University of New South Wales
NSW

2016

Advanced Creative Writing (ARTS3034) Semester 1
y separately published work icon Diary of a Bad Year J. M. Coetzee , Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2007 Z1421986 2007 single work novel (taught in 10 units) 'J. M. Coetzee's Diary of a Bad Year is about loneliness, friendship and the possibility of love. It takes the reader from Australian democracy to Guantanamo Bay, from the meaning of dishonour to the creative truth of dreams.' (Publisher's blurb)
Australian Cinema (ARTS2062) Semester 2
Australian Literature (ARTS2031) Semester 1
y separately published work icon Akhenaten Dorothy Porter , St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 1992 Z248289 1992 single work novel (taught in 6 units)

'Akhenaten was a fascinating, shadowy figure in Egyptian history – archaeologists have discovered attempts to eradicate all traces of his brief reign, but enough remains to tell a remarkable story of incest, heresy, androgyny and a massive cult of personality.

'Like Albert Camus celebrated Caligula, Dorothy Porter's Akhenaten is an attractive warped megalomaniac who attempted to construct an heretical religion around one Sun God, with himself at the centre.

'Akhenaten is a novel in verse that captures the obsessive, erotic nature of its central figure. It is a towering achievement.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Picador ed.)

y separately published work icon The Eye of the Storm Patrick White , London : Jonathan Cape , 1973 Z463974 1973 single work novel (taught in 7 units)

"Elizabeth Hunter, an ex-socialite in her eighties, has a mystical experience during a summer storm in Sydney which transforms all her relationships: her existence becomes charged with a meaning which communicates itself to those around her. From this simple scenario Patrick White unfurls a monumental exploration of the tides of love and hate, comedy and tragedy, impotence and and longing that fester within family relationships."

Source: Penguin Books Australia.
y separately published work icon An Imaginary Life : A Novel David Malouf , New York (City) : George Braziller , 1978 Z828578 1978 single work novel (taught in 8 units)

'In prose that is both elegant and lyrical, David Malouf departs from the little-known facts of Ovid's exile beyond the pale of civilization to create a deeply moving novel of extraordinary beauty. An outcast in a vast wasteland at the edge of the Black Sea, Ovid discovers a feral child. As he teaches the boy to speak the language of the civilized world, the child tutors him in his own tongue, the language of nature, and the once barren landscape begins to resonate with meaning.' (Publisher's blurb)

y separately published work icon Loaded Christos Tsiolkas , Milsons Point : Vintage Australia , 1995 Z565443 1995 single work novel (taught in 40 units)

'Families can detonate. Some families are torn apart forever by one small act, one solitary mistake. In my family it was a series of small explosions; consistent, passionate, pathetic. Cruel words, crude threats... We spurred each other on till we reached a crescendo of pain and we retired exhausted to our rooms, in tears or in fury.

'Ari is nineteen, unemployed and a poofter who doesn't want to be gay. He is looking for something - anything - to take him away from his aimless existence in suburban Melbourne. He doesn't believe in anyone or anything, except the power of music. All he wants to do is dance, take drugs, have sex and change the world.

'For Ari, all the orthodoxies of family, sex, politics and work have collapsed. Caught between the traditional Greek world of his parents and friends and the alluring, destructive world of clubs, chemicals and anonymous sex, all Ari can do is ease his pain in the only ways he knows how.

'Written in stark, uncompromising prose, Loaded is a first novel of great passion and power.' (From the publisher's website.)

Creative Writing (ARTS2032) Semester 2
Creative Writing Internship (ARTS3021) Semester 2
Fiction Writing (ARTS3051) Semester 2
y separately published work icon The Boat Nam Le , Camberwell : Hamish Hamilton , 2008 Z1495449 2008 selected work short story (taught in 42 units)

'In the magnificent opening story, "Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice," a young writer is urged by his friends to mine his father's experiences in Vietnam - and what seems at first a satire on turning one's life into literary commerce becomes a transcendent exploration of homeland, and the ties between father and son. "Cartagena" provides a visceral glimpse of life in Colombia as it enters the mind of a fourteen-year-old hit man facing the ultimate test. In "Meeting Elise" an ageing New York painter mourns his body's decline as he prepares to meet his daughter on the eve of her Carnegie Hall debut. And with graceful symmetry, the final, title story returns to Vietnam, to a fishing trawler crowded with refugees where a young woman's bond with a mother and her small son forces both women to a shattering decision.' (From the author's website.)

Playing Australia (ARTS3131) Semester 2
Writing for Theatre (ARTS2120) Semester 2

2015

Advanced Creative Writing (ARTS3034) Semester 1
y separately published work icon Diary of a Bad Year J. M. Coetzee , Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2007 Z1421986 2007 single work novel (taught in 10 units) 'J. M. Coetzee's Diary of a Bad Year is about loneliness, friendship and the possibility of love. It takes the reader from Australian democracy to Guantanamo Bay, from the meaning of dishonour to the creative truth of dreams.' (Publisher's blurb)
Australian Literature (ARTS2031) Semester 1
y separately published work icon Akhenaten Dorothy Porter , St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 1992 Z248289 1992 single work novel (taught in 6 units)

'Akhenaten was a fascinating, shadowy figure in Egyptian history – archaeologists have discovered attempts to eradicate all traces of his brief reign, but enough remains to tell a remarkable story of incest, heresy, androgyny and a massive cult of personality.

'Like Albert Camus celebrated Caligula, Dorothy Porter's Akhenaten is an attractive warped megalomaniac who attempted to construct an heretical religion around one Sun God, with himself at the centre.

'Akhenaten is a novel in verse that captures the obsessive, erotic nature of its central figure. It is a towering achievement.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Picador ed.)

y separately published work icon Collected Poems 1942-1985 Judith Wright , Pymble : Angus and Robertson , 1994 Z501989 1994 selected work poetry war literature satire (taught in 8 units)
y separately published work icon The Eye of the Storm Patrick White , London : Jonathan Cape , 1973 Z463974 1973 single work novel (taught in 7 units)

"Elizabeth Hunter, an ex-socialite in her eighties, has a mystical experience during a summer storm in Sydney which transforms all her relationships: her existence becomes charged with a meaning which communicates itself to those around her. From this simple scenario Patrick White unfurls a monumental exploration of the tides of love and hate, comedy and tragedy, impotence and and longing that fester within family relationships."

Source: Penguin Books Australia.
y separately published work icon Gwen Harwood : Collected Poems 1943-1995 Gwen Harwood , Alison Hoddinott (editor), Gregory Kratzmann (editor), St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 2003 Z1008048 2003 collected work poetry (taught in 1 units) 'This collection represents the full body of Gwen Harwood's poetry: all six published volumes, as well as most of her uncollected poems ... with an editorial introduction, and extensive notes providing background to particular poems or obscure references ... The poet's own biographical notes on the pseudonymous selves she adopted in her poems of the 1960s and 1970s add further value.' (Cover)
How the Reverend Joseph Simmondsen Lost His Character The Parson's Blackboy Jack Fruit , 1892 single work short story humour (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 21 May vol. 12 no. 640 1892; (p. 22) The Last of Six : Tales of the Austral Tropics 1893; (p. 102-107) Tales of the Austral Tropics 1894; (p. 145-156) The Bulletin Story Book : A Selection of Stories and Literary Sketches from 'The Bulletin' [1881-1901] 1901; (p. 35-39) Australian Short Stories 1928; (p. 121-125) Australian Short Stories 1951; (p. 19-24)

— Appears in: Australian Short Stories 1930; (p. 137-144)

— Appears in: Australische Erzähler : Eine Anthologie 1961; (p. 22-27)
y separately published work icon Loaded Christos Tsiolkas , Milsons Point : Vintage Australia , 1995 Z565443 1995 single work novel (taught in 40 units)

'Families can detonate. Some families are torn apart forever by one small act, one solitary mistake. In my family it was a series of small explosions; consistent, passionate, pathetic. Cruel words, crude threats... We spurred each other on till we reached a crescendo of pain and we retired exhausted to our rooms, in tears or in fury.

'Ari is nineteen, unemployed and a poofter who doesn't want to be gay. He is looking for something - anything - to take him away from his aimless existence in suburban Melbourne. He doesn't believe in anyone or anything, except the power of music. All he wants to do is dance, take drugs, have sex and change the world.

'For Ari, all the orthodoxies of family, sex, politics and work have collapsed. Caught between the traditional Greek world of his parents and friends and the alluring, destructive world of clubs, chemicals and anonymous sex, all Ari can do is ease his pain in the only ways he knows how.

'Written in stark, uncompromising prose, Loaded is a first novel of great passion and power.' (From the publisher's website.)

Mirdinan Paddy Roe , 1983 single work prose Indigenous story (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Gularabulu : Stories from the West Kimberley 1983; (p. 1-17)
Monsieur Caloche Tasma , 1878 1878 single work short story satire (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: In Australian Wilds and Other Colonial Tales and Sketches 1889; (p. 77-107) A Sydney Sovereign and Other Tales 1890; (p. 188-216) Australian Round-Up : Stories From 1790 to 1950 1953; (p. 44-59) From the Verandah : Stories of Love and Landscape by Nineteenth Century Australian Women 1987; (p. 11-26) Eclipsed : Two Centuries of Australian Women's Fiction 1988; (p. 82-101) The Penguin Best Australian Short Stories 1991; (p. 77-95)
A Frenchman seeks work and ends up at a cattle station, where he has trouble settling into his new role. 
y separately published work icon Steam Pigs Melissa Lucashenko , St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 1997 Z399534 1997 single work novel (taught in 5 units)

"I haven't got a 'boyfriend', Mum." "Fine way to be carrying on then, out all Sat'dy night with a strange fella..." "Muuum. " "Don't you marm me, my girl. When I was your age I wasn't out running around with any stray bloke with a flash car and the gift of the gab. "And when I'm your age," thought Sue maliciously, "I won't be ringing up my kids to scab money and make their lives a misery into the bargain."

