure in contemporary Australia. This collection of articles takes the range of Tsiolkas’s works (both fiction and non-fiction, as well as their television and cinematic adaptations) as their impetus, using these as a model to explore the significance of Tsiolkas’s intellectual contribution to Australian public life. As such, these articles work across genre, across theories, across national and international borders, and across disciplines in order to make clear Tsiolkas’s contemporary significance. Building on recent book-length studies on the author, including Andrew McCann’s Christos Tsiolkas and the Fiction of Critique: Politics, Obscenity, Celebrity (2015) and my own Christos Tsiolkas: The Utopian Vision (2017), what these articles hold in common is an assertion that Tsiolkas’s fiction and non-fiction always and everywhere serve a political and social purpose. As I have argued elsewhere, Tsiolkas’s writing ultimately suggests the ways in which we can shape a better future for Australia.' (Jessica Gildersleeve : Introduction: Christos Tsiolkas and Contemporary Australia—The Outsider Artist)
2022
(
2022
)
pg. 31-44