The Magic of Captain Cook single work   criticism  
Issue Details: First known date: 2024... 2024 The Magic of Captain Cook
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.

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Lately the two of us have been on the hunt for whitefella dreamings, although they are not hard to find. They are not the kind of Dreaming that Aboriginal people hold for Country, but something else: dreams whitefellas conjure up to make mischief, to claim power and mastery. This article traces Modern Australia back through colonial dreams—ones that were enlivened by the magic of Captain Cook and the tricks he pulled to claim possession over a third of the Australian continent for Britain’s king. It begins by considering the meanings and possibilities behind whitefella dreaming as a way of situating Cook as an ancestral spirit of Modern Australia. The article then looks at where Cook’s spirit might be hiding today, drawing on several instances of powerful mimetic surplus as counter-dreamings that break the spell of unknowing in the past and present. Finally, it searches for the magic beneath the magic of Cook’s claim of possession and offers a counter-dreaming of its own to reveal the continuation of that magic here in the present day.' (Publication abstract)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Journal of Australian Studies vol. 48 no. 1 2024 27633586 2024 periodical issue

    'Welcome to the first issue of the Journal of Australian Studies for 2024. This fresh new collection offers diverting scholarship to bring in the new year—from articles considering narratorial perspective and the reception of literary publications in the United States all the way through to Australian wool and 20th-century art.' (Emily Potter and Brigid Magner :Magic, Manufacturing and Memorialising : Introduction)

     

    2024
    pg. 4-16
Last amended 5 Mar 2024 08:28:06
4-16 The Magic of Captain Cooksmall AustLit logo Journal of Australian Studies
X