'Sue Wilson, young and Aboriginal, escapes her "too-large, too-poor family in a too-small" north Queensland town for Logan City's frontier sprawl. Entering "the mythic world of Work" she discovers that the view from behind the bar is less than glamorous, but pays the rent. When she meets Roger the good times begin to roll until she finds herself starring in a feature with medium level violence. Melissa Lucashenko's first novel makes no apologies. With direct and gutsy language, her characters live their lives in the shadows cast by indifferent affluence.'

(Source: UQP website: www.uqp.uq.edu.au)

A Sweet Day Ada Cambridge , 1897 single work short story (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: The Australian Town and Country Journal , 13 August vol. 57 no. 1488 1898; (p. 33)

— Appears in: The Penguin Book of 19th Century Australian Literature 1993; (p. 151-163)
y separately published work icon The Boat Nam Le , Camberwell : Hamish Hamilton , 2008 Z1495449 2008 selected work short story (taught in 42 units)

'In the magnificent opening story, "Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice," a young writer is urged by his friends to mine his father's experiences in Vietnam - and what seems at first a satire on turning one's life into literary commerce becomes a transcendent exploration of homeland, and the ties between father and son. "Cartagena" provides a visceral glimpse of life in Colombia as it enters the mind of a fourteen-year-old hit man facing the ultimate test. In "Meeting Elise" an ageing New York painter mourns his body's decline as he prepares to meet his daughter on the eve of her Carnegie Hall debut. And with graceful symmetry, the final, title story returns to Vietnam, to a fishing trawler crowded with refugees where a young woman's bond with a mother and her small son forces both women to a shattering decision.' (From the author's website.)

Literature and the Environment (ARTS3050) Semester 1
y separately published work icon Carpentaria Alexis Wright , Artarmon : Giramondo Publishing , 2006 Z1184902 2006 single work novel (taught in 47 units) Carpentaria's portrait of life in the precariously settled coastal town of Desperance centres on the powerful Phantom family, whose members are the leaders of the Pricklebush people, and their battles with old Joseph Midnight's tearaway Eastend mob on the one hand, and the white officials of Uptown and the neighbouring Gurfurrit mine on the other. Wright's storytelling is operatic and surreal: a blend of myth and scripture, politics and farce. The novel is populated by extraordinary characters - Elias Smith the outcast saviour, the religious zealot Mozzie Fishman, leader of the holy Aboriginal pilgrimage, the murderous mayor Stan Bruiser, the ever-vigilant Captain Nicoli Finn, the activist and prodigal son Will Phantom, and above all, Angel Day the queen of the rubbish-dump, and her sea-faring husband Normal Phantom, the fish-embalming king of time - figures that stand like giants in this storm-swept world. (Backcover)
y separately published work icon Wonders of a Godless World Andrew McGahan , Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2009 Z1604642 2009 single work novel (taught in 7 units) 'On an unnamed island, in a Gothic hospital sitting in the shadow of a volcano, a wordless orphan girl works on the wards housing the insane and the incapable. When a silent, unmoving and unnerving new patient - a foreigner - arrives at the hospital, strange phenomena occur, bizarre murders take place, and the lives of the patients and the island's inhabitants are thrown into turmoil. What happens between them is an extraordinary exploration of consciousness, reality and madness.' (Provided by the publisher.)
y separately published work icon The Broken Shore Peter Temple , Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2005 Z1207328 2005 single work novel crime (taught in 9 units)

'Joe Cashin was different once. He moved easily then; was surer and less thoughtful. But there are consequences when you've come so close to dying. For Cashin, they included a posting away from the world of Homicide to the quiet place on the coast where he grew up. Now all he has to do is play the country cop and walk the dogs. And sometimes think about how he was before.

'Then prominent local Charles Bourgoyne is bashed and left for dead. Everything seems to point to three boys from the nearby Aboriginal community; everyone seems to want it to. But Cashin is unconvinced. And as tragedy unfolds relentlessly into tragedy, he finds himself holding onto something that might be better let go.'
Source: Publisher's website (Sighted 22/8/11)

y separately published work icon Joe Cinque's Consolation Helen Garner , Sydney : Pan Macmillan Australia , 2004 Z1132428 2004 single work prose (taught in 26 units)

'In October 1997 a clever young law student at ANU made a bizarre plan to murder her devoted boyfriend after a dinner party at their house. Some of the dinner guests - most of them university students - had heard rumours of the plan. Nobody warned Joe Cinque. He died one Sunday, in his own bed, of a massive dose of rohypnol and heroin. His girlfriend and her best friend were charged with murder. Helen Garner followed the trials in the ACT Supreme Court. Compassionate but unflinching, this is a book about how and why Joe Cinque died. It probes the gap between ethics and the law; examines the helplessness of the courts in the face of what we think of as 'evil'; and explores conscience, culpability, and the battered ideal of duty of care.' (Source: Pan Macmillan website)

Garner takes 'a deliberately subjective and "literary" approach' to her material with an 'emphasis on a sympatheitic authorial persona as the source of the reader's perspective' (Susan Lever 'The Crimes of the Past: Anna Funder's Stasiland and Helen Garner's Joe Cinque's Consolation'. Paper delivered at the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL) conference 2006).

y separately published work icon The Mystery of a Hansom Cab Fergus Hume , Melbourne : Kemp and Boyce , 1886 Z156928 1886 single work novel (taught in 8 units)

'Set in the charming and deadly streets of Melbourne, this vivid and brilliantly plotted murder thriller tells the story of a crime committed by an unknown assassin. With its panoramic depiction of a bustling yet uneasy city, Hansom Cab has a central place in Australian literary history and, more importantly, it remains highly readable. ' (Publication summary)

The Life of Words (ARTS1010) Semester 1
y separately published work icon Making Stories : How Ten Australian Novels Were Written Kate Grenville , Sue Woolfe , St Leonards : Allen and Unwin , 1993 Z271890 1993 anthology interview extract criticism (taught in 5 units)

'Making Stories shows ten acclaimed Australian authors at work.'

Weatherman Stephanie Bishop , 2014 single work autobiography (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 74 no. 1 2014; (p. 167-181)
Why I Write What I Write Gerald Murnane , 1986 single work autobiography (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Meanjin , Summer vol. 45 no. 4 1986; (p. 514-517) Invisible Yet Enduring Lilacs : Essays 2005; (p. 25-29) Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature 2009; (p. 945-948)
The Uses of Theory (ARTS4201) Semester 1
y separately published work icon The Transit of Venus Shirley Hazzard , New York (City) : Viking , 1980 Z391036 1980 single work novel (taught in 6 units)

2014

Australian Cinema & Television (ARTS2062) Semester 2
form y separately published work icon An Angel at My Table Laura Jones , ( dir. Jane Campion ) Australia New Zealand United Kingdom (UK) : Hibiscus Films Channel 4 Films Australian Broadcasting Corporation , 1990 6025253 1990 single work film/TV (taught in 1 units)

Based on the autobiographies of New Zealand author Janet Frame.

form y separately published work icon Australia Baz Luhrmann , Stuart Beattie , Ronald Harwood , Richard Flanagan , ( dir. Baz Luhrmann ) Sydney : Bazmark Films , 2008 Z1531345 2008 single work film/TV (taught in 8 units)

At the beginning of World War II, Lady Sarah Ashley travels from her home in England to Northern Australia to confront her husband, whom she believes is having an affair. He is in the country to oversee the selling of his enormous cattle station, Faraway Downs. Her husband sends Drover, an independent stockman, to transport her to Faraway Downs. When Lady Sarah arrives at the station, however, she finds that her husband has been murdered (allegedly by King George, an Aboriginal elder) and that cattle station manager Neil Fletcher is trying to gain control of Faraway Downs, so that Lesley 'King' Carney will have a complete cattle monopoly in the Northern Territory.

Lady Sarah is captivated by Nullah (King George's grandson) son of an Aboriginal mother and an unknown white father. When Nullah tells her that he has seen her cattle being driven onto Carney's land, Fletcher beats him. Lady Sarah fires Fletcher, deciding to try to run the cattle station herself. To save the property from Carney, she enlists the aid of Drover; together, they drive 2,000 head of cattle across hundreds of miles of the country's most unforgiving land. In the course of the journey, she falls in love with both Drover and the Australian landscape.

Lady Sarah, Nullah, and Drover live together happily at Faraway Downs for two years, while Fletcher (the actual murderer of Lady Sarah's husband and very likely the father of Nullah) kills Carney, marries his daughter, and takes over Carney's cattle empire. When the authorities send Nullah to live on Mission Island with the other half-Aboriginal children, Lady Sarah is devastated. In the meantime, she works as a radio operator in Darwin.

When the Japanese attack the island and Darwin in 1942, Lady Sarah fears that Nullah has been killed and Drover, who had quarrelled with Lady Sarah and left the station, believes Lady Sarah has been killed. Learning of Nullah's abduction to Mission Island, however, he sets out to rescue him. Lady Sarah decides to sell Faraway Downs to Fletcher and return to England. Drover and Nulla sail back into port at Darwin as Lady Sarah is about to depart, and the three are reunited. Fletcher, distraught at the death of his wife, attempts to shoot Nullah, but is speared by King George and dies.

form y separately published work icon The Back of Beyond John Heyer , Janet Heyer , Roland Robinson , ( dir. John Heyer ) Shell Film Unit [Australia] , 1954 Z923420 1954 single work film/TV biography (taught in 2 units)

Regarded as one of Australia's most successful and affectionately remembered documentaries, The Back of Beyond follows mailman Tom Kruse as he makes his fortnightly deliveries along the Birdsville Track. The theme explored is very much that of the ability of Australians to adapt to the harshness of the central Australian outback.

Instead of the typical documentary film's 'single voice of authority,' Back of Beyond's narration is provided by several storytellers representative of the voices of the outback. These people include Kruse, the women on the two-way radio, Malcolm (an Aboriginal man), and the Birdsville policeman.

form y separately published work icon First Australians Rachel Perkins , Louis Nowra , Beck Cole , ( dir. Rachel Perkins et. al. )agent Crows Nest Fitzroy Strawberry Hills : Blackfella Films First Nation Films SBS Television , 2008 Z1532374 2008 single work film/TV (taught in 1 units)

'First Australians chronicles the birth of contemporary Australia as never told before, from the perspective of its first people. First Australians explores what unfolds when the oldest living culture in the world is overrun by the world's greatest empire.

'Over seven episodes, First Australians depicts the true stories of individuals - both black and white - caught in an epic drama of friendship, revenge, loss and victory in Australia's most transformative period of history.

'The story begins in 1788 in Sydney, with the friendship between an Englishmen (Governor Phillip) and a warrior (Bennelong) and ends in 1993 with Koiki Mabo's legal challenge to the foundation of Australia. First Australians chronicles the collision of two worlds and the genesis of a new nation.' Source: www.sbs.com.au (Sighted 27/09/2008).

form y separately published work icon Head On Andrew Bovell , Ana Kokkinos , Mira Robertson , ( dir. Ana Kokkinos ) Australia : Head On Productions , 1998 Z796585 1998 single work film/TV (taught in 6 units)

Set over the course of one night, Head On focuses on Ari, a handsome nineteen-year-old boy of Greek descent who finds himself torn between his traditional upbringing and his sexual identity. As he attempts to come to terms with where he fits in, Ari careens between hanging out with his friends and bickering with his family while also becoming involved in several heterosexual and homosexual encounters.

form y separately published work icon Jedda Jedda The Uncivilised Charles Chauvel , Elsa Chauvel , ( dir. Charles Chauvel ) Australia : Charles Chauvel Productions , 1955 Z1382736 1955 single work film/TV (taught in 13 units)

'On a lonely cattle station in the Northern Territory, a newly born Aboriginal baby is adopted by a white woman in place of her own child who has died. The child is raised as a white child and forbidden any contact with the Aborigines on the station. Years later, Jedda is drawn by the mysteries of the Aboriginal people but restrained by her upbringing. Eventually she is fascinated by a full-blood Aboriginal, Marbuck, who arrives at the station seeking work and is drawn to his campfire by his song. He takes her away as his captive and returns to his tribal lands, but he is rejected by his tribe for having broken their marriage taboos. Pursued by the men from Jedda's station and haunted by the death wish of his own tribe, Marbuck is driven insane and finally falls, with Jedda, over a cliff.'

(Synopsis from the Australian Film, Television and Radio School website, http://library.aftrs.edu.au)

form y separately published work icon Mad Dog Morgan Philippe Mora , ( dir. Philippe Mora ) Australia : Motion Picture Productions , 1976 Z1692562 1976 single work film/TV adventure historical fiction crime (taught in 1 units)

After enduring a prison sentence and attempting to eke out an existence on the Victorian goldfields, Daniel Morgan teams up with an Indigenous Australian outcast called Billy. Together, they terrorise southern NSW, killing policemen and raiding farms. Eventually, the authorities raise the reward for Morgan's capture to £1000, thus making his attempts to avoid capture even more difficult. He eventually crosses back into Victoria, but his behaviour has become increasingly erratic. Meanwhile, the police, led by Detective Mainwaring, close in.

form y separately published work icon Night Cries : A Rural Tragedy Tracey Moffatt , Jimmy Little (composer), ( dir. Tracey Moffatt ) Alice Springs : Chili Films , 1989 Z142554 1989 single work film/TV (taught in 12 units)

A middle-aged Aboriginal woman nurses her old white mother. During her tending of the old woman, she expresses her frustrations and previously suppressed anger, her own need for warmth and love, and her personal loneliness. Her memories and dreams invade her nerve-fraying routine until the old woman dies and she begins to experience an immense sense of loss.

In the ABC Radio National program, It's Not A Race in May 2017, Marcia Langton notes that Night Cries is the retelling of Jedda as a horror story.

form y separately published work icon Not Quite Hollywood Mark Hartley , ( dir. Mark Hartley ) Australia : Digital Pictures , 2008 Z1523169 2008 single work film/TV (taught in 8 units) Mark Hartley's documentary film coins the term 'Ozploitation' to describe a class of Australian films from the 1970s and 1980s that dealt graphcially with sex and violence, often using stunts and special effects, in a uniquely Australian way.
y separately published work icon Pearls and Savages : Adventures in the Air, on Land and Sea - in New Guinea Frank Hurley , New York (City) London : G. P. Putnam's Sons , 1924 Z987920 1924 single work prose travel adventure (taught in 1 units)
form y separately published work icon The Piano Jane Campion , ( dir. Jane Campion ) Australia : Jan Chapman Productions , 1993 Z352127 1993 single work film/TV (taught in 3 units)

'Ada, her nine-year-old daughter, and her piano, arrive to an arranged marriage in the remote bush of 19th century New Zealand. Of all her belongings, her husband refuses to transport the piano and it is left behind on the beach. Unable to bear its certain destruction, Ada strikes a bargain with an illiterate neighbour. She may earn her piano back if she allows him to do certain things while she plays: one black key for every lesson. The arrangement draws all three deeper and deeper into a complex emotional, sexual bond, remarkable for its naive passion and frightening disregard for limits.'

Source: Screen Australia.

form y separately published work icon Sweetie Gerard Lee , Jane Campion , ( dir. Jane Campion ) Australia : Arena Films , 1989 Z180189 1989 single work film/TV (taught in 1 units)

At the centre of this story of family life is the contrast between the deadpan, phobic Kay and the manic, excessive Dawn (Sweetie). The film explores aspects of Australian life and the Australian psyche, and probes into the viewer's consciousness by showing the narrow boundary between eccentricity, madness, and normality.

form y separately published work icon Ten Canoes Rolf De Heer , ( dir. Rolf De Heer ) Australia : Fandango Australia Vertigo Productions , 2006 Z1262398 2006 single work film/TV (taught in 11 units)

A story within a story and overlaid with narration, Ten Canoes takes place in two periods in the past. The first story, filmed in black-and-white as a reference to the 1930s ethnographic photography of Donald Thompson, concerns a young man called Dayindi who takes part in his first hunt for goose eggs. During the course of several trips to hunt, gather and build a bark canoe, his older brother Minygululu tells him a story about their ancestors and the old laws. The story is also about a young man who had no wife but who coveted one of his brother's wives, and also of the stranger who disrupted the harmony of their lives. It is cautionary tale because Minygululu is aware that Dayinidi desires his young and pretty third wife.

The second story (shot in colour) is set much further back in time. Yeeralparil is a young man who desires the third wife of his older brother Ridjimiraril. When Ridjimiraril's second wife disappears, he suspects a man from another tribe has been seen near the camp. After he spears the stranger he discovers that he was wrong. Knowing that he must face the man's relatives he chooses Yeeralparil to accompany him during the ritual payback. When Ridjimiraril dies from his wounds the tribe's traditions decree that Yeeralparil must inherit his brother's wives. The burden of these responsibilities, however, is more than the young man expects.

form y separately published work icon They're a Weird Mob Sono Strana Gente Richard Imrie , ( dir. Michael Powell ) United Kingdom (UK) Australia : Williamson-Powell International , 1966 Z553582 1966 single work film/TV humour (taught in 6 units)

Italian sports journalist Nino Culotta is lured to Sydney during the mid-1960s to work for his brother's new magazine for migrant Italians. When he arrives in the country, however, Nino finds out that there is no magazine and that his brother has taken off with the investors' cash. Left in the lurch is his brother's business partner, Kay Kelly. Nino vows to pay off his brother's debt and gets a job as a builder's labourer. In doing so, he learns how to talk, act, and drink like an Australian male. His numerous attempts to woo Kay are repeatedly rebuffed with humorous results, but in the end she falls in love with him. Nino's introduction to the country and its culture finds him bemused but ultimately confident that he has a future here.

The Australian Centre for the Moving Image suggests this film is 'very much a product of the assimilationist view dominating Australian immigration policy at the time'.

form y separately published work icon Toomelah Ivan Sen , ( dir. Ivan Sen ) Australia : Bunya Productions , 2011 Z1776156 2011 single work film/TV (taught in 1 units)

'The film is set entirely in the remote Indigenous community of Toomelah, located on the NSW, QLD border. It was created as a mission during the 1930s, bringing together Gamilaroi and Bigambal people from the surrounding area.

'The story centres on Daniel, a small ten year old boy who dreams of being a gangster. He is kicked out of school and befriends a local gang leader, until a rival gangster arrives back from jail to reclaim his turf. A showdown ensues and Daniel is caught in the middle, leaving him with a choice to make about his uncertain future.

'Toomelah is a deeply personal story, that intimately depicts mission life in contemporary Australia. The film reveals the challenges facing the young Gamilaroi people of the Toomelah Community. Robbed of much of their traditional culture by Government policy, it is a community on a cultural edge, struggling for an identity. It is a provocative and yet comic story that transports audiences inside the community, creating an authentic world and way of life that is Toomelah.'

Source: Toomelah website.

form y separately published work icon Top of the Lake Top of the Lake : China Girl Jane Campion , Gerard Lee , ( dir. Jane Campion et. al. )agent Sydney London : See Saw Films , 2013 Z1892891 2013 series - publisher film/TV detective crime (taught in 1 units)

Series one:

'A 12-year-old girl is found chest deep in the freezing waters of a South Island lake. She's five months pregnant and when asked who the father is she insists: "No one". Then she disappears. Detective Robin Griffin's obsessive search for Tui unravels both Robin and the compromised town of Laketop.' (Source: Screen Australia. Sighted: 13/6/2013)

Series two:

'Top of the Lake Season Two: China Girl is a crime mystery story concerning the unidentified body of an Asian girl that washes up on to Sydney's Bondi Beach. The case seems hopeless, until detective Robin Griffin discovers that China Girl didn't die alone.' (Source: Daily Life. Sighted: 24/3/2016)

form y separately published work icon Wake in Fright Outback Evan Jones , ( dir. Ted Kotcheff ) 1971 Australia United States of America (USA) : Group W Films NLT Productions , 1971 Z912048 1971 single work film/TV horror (taught in 7 units)

John Grant, a young Englishman, teaches in Tiboonda, a tiny railway junction on the far western plains of New South Wales. He sets off to spend his summer vacation in Sydney but doesn't make it beyond Bundanyabba, a nearby mining town known as 'the Yabba'. Stranded in town after losing all his money in a two-up game, he finds himself engulfed by the Yabba's claustrophobic, nightmarish, beer-fuelled stupor, an atmosphere compounded of repressed sexuality, squalid violence, and the sinister mateship of the locals. After being sexually assaulted by the town's alcoholic doctor, he attempts to hitchhike out of the town but is brought back by a truckie. In anger, he tries to shoot the doctor but ends up only shooting himself. After discharging himself from the hospital, Grant takes the train back to Tiboonda, resigned to another year of teaching.

form y separately published work icon Walkabout Edward Bond , ( dir. Nicholas Roeg ) Australia : Max L. Raab - Si Litvinoff Film Productions , 1971 Z1039037 1971 single work film/TV (taught in 6 units)

Adapted from James Vance Marshall's novel The Children, Walkabout begins with a father-of-two driving his fourteen-year-old daughter and six-year-old son into the desert. Overwhelmed by the pressure on his life, he plans to kill them and then commit suicide, but his plan goes wrong. The siblings wander the desert aimlessly until they meet a young Aboriginal boy who is on a solitary walkabout as part of his tribal initiation into manhood. The three become travelling companions. Gradually, sexual tension develops between the girl and the Aboriginal boy. When they approach white civilisation, the Aboriginal boy dances a night-long courtship dance, but the girl is ignorant of its meaning. When she and her brother awake in the morning, they find the boy dead, hanging from a tree. The brother and sister make their way to the nearby mining town, where they receive a cool welcome from the townsfolk.

Cinemas and Cultures (ARTS3063) Semester 1
form y separately published work icon Beneath Clouds Ivan Sen , ( dir. Ivan Sen ) Sydney : Autumn Films , 2001 Z1440560 2001 single work film/TV (taught in 12 units) Blue eyed, fair skinned Lena is the daughter of an Aboriginal mother, living in a small country town. She longs for the romantic ideal of her absent father and his Irish heritage. When her home life feels set to implode, she hits the road with little money, a backpack and a photo of her dad. When Lena misses her bus to Sydney, she meets up with Vaughn, an Aboriginal teenager who has run away from a minimum-security prison in the desperate hope of reaching his ill mother. Vaughn is hardened by his anger at the world. Initially the two reluctant travelling companions are suspicious and wary of each other, but their journey, mostly by foot and the odd lift, builds an understanding between them. -- Libraries Australia
form y separately published work icon My Survival as an Aboriginal ( dir. Essie Coffey ) Sydney : Goodgaban Productions , 1978 Z1580535 1978 single work film/TV (taught in 1 units)

Essie Coffey--black activist, musician, and resident of 'Dodge City' in north-west New South Wales--demonstrates the conflicts and tensions of living as an Aboriginal under white domination. Encouraging the black community to be proud of their identity and their culture in the face of such domination, Coffey shows how she is passing on knowledge of traditional bush ways to a generation of young Aboriginal children who have only ever known white education.

form y separately published work icon My Tehran for Sale Grânâz Moussavi , ( dir. Grânâz Moussavi ) Australia : Cyanfilms , 2009 Z1813585 2009 single work film/TV (taught in 1 units) Marzieh is a young female actress living in Tehran. The authorities ban her theatre work and, like all young people in Iran, she is forced to lead a secret life in order to express herself artistically.

At an underground rave, she meets Iranian born Saman, now an Australian citizen, who offers her a way out of her country and the possibility of living without fear.

Shot entirely on location in Tehran, My Tehran for Sale tells the story of modern day Iranian youth struggling for cultural freedom. It brings to the screen never before seen images of modern urban Iran, and reveals how young Iranian people live behind closed doors.
Creative Writing (ARTS2032) Semester 2
The Affair in M -- Wayne Macauley , 2004 single work short story (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Meanjin , vol. 63 no. 1 2004; (p. 95-102)
Ain't No Abo Way of Communication i "Godfather, do you remember?", Lionel Fogarty , 1983 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Kudjela 1983; (p. 58-59) New and Selected Poems : Munaldjali, Mutuerjaraera 1995; (p. 96-98)
Anti-Landscape : Lighthouse Beach i "You are walking among ribs", Kate Fagan , 2002 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: The Long Moment 2002; (p. 53-55)
The Ark i "Drunk and depressed and overwhelmed", John Kinsella , 2000 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Zoo 2000; (p. 44-47)
Bored Teenagers Edward Berridge , 1995 single work short story (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: The Lives of the Saints 1995; (p. 1-10)
Bronwyn Lea i "As Maureen O'Hara did, my mother named", Bronwyn Lea , 2004 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Heat , no. 7 (New Series) 2004; (p. 92-93) The Best Australian Poems 2005 2005; (p. 97-98) The Other Way Out 2008; (p. 16-17) Australian Poetry Since 1788 2011; (p. 1055-1056)
Confessional i "Forgive me, Muse, for I have erred:", John Leonard , 2004 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Island , Summer no. 99 2004; (p. 89-90)
y separately published work icon The Crimson Petal and the White Michel Faber , New York (City) : Harcourt , 2002 Z1016999 2002 single work novel historical fiction (taught in 1 units)
Daybreak Paul Dawson , 2006 single work prose (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 66 no. 1 2006; (p. 43-44)
Developing a Wife i "In the one cool room in the house", Andrew Taylor , 1970 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: The Australian , 28 November 1970; (p. 21) Australian Poetry 1970 1970; (p. 93-94) The Cool Change 1971; (p. 34) The First Paperback Poets Anthology 1974; (p. 158) The Collins Book of Australian Poetry 1981; (p. 352-353) Selected Poems : 1960-1980 1982; (p. 82)
Dog Days i "The sky is a blue so pressing it falls", Bronwyn Lea , 2008 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: The Other Way Out 2008; (p. 14)
The Fall i "She takes a tall building as hers is to be a very long fall.", Jordie Albiston , 1999-2000 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Island , Spring/Summer no. 80/81 1999-2000; (p. 157-160) New Music : An Anthology of Contemporary Australian Poetry 2001; (p. 53-55) Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature 2009; (p. 1350-1353) The Puncher & Wattmann Anthology of Australian Poetry 2009; (p. 36-39) Australian Poetry Since 1788 2011; (p. 1017-1020) Contemporary Australian Poetry 2016;
From: Thanks for the Poems, Pauline Hanson i "Central/ Redfern/ Sydenham/ Tempe/ Rockdale/ Kogarah", Paul Dawson , 2009 extract poetry (Imagining Winter) (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Harbour City Poems : Sydney in Verse, 1788-2008 2009; (p. 205-206) Contemporary Asian Australian Poets 2013; (p. 111-112)
Fuck All Departments i "I takin our comparative mis-saying", Lionel Fogarty , 1984 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Ngutji 1984; (p. 16-17)
Fuck You, Australia : From a Penniless Gambler i "when i was boarding the CAAC plane for home which is of course china", Yu Ouyang , 1995 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Westerly , Autumn vol. 40 no. 1 1995; (p. 16) Moon Over Melbourne : Poems 1995; (p. 79) Amida : The Asia Magazine , vol. 5 no. 1 1999; (p. 12) Beyond Outback : Australia at the Beginning of the 21st Century 2003; (p. 58) Moon Over Melbourne : Poems 2005; (p. 34)
A Gun in Your Pocket Paul Dawson , 2004 single work short story (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Island , Autumn no. 96 2004; (p. 133-136)
How Do Detectives Make Love? i "[First line removed at the request of Coral Hull]", Coral Hull , 1995 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Redoubt , no. 20 1995; (p. 8-9) Hecate , vol. 22 no. 1 1996; (p. 53-54) How Do Detectives Make Love? 1998; (p. 4-7) Calyx : 30 Contemporary Australian Poets 2000; (p. 170-171)
Imagining Winter i "Eliptical phrasing goes something like that.", Paul Dawson , 2003 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Blue Dog : Australian Poetry , November vol. 2 no. 4 2003; (p. 38)
I, a Racist Chinese Father i "The other day my son came back from school asking me father what did it mean you fucking", Yu Ouyang , 1994 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Gathering Force , Spring no. 1 1994; (p. 52-53) Northern Perspective , Dry Season vol. 18 no. 1 1995; (p. 126) Moon Over Melbourne : Poems 1995; (p. 72) Beyond Outback : Australia at the Beginning of the 21st Century 2003; (p. 59) Moon Over Melbourne : Poems 2005; (p. 28)
Is This Poetry? i "Is this poetry?", Stephen Lawrence , 2002 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: How Not to Kill Government Leaders : Poems 2002; (p. 62-[73])
y separately published work icon La Mort de Napoléon Simon Leys , Paris : Hermann , 1986 Z1431267 1986 single work novel (taught in 1 units)

'A hypothetical account of what could have happened if Napolean had not died depicts the Emperor traveling incognito through Europe experiencing a series of bizarre adventures that bring him face to face with reality.' (Publication summary)

Late Ferry i "The late ferry is leaving now;", Robert Gray , 1975 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Poetry Australia , June no. 55 1975; (p. 4-5) The Younger Australian Poets 1983; (p. 122-1243) Selected Poems 1963-1983 1985; (p. 47-48) Two Centuries of Australian Poetry 1988; (p. 110-111) Contemporary Australian Poetry : An Anthology 1990; (p. 150-151) Selected Poems 1990; (p. 48-49)
Lighthouse Series i "Evolving map", Kate Fagan , 2002 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: The Long Moment 2002; (p. 56-65)
Liverpool i "[First line removed at the request of Coral Hull]", Coral Hull , 1995 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Meanjin , vol. 54 no. 3 1995; (p. 441-444) Australian Verse : An Oxford Anthology 1998; (p. 3-6) Harbour City Poems : Sydney in Verse, 1788-2008 2009; (p. 195-198) The Puncher & Wattmann Anthology of Australian Poetry 2009; (p. 24-27)
Muslim Woman, Carlton i "The muslim woman on the corner is dressed in the invisible.", John Mateer , 2002 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Loanwords 2002; (p. 94)
Night Rider i "The night had fizzled out", Susan Sinclair , 2003 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Rubric , May vol. 1 no. 2003;
On the Piteous Death of Mary Wollstonecraft Gail Jones , 1992 single work short story (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: The House of Breathing 1992; (p. 105-120)
The Other Way Out i "One way out of the insufferable", Bronwyn Lea , 2007 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 21 no. 1 2007; (p. 52) The Best Australian Poems 2007 2007; (p. 57-58)
A Place i "There is a place I like to go", Bronwyn Lea , 2004 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: The Best Australian Poems 2004 2004; (p. 112) The Other Way Out 2008; (p. 15) The Puncher & Wattmann Anthology of Australian Poetry 2009; (p. 19)
Reconstruction of an Event Glenda Adams , 1979 single work short story (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Quadrant , May vol. 23 no. 5 1979; (p. 53-54) Sun , Winter vol. 4 no. 3 1979; The Hottest Night of the Century : Short Stories 1979; (p. 121-125) Quadrant Twenty-Five Years 1982; (p. 459-463) Perspectives One : Short Stories 1985; (p. 117-121) Contemporary Classics 65-95 : The Best Australian Short Fiction 1965-1995 1996; (p. 1-7)
y separately published work icon The Riders Tim Winton , Chippendale : Pan Macmillan Australia , 1994 Z295967 1994 single work novel (taught in 3 units)

Fred Scully is in another country, a 'desert Irishman' far from home. After two long years of travelling through Europe, he decided to move his family from Australia to western Ireland. Scully arrived weeks ahead of his family to renovate the old farmhouse they'd bought in the shadow of a castle in County Offally, and which he's renovated by hand. Now, at the gate of Shannon's international airport, he anxiously awaits the arrival of his pregnant wife and seven-year-old daughter, envisioning a new life ahead, a fresh start. He has waited for and worried about this for months. He is a man who does not like being alone. The plane lands, the glass doors to the terminal slide open and his daughter emerges. Alone. There is no note, no word of explanation from his wife, only the mute silence of his stunned child. In an instant, Scully's life goes down in flames. This is a story of a marriage in our time. So begins a love-crazed odyssey across Europe, to the underside of the male psyche, in search of a woman vanished.

(Adapted from Trove)

Saturday Morning in Ashfield i "Fifteen minutes at the autobank, waiting for money", Jill Jones , 1988 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 30 July 1988; (p. 76) Poetry Australia , no. 123-124 1990; (p. 102) The Mask and the Jagged Star 1992; (p. 8)

— Appears in: Footprints on Paper : An Anthology of Australian Writing in English and Chinese 1996; (p. 42-43, 45)
So Then I Said to Helen Dean Kiley , 1998 single work short story (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Meanjin , vol. 57 no. 4 1998; (p. 799-808)
Sparrow i "[First line removed at the request of Coral Hull]", Coral Hull , 1994 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Tirra Lirra , Winter vol. 4 no. 4 1994; (p. 32) How Do Detectives Make Love? 1998; (p. 1-3)
Steel-Box Filing Cabinet i "Steel-box filing cabinet not quite fireproof", John Kinsella , 1998 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Meanjin , vol. 57 no. 4 1998; (p. 736) Zoo 2000; (p. 11)
The Suspension of Knock i "Where will Australia be held?", Les Murray , 1994 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 15 October 1994; (p. C13) Subhuman Redneck Poems 1996; (p. 47-48)
Thomas Pennington's Fetich Paul Dawson , 2004 single work short story (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Meanjin , vol. 63 no. 1 2004; (p. 200-210)
To Australia i "You introduced me to nice girls", Kevin Hart , 2003 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: The Best Australian Poems 2003 2003; (p. 77)
Tomorrow I Will Plant Flowers, Find a New Place to Hang My Keys i "I have no body only belongings", Bronwyn Lea , 2001 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Sidewalk , March no. 7/8 2001; (p. 80) The Indigo Book of Modern Australian Sonnets 2003; (p. 35)
Translating Myself i "translating myself into English", Yu Ouyang , 1995 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Going Down Swinging , no. 15 1995; (p. 62-63) Moon Over Melbourne : Poems 1995; (p. 82-83) Moon Over Melbourne : Poems 2005; (p. 73) Creative Constraints : Translation and Authorship 2012; (p. 69-71)

— Appears in: Nye Kinesisk Digte 2004; (p. 46)
Urban Black i "Today a lot of actions and words", Lionel Fogarty , 1980 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Kargun 1980; (p. 47)
Waking i "Here it is again, light hoisting its terrible bells.", Emma Scully Jones , 2009 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: The Striped World 2009; (p. 1) Australian Poetry Since 1788 2011; (p. 1076)
William Street i "The red globes of liqht, the liquor-green,", Kenneth Slessor , 1939 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Five Bells : XX Poems 1939; (p. 33) Second Unk White's Laugh Parade : One for the Road 1940; (p. 2) One Hundred Poems : 1919-1939 1944; (p. 115) ABC Weekly , 10 August 1946; (p. 5) Poems 1975; (p. 117) The Collins Book of Australian Poetry 1981; (p. 125)
y separately published work icon Tirra Lirra by the River Jessica Anderson , South Melbourne : Macmillan , 1978 Z300858 1978 single work novel (taught in 19 units)

'Liza used to say that she saw her past life as a string of roughly-graded balls, and so did Hilda have a linear conception of hers, thinking of it as a track with detours. But for some years now I have likened mine to a globe suspended in my head, and ever since the shocking realisation that waste is irretrievalbe, I have been careful not to let this globe spin to expose the nether side on which my marriage has left its multitude of images.

'Nora Porteous has spent most of her life waiting to escape. Fleeing from her small-town family and then from her stifling marriage to a mean-spirited husband, Nora arrives finally in London where she creates a new life for herself as a successful dressmaker.

'Now in her seventies, Nora returns to Queensland to settle into her childhood home.

'But Nora has been away a long time, and the people and events of her past are not at all like she remembered them. And while some things never change, Nora is about to discover just how selective her 'globe of memory' has been.

'Tirra Lirra by the River is a moving account of one woman's remarkable life, a beautifully written novel which displays the lyrical brevity of Jessica Anderson's award-winning style.' (Publication summary)

Working Bodies (ARTS3011) Semester 1
y separately published work icon Dark Secrets and Solid Wisdom Jeanine Leane , 2007 (Manuscript version)8132260 8132255 2007 selected work poetry short story (taught in 1 units)
y separately published work icon The Slap Christos Tsiolkas , Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2008 Z1739894 2008 single work novel (taught in 40 units)

'At a suburban barbecue, a man slaps a child who is not his own.

'This event has a shocking ricochet effect on a group of people, mostly friends, who are directly or indirectly influenced by the event.

'In this remarkable novel, Christos Tsiolkas turns his unflinching and all-seeing eye onto that which connects us all: the modern family and domestic life in the twenty-first century. The Slap is told from the points of view of eight people who were present at the barbecue. The slap and its consequences force them all to question their own families and the way they live, their expectations, beliefs and desires.

'What unfolds is a powerful, haunting novel about love, sex and marriage, parenting and children, and the fury and intensity - all the passions and conflicting beliefs - that family can arouse. In its clear-eyed and forensic dissection of the ever-growing middle class and its aspirations and fears, The Slap is also a poignant, provocative novel about the nature of loyalty and happiness, compromise and truth.' (Publisher's blurb)

y separately published work icon The Smoking Book Lesley Stern , Chicago : University of Chicago Press , 1999 Z1249535 1999 selected work prose (taught in 2 units)

'The Smoking Book is a dreamlike structure built on the solid foundation of two questions: how does it feel to smoke, and what does smoking mean? Lesley Stern, in an innovative, hybrid form of writing, muses on these questions through interesting stories and essays that connect, expand, and contract like smoke rings floating through the air.' 'Stern writes of addictions and passionate attachments, of the body and bodily pleasure, of autobiography and cultural history. Stern has written a book, at once intensely personal and kaleidoscopically international, that weaves the intimate act of a solitary person smoking a cigarette into a broad cultural picture of desire, exchange, fulfillment, and the acts that bind people together, either in lasting ways or through ephemeral encounters.'- Book jacket.

2012

Advanced Creative Writing (ARTS3034) Semester 2
Australian Literature (ARTS2031) Semester 1
y separately published work icon Akhenaten Dorothy Porter , St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 1992 Z248289 1992 single work novel (taught in 6 units)

'Akhenaten was a fascinating, shadowy figure in Egyptian history – archaeologists have discovered attempts to eradicate all traces of his brief reign, but enough remains to tell a remarkable story of incest, heresy, androgyny and a massive cult of personality.

'Like Albert Camus celebrated Caligula, Dorothy Porter's Akhenaten is an attractive warped megalomaniac who attempted to construct an heretical religion around one Sun God, with himself at the centre.

'Akhenaten is a novel in verse that captures the obsessive, erotic nature of its central figure. It is a towering achievement.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Picador ed.)

y separately published work icon The Getting of Wisdom Henry Handel Richardson , London : Heinemann , 1910 Z901329 1910 single work novel (taught in 25 units)

'A coming-of-age story of a spontaneous heroine who finds herself ensconced in the rigidity of a turn-of-the-century boarding school. The clever and highly imaginative Laura has difficulty fitting in with her wealthy classmates and begins to compromise her ideals in her search for popularity and acceptance.' (From the publisher's website.)

y separately published work icon Loaded Christos Tsiolkas , Milsons Point : Vintage Australia , 1995 Z565443 1995 single work novel (taught in 40 units)

'Families can detonate. Some families are torn apart forever by one small act, one solitary mistake. In my family it was a series of small explosions; consistent, passionate, pathetic. Cruel words, crude threats... We spurred each other on till we reached a crescendo of pain and we retired exhausted to our rooms, in tears or in fury.

'Ari is nineteen, unemployed and a poofter who doesn't want to be gay. He is looking for something - anything - to take him away from his aimless existence in suburban Melbourne. He doesn't believe in anyone or anything, except the power of music. All he wants to do is dance, take drugs, have sex and change the world.

'For Ari, all the orthodoxies of family, sex, politics and work have collapsed. Caught between the traditional Greek world of his parents and friends and the alluring, destructive world of clubs, chemicals and anonymous sex, all Ari can do is ease his pain in the only ways he knows how.

'Written in stark, uncompromising prose, Loaded is a first novel of great passion and power.' (From the publisher's website.)

y separately published work icon The Man Who Loved Children Christina Stead , New York (City) : Simon and Schuster , 1940 Z462160 1940 single work novel (taught in 19 units)

'Set in Washington during the 1930s, Sam and Henny Pollit are a warring husband and wife. Their tempestuous marriage, aggravated by too little money, lies at the centre of Stead's satirical and brilliantly observed novel about the relations between husbands and wives, and parents and children.

'Sam, a scientist, uses words as weapons of attack and control on his children and is prone to illusions of power and influence that fail to extend beyond his family. His wife Henny, who hails from a wealthy Baltimore family, is disastrously impractical and enmeshed in her own fantasies of romance and vengeance. Much of the care of their six children is left to Louisa, Sam's 14-year-old daughter from his first marriage. Within this psychological battleground, Louisa must attempt to make a life of her own.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (MUP).

y separately published work icon The Boat Nam Le , Camberwell : Hamish Hamilton , 2008 Z1495449 2008 selected work short story (taught in 42 units)

'In the magnificent opening story, "Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice," a young writer is urged by his friends to mine his father's experiences in Vietnam - and what seems at first a satire on turning one's life into literary commerce becomes a transcendent exploration of homeland, and the ties between father and son. "Cartagena" provides a visceral glimpse of life in Colombia as it enters the mind of a fourteen-year-old hit man facing the ultimate test. In "Meeting Elise" an ageing New York painter mourns his body's decline as he prepares to meet his daughter on the eve of her Carnegie Hall debut. And with graceful symmetry, the final, title story returns to Vietnam, to a fishing trawler crowded with refugees where a young woman's bond with a mother and her small son forces both women to a shattering decision.' (From the author's website.)

Staging Australia (ARTS2124) Semester 2
y separately published work icon The Chapel Perilous, Or, The Perilous Adventures of Sally Banner Dorothy Hewett , Frank Arndt (composer), Michael Leydon (composer), Sydney : Currency Press , 1972 8274485 1972 single work musical theatre (taught in 7 units)

Written in Hewett's freewheeling epic style, The Chapel Perilous is a journey play that spans the period between the 1930s and the late 1960s. The story concerns Sally Banner, an over-reacher who attempts to find fulfilment – whether through her gift of poetic expression, through her sexual relationships, or in later years through political activism - and ultimately finds it through self-acceptance. Thematically the play contains the qualities and concerns which are often associated with Hewett's style – female sexuality, questioning of authority and morality, and anarchic tendencies towards structure in both dramatic text and social attitudes.

As Hewett remarks in her 1979 Hecate article: 'Sally is balanced by several symbolic female figures, the "Authority figures" of Headmistress, Anglican teaching "sister", and mother... [along with the] lesbian love figure, Judith, who stands for intellectual control and denial of sensual love' ('Creating Heroines in Australian Plays', p. 77).

y separately published work icon Collected Plays : Volume I Patrick White , Sydney : Currency Press , 1985 Z60895 1985 selected work drama (taught in 19 units)
y separately published work icon The Ghosts Trilogy Janis Balodis , Paddington : Currency Press , 1997 Z495464 1997 selected work drama (taught in 2 units)
y separately published work icon Inner Voices / Albert Names Edward Louis Nowra , Sydney : Currency Press , 1983 Z10051 1983 selected work drama (taught in 1 units)
y separately published work icon No Sugar Jack Davis , 1980 (Manuscript version)x400874 Z264453 1980 single work drama (taught in 21 units)
— Appears in: ドリーマーズ : ノー・シュガー 2006;

'The spirited story of the Millimurra family’s stand against government ‘protection’ policies in 1930s Australia.' (From the publisher's website.)

y separately published work icon The Removalists David Williamson , 1971 Sydney : Currency Press , 1972 Z365225 1971 single work drama (taught in 12 units)

A young policeman’s first day on duty becomes a violent and highly charged initiation into law enforcement. Remarkable for its blend of boisterous humour and horrifying violence, the play has acquired a reputation as a classic statement on Australian authoritarianism and is a key work in the study of Australian drama.

(Publication Synopsis)

y separately published work icon Summer of the Seventeenth Doll Ray Lawler , 1955 London Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1957 Z522838 1955 single work drama (taught in 56 units)

'The most famous Australian play and one of the best loved, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll is a tragicomic story of Roo and Barney, two Queensland sugar-cane cutters who go to Melbourne every year during the 'layoff' to live it up with their barmaid girl friends. The title refers to kewpie dolls, tawdry fairground souvenirs, that they brings as gifts and come, in some readings of the play, to represent adolescent dreams in which the characters seem to be permanently trapped. The play tells the story in traditional well-made, realistic form, with effective curtains and an obligatory scene. Its principal appeal – and that of two later plays with which it forms The Doll Trilogy – is the freshness and emotional warmth, even sentimentality, with which it deals with simple virtues of innocence and youthful energy that lie at the heart of the Australian bush legend.

'Ray Lawler’s play confronts that legend with the harsh new reality of modern urban Australia. The 17th year of the canecutters’ arrangement is different. There has been a fight on the canefields and Roo, the tough, heroic, bushman, has arrived with his ego battered and without money. Barney’s girl friend Nancy has left to get married and is replaced by Pearl, who is suspicious of the whole set-up and hopes to trap Barney into marriage. The play charts the inevitable failure of the dream of the layoff, the end of the men’s supremacy as bush heroes and, most poignantly, the betrayal of the idealistic self-sacrifice made by Roo’s girl friend Olive – the most interesting character – to keep the whole thing going. The city emerges victorious, but the emotional tone of the play vindicates the fallen bushman.'

Source: McCallum, John. 'Summer of the Seventeenth Doll.' Companion to Theatre in Australia. Ed. Philip Parson and Victoria Chance. Sydney: Currency Press , 1997: 564-656.

y separately published work icon Traitors Stephen Sewell , 1979 (Manuscript version)x401389 Z1164836 1979 single work drama (taught in 4 units)
Writing for Performance (ARTS2120) Semester 2

2011

Advanced Creative Writing (ARTS3034) Semester 2
Australian Literature (ARTS2031) Semester 1
Creative Writing (ARTS2032) Semester 1
y separately published work icon The Boat Nam Le , Camberwell : Hamish Hamilton , 2008 Z1495449 2008 selected work short story (taught in 42 units)

'In the magnificent opening story, "Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice," a young writer is urged by his friends to mine his father's experiences in Vietnam - and what seems at first a satire on turning one's life into literary commerce becomes a transcendent exploration of homeland, and the ties between father and son. "Cartagena" provides a visceral glimpse of life in Colombia as it enters the mind of a fourteen-year-old hit man facing the ultimate test. In "Meeting Elise" an ageing New York painter mourns his body's decline as he prepares to meet his daughter on the eve of her Carnegie Hall debut. And with graceful symmetry, the final, title story returns to Vietnam, to a fishing trawler crowded with refugees where a young woman's bond with a mother and her small son forces both women to a shattering decision.' (From the author's website.)

Seeing Australia (ARTS3030) Semester 1
Staging Australia (ARTS2124) Semester 2
Writing for Performance (ARTS2120) Semester 2

2010

Advanced Creative Writing (ARTS3034) Semester 2
y separately published work icon Harbour City Poems : Sydney in Verse, 1788-2008 Martin Langford (editor), Glebe : Puncher and Wattmann , 2009 Z1590539 2009 anthology poetry (taught in 1 units) 'From colonial origins to vibrant metropolis, Sydney has been portrayed with great liveliness and precision by its poets. This anthology's range extends from the foot of the Blue Mountains through the suburban heartlands to the harbour and the beach, incorporating numerous - and often conflicting - interpretations and images of the city. This is the first collection of Sydney-specific poems for twenty years. It includes such classics as Slessor's "Five Bells" and favourites like "Clancy of the Overflow" as well as a generous selection of very contemporary work and older verse tracing back to the town's verse.' (Publisher's blurb)
form y separately published work icon Nice Coloured Girls Tracey Moffatt , ( dir. Tracey Moffatt ) Canberra : Women's Film Fund of the Australian Film Commission Creative Development Branch of the Australian Film Commission , 1987 Z1462203 1987 single work film/TV (taught in 9 units)

An experimental narrative which departs from realist conventions by suggesting connections and differences in the relationship between Aboriginal women and European men in the early years of settlement and in contemporary Sydney, Nice Coloured Girls is also 'a ground-breaking film stylistically and thematically. The audience is left to question history, in particular the reliability of primary sources. The absence of the Aboriginal point of view in Australia's "history" becomes glaringly obvious as we are left to question the nature of traditional representations of Aborigines. As Australians, Aboriginal people have been marginalized and stereotyped but Moffatt who is a young, contemporary Aboriginal Australian offers an Aboriginal perspective through her work and questions dominant representations which have excluded Aborigines (or offered unrealistic images of them)' (French, 'An Analysis of Nice Coloured Girls', q.v.).

form y separately published work icon Beneath Clouds Ivan Sen , ( dir. Ivan Sen ) Sydney : Autumn Films , 2001 Z1440560 2001 single work film/TV (taught in 12 units) Blue eyed, fair skinned Lena is the daughter of an Aboriginal mother, living in a small country town. She longs for the romantic ideal of her absent father and his Irish heritage. When her home life feels set to implode, she hits the road with little money, a backpack and a photo of her dad. When Lena misses her bus to Sydney, she meets up with Vaughn, an Aboriginal teenager who has run away from a minimum-security prison in the desperate hope of reaching his ill mother. Vaughn is hardened by his anger at the world. Initially the two reluctant travelling companions are suspicious and wary of each other, but their journey, mostly by foot and the odd lift, builds an understanding between them. -- Libraries Australia
form y separately published work icon Cedar Boys Serhat Caradee , ( dir. Serhat Caradee ) Australia : Templar Entertainment , 2008 Z1542107 2008 single work film/TV crime (taught in 1 units)

'A young Lebanese panel beater, struggling to realise his dreams, is offered a chance to set himself up for life. All he has to do is follow a plan to outsmart the cops and a gang of serious criminals. He wants the prize, but is he ready to pay the price?'

Source: Cedar Boys website, http://www.cedarboysthemovie.com/
Sighted: 11/11/2008

form y separately published work icon The Dish Santo Cilauro , Tom Gleisner , Jane Kennedy , Rob Sitch , ( dir. Rob Sitch ) Australia : Dish Film , 2000 Z1450608 2000 single work film/TV (taught in 3 units)
form y separately published work icon East West 101 Kristen Dunphy , Kris Wyld , Michael Miller , Kris Mrksa , Michelle Offen , Sherine Salama , David Ogilvy , Vanessa Bates , Katherine Thomson , Steve Knapman , Steve Knapman , Kris Wyld , ( dir. Peter Andrikidis ) Australia : SBS Television Knapman Wyld Television , 2009-2011 Z1643485 2009-2011 series - publisher film/TV (taught in 1 units)

Series One of East West 101 focuses on two men whose destinies are irrevocably intertwined. Malik is driven by a hunger for justice. He was twelve when a masked gunman held up the family shop. Malik refused to hand over the money and his father was subsequently shot and injured. He later joined the police force and has been looking for the shadowy figure who pulled the trigger. When he finally finds him, Malik's belief in the justice system is challenged by a powerful desire for revenge. As he hunts down the truth, it is revealed that one of his colleagues, Crowley, had a part to play in the original investigation. Crowley is a man whose vision has been blighted by pain and prejudice. His son, Paul, was found dead of an overdose on drugs sold to him by a Lebanese dealer. When the drug dealer who sold Paul the heroin is found murdered, Internal Affairs come asking questions.

In Season Two, East West 101 expands to seven episodes as the Major Crime Squad investigate crime and murder in all quarters of multicultural Sydney. But overarching all is the quest for Detective Zane Malik to find the truth behind a car bomb attack which kills two men. The Major Crime Squad form a joint task force with the NSO (National Security Organisation) to deal with the crime. There is paranoia in the city and fallout on the Muslim community. Malik knows that in order to stop the circle of hate, he must solve the crime. Was the bomb really an act of extremists, as the media suggest, or a sophisticated killing by a career criminal? Malik doggedly pursues the truth until he, too, becomes a target. Inspector Patricia Wright questions his motives but her vision is clouded by personal issues that she wants to keep hidden from the squad. Crime has touched her own family.

Season Three : The Hero's Journey. 'In [this] third season of East West 101, the Major Crime Squad investigates a 36 million dollar robbery in Australia and its connections to the murder of 17 people in Afghanistan. Is the robbery to fund an act of terror by military trained radicals, or the work of sophisticated criminals? For Detective Zane Malik the case has savage personal and professional ramifications. Malik is obstructed in his quest to find those responsible by the interference of newcomer Detective Neil Travis. Travis has fought in Iraq and his attitude and approach to the investigation cause conflict with Malik. In the hunt for an elusive foe, ultimately both men are forced to confront what makes a man a hero, or a coward...'

(Source: East West 101, SBS website)

form y separately published work icon Frontline Breaking News (US title) Santo Cilauro , Tom Gleisner , Jane Kennedy , Rob Sitch , ( dir. Santo Cilauro et. al. )agent 1994 Australia : Frontline Television Productions ABC Television , 1994-1997 Z1362085 1994 series - publisher film/TV satire (taught in 1 units)

The Frontline television series presents a satirical take on the current-affairs format, through the setting of a fictional television station and its flagship show, Frontline. The fictional program is situated as competing directly with Nine's A Current Affair and Seven's Real Life (known as Today Tonight from 1995 onwards). The series further satirises the internal machinations of the producers, the self-obsessed host, and the ambitious, cynical reporters, all of whom resort to any sort of underhanded trick to get ratings and maintain their status. The reporters and host also ingratiate themselves with the all-powerful network bosses, while the real work is, in fact, done by their long-suffering production staff.

Throughout the series, other television shows aired by the 'station' are also referenced: notably the 6pm news program, the three-hour news-review show Sunday Forum, the sketch show The Komedy Bunch, the game show Jackpot, the teen soap opera Sunshine Cove (which later changes its name to Rainbow Island), the football show Ball-to-Ball, and other programs such as Late-Night OZ, Cartoon Crazies, and Vacation. Several real-life television celebrities also made guest appearances, including gardener Don Burke, fisherman/AFL commentator Rex Hunt, AFL commentator Sam Newman, music guru Ian 'Molly' Meldrum, and Media Watch host Stuart Littlemore.

form y separately published work icon Gallipoli David Williamson , ( dir. Peter Weir ) Sydney : Associated R & R Films , 1981 Z948654 1981 single work film/TV (taught in 11 units)

The narrative begins in Western Australia in 1915 and follows the paths of Archie Hamilton and Frank Dunne, before and after their enlistment in the Australian Imperial Forces. Hamilton is the patriotic son of a grazier and Frank Dunne is a drifter with no great desire to fight for the British Empire. They meet as runners in an outback footrace and become best mates. After training in Egypt, they land at Gallipoli, just as the great Allied assaults of August 1915 are to begin.

Source: Australian Screen.

form y separately published work icon The Good Woman of Bangkok Dennis Patrick O'Rourke , ( dir. Dennis Patrick O'Rourke ) Canberra : O'Rourke and Associates , 1991 Z972631 1991 single work film/TV (taught in 1 units)

While Dennis O'Rourke's objective with this documentary was to explore prostitution in Thailand through the experiences of one woman, it also provides an unexpected insight into his relationship with his subject, Aoi. This issue raised much debate when the film was released, because his involvement was viewed as having played a part in the eventual outcome. The film begins with Dennis O'Rourke hiring Aoi and following her through the red-light area of Bangkok. These scenes are intercut with much more personal insights into Aoi's life.

form y separately published work icon The Hollowmen Santo Cilauro , Tom Gleisner , Jane Kennedy , Rob Sitch , Australia : Working Dog Productions , 2008 Z1506832 2008 series - publisher film/TV satire (taught in 1 units) 'The Hollowmen focuses on the workings of an internal think tank, set up by the Prime Minister, whose responsibility is long-term policy vision. The unit's task is to stop worrying about tomorrow's headlines, and to start worrying about next week's.'
form y separately published work icon Japanese Story Alison Tilson , Fitzroy : Gecko Films , 2002 (Manuscript version)x401999 Z1498780 2002 single work film/TV (taught in 10 units)

'Sandy, a geologist, finds herself stuck on a field trip to the Pilbara desert with a Japanese man she finds inscrutable, annoying and decidedly arrogant. Hiromitsu's view of her is not much better. Things go from bad to worse when they become stranded in one of the most remote regions on earth. JAPANESE STORY is a journey of change and discovery for its two lead characters.'

Source: Screen Australia.

form y separately published work icon Lantana Andrew Bovell , ( dir. Ray Lawrence ) Sydney : Jan Chapman Productions , 2001 Z900877 2001 single work film/TV thriller (taught in 6 units)

'A woman disappears. Four marriages are drawn into a tangled web of love, deceit, sex and death. Not all of them survive. LANTANA is a psychological thriller about love. It's about the mistakes we make, the consequences we suffer, and the attempts we make to fix things up.'

Source: Screen Australia. (Sighted: 4/12/2013)

form y separately published work icon Mabo : Life of an Island Man Jonathon Holmes , ( dir. Trevor Graham ) Lindfield : Film Australia , 1997 Z946556 1997 single work film/TV biography (taught in 1 units)

A documentary that explores the life of Eddie Mabo, whose struggle for land rights, and his remarkable life in general, had a profound effect on Indigenous rights in Australia. It tells the story of an island man so passionate about family and home that he fought an entire nation and its legal system. Though he died before his great victory was won, it has forever ensured his place on Murray Island and in Australian history. Mabo effectively challenged the notion of terra nullus, which asserted that Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders did not have a system of legal ownership predating white settlement. He devoted his life to a fight to gain legal recognition of his right to own ancestral land and his family home in the Murray Islands. Mabo died of cancer just five months before the High Court's historic decision.

form y separately published work icon Mad Max James McCausland , George Miller , ( dir. George Miller ) Australia : Kennedy Miller Entertainment , 1979 Z1040124 1979 single work film/TV science fiction (taught in 5 units)

In a post-apocalyptic Australia, law and order has begun to break down due to energy shortages, despite the efforts of Main Force Patrol (MFP) officers like Max Rockatansky. After Rockatansky encounters Toecutter's motorcycle gang, who are running runshod over isolated communities, he grows disillusioned with his role in the MFP. At first convinced by his superior officer not to resign, he is driven into a state of cold-blooded revenge when Toecutter's gang murder his wife and young son.

form y separately published work icon Moulin Rouge Baz Luhrmann , Craig Pearce , ( dir. Baz Luhrmann ) Sydney : Bazmark Films , 2001 Z1368089 2001 single work film/TV (taught in 1 units)

A tragi-comedy of mistaken identities and romance, Moulin Rouge is based on events that occurred at the Moulin Rouge dance hall towards the end of the 19th century. The story is told by Christian, an idealistic and impoverished English poet/playwright who is newly arrived in Monmartre and becomes inducted into a circle of young bohemians led by Toulouse-Lautrec. When Christian manages to convince the foppish Duke of Monroth to invest in his play, his life appears to be heading upwards. Things become difficult, however, when he falls in love with Satine ('The Sparkling Diamond'), a courtesan dancer at the Moulin Rouge. Although she returns his affections, they are forced to keep their love a secret from the duke because he too coverts Satine and is used to getting what he wants.

form y separately published work icon Muriel's Wedding P. J. Hogan , ( dir. P. J. Hogan ) 1994 Australia : House and Moorhouse Films , 1994 Z486726 1994 single work film/TV humour satire (taught in 5 units)

Muriel is a shy young woman living in the seaside resort of Porpoise Spit, a suburban wonderland of shopping malls, marine parks, and holiday homes. The excessive expectations of her 'friends' and family cause her to take refuge in a dreamworld of ABBA songs. She also dreams of a Prince Charming who will rescue her from her dull and boring life. Then one day, she steals some money and goes on a tropical vacation where she meets a wacky friend, changes her name to Mariel, and turns her entire world upside down.

form y separately published work icon Newsfront Phillip Noyce , Bob Ellis , David Elfick , Philippe Mora , Anne Brooksbank , ( dir. Phillip Noyce ) Palm Beach : Palm Beach Pictures , 1978 Z1323552 1978 single work film/TV (taught in 6 units)

Beginning in Australia in the late 1940s, when movie theatres were the only source of audiovisual news coverage, the narrative follows the exploits of Len Maguire and his young sidekick Chris as they cover the big news stories for the Cinetone newsreel company. Len is a doggedly dependable and ever-cautious senior cameraman, trapped in a world of changing values. Len always knows the right thing to do, but becomes troubled as his marriage falters, his job becomes threatened by the arrival of television, and Cinetone is taken over and its work marginalised. Len's loyalties to the Catholic Church, the Labor Party, and his family are juxtaposed against both his brother/rival cameraman Frank--who sells out his values, abandons his responsibilities, and heads off to success in the USA--and his cocky young assistant, Chris.

The first feature film for Phillip Noyce, Newsfront also depicts the increasing changes to the Australian cultural and political landscape, tracing social shifts from the first waves of European post-war immigration through to the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne.

form y separately published work icon Night Cries : A Rural Tragedy Tracey Moffatt , Jimmy Little (composer), ( dir. Tracey Moffatt ) Alice Springs : Chili Films , 1989 Z142554 1989 single work film/TV (taught in 12 units)

A middle-aged Aboriginal woman nurses her old white mother. During her tending of the old woman, she expresses her frustrations and previously suppressed anger, her own need for warmth and love, and her personal loneliness. Her memories and dreams invade her nerve-fraying routine until the old woman dies and she begins to experience an immense sense of loss.

In the ABC Radio National program, It's Not A Race in May 2017, Marcia Langton notes that Night Cries is the retelling of Jedda as a horror story.

form y separately published work icon Not Quite Hollywood Mark Hartley , ( dir. Mark Hartley ) Australia : Digital Pictures , 2008 Z1523169 2008 single work film/TV (taught in 8 units) Mark Hartley's documentary film coins the term 'Ozploitation' to describe a class of Australian films from the 1970s and 1980s that dealt graphcially with sex and violence, often using stunts and special effects, in a uniquely Australian way.
form y separately published work icon One Night the Moon John Romeril , Rachel Perkins , ( dir. Rachel Perkins ) Australia : Music Arts Dance Films Australian Broadcasting Corporation , 2001 Z935161 2001 single work film/TV (taught in 1 units)

A young girl goes missing within the Australian landscape and her father refuses to let an Aboriginal man, Albert, be included in the search party and utilise his tracking skills. It is a decision that proves fatal. Months later, the child's mother approaches Albert to begin the tracking process that eventually leads her to her lost child.

form y separately published work icon The Proposition Nick Cave , ( dir. John Hillcoat ) Australia United Kingdom (UK) : Autonomous Jackie O Productions Pictures in Paradise Surefire Film Productions LLP , 2005 Z1216692 2005 single work film/TV thriller western crime (taught in 8 units)

'Set in the 1880s, [The Proposition] opens in the middle of a frenzied gunfight between the police and a gang of outlaws. Charlie Burns ... and his brother Mikey are captured by Captain Stanley... Together with their psychopathic brother Arthur, ... they are wanted for a brutal crime. Stanley makes Charlie a seemingly impossible proposition in an attempt to bring an end to the cycle of bloody violence.'


Source: Nick Cave's website (http://www.nickcaveandthebadseeds.com/)

Sighted: 20/09/2005

form y separately published work icon Summer Heights High Chris Lilley , Sydney : ABC Books , 2007 Z1424063 2007 single work film/TV humour (taught in 1 units)

'Summer Heights High explores what happens over one school term in an average Australian high school.'

Source: ABC website, http://www.abc.net.au/tv/summerheightshigh/
Sighted: 03/09/2007

form y separately published work icon Ten Canoes Rolf De Heer , ( dir. Rolf De Heer ) Australia : Fandango Australia Vertigo Productions , 2006 Z1262398 2006 single work film/TV (taught in 11 units)

A story within a story and overlaid with narration, Ten Canoes takes place in two periods in the past. The first story, filmed in black-and-white as a reference to the 1930s ethnographic photography of Donald Thompson, concerns a young man called Dayindi who takes part in his first hunt for goose eggs. During the course of several trips to hunt, gather and build a bark canoe, his older brother Minygululu tells him a story about their ancestors and the old laws. The story is also about a young man who had no wife but who coveted one of his brother's wives, and also of the stranger who disrupted the harmony of their lives. It is cautionary tale because Minygululu is aware that Dayinidi desires his young and pretty third wife.

The second story (shot in colour) is set much further back in time. Yeeralparil is a young man who desires the third wife of his older brother Ridjimiraril. When Ridjimiraril's second wife disappears, he suspects a man from another tribe has been seen near the camp. After he spears the stranger he discovers that he was wrong. Knowing that he must face the man's relatives he chooses Yeeralparil to accompany him during the ritual payback. When Ridjimiraril dies from his wounds the tribe's traditions decree that Yeeralparil must inherit his brother's wives. The burden of these responsibilities, however, is more than the young man expects.

form y separately published work icon Wake in Fright Outback Evan Jones , ( dir. Ted Kotcheff ) 1971 Australia United States of America (USA) : Group W Films NLT Productions , 1971 Z912048 1971 single work film/TV horror (taught in 7 units)

John Grant, a young Englishman, teaches in Tiboonda, a tiny railway junction on the far western plains of New South Wales. He sets off to spend his summer vacation in Sydney but doesn't make it beyond Bundanyabba, a nearby mining town known as 'the Yabba'. Stranded in town after losing all his money in a two-up game, he finds himself engulfed by the Yabba's claustrophobic, nightmarish, beer-fuelled stupor, an atmosphere compounded of repressed sexuality, squalid violence, and the sinister mateship of the locals. After being sexually assaulted by the town's alcoholic doctor, he attempts to hitchhike out of the town but is brought back by a truckie. In anger, he tries to shoot the doctor but ends up only shooting himself. After discharging himself from the hospital, Grant takes the train back to Tiboonda, resigned to another year of teaching.

Australian Literature (ARTS2031) Semester 1
y separately published work icon Carpentaria Alexis Wright , Artarmon : Giramondo Publishing , 2006 Z1184902 2006 single work novel (taught in 47 units) Carpentaria's portrait of life in the precariously settled coastal town of Desperance centres on the powerful Phantom family, whose members are the leaders of the Pricklebush people, and their battles with old Joseph Midnight's tearaway Eastend mob on the one hand, and the white officials of Uptown and the neighbouring Gurfurrit mine on the other. Wright's storytelling is operatic and surreal: a blend of myth and scripture, politics and farce. The novel is populated by extraordinary characters - Elias Smith the outcast saviour, the religious zealot Mozzie Fishman, leader of the holy Aboriginal pilgrimage, the murderous mayor Stan Bruiser, the ever-vigilant Captain Nicoli Finn, the activist and prodigal son Will Phantom, and above all, Angel Day the queen of the rubbish-dump, and her sea-faring husband Normal Phantom, the fish-embalming king of time - figures that stand like giants in this storm-swept world. (Backcover)
y separately published work icon The Getting of Wisdom Henry Handel Richardson , London : Heinemann , 1910 Z901329 1910 single work novel (taught in 25 units)

'A coming-of-age story of a spontaneous heroine who finds herself ensconced in the rigidity of a turn-of-the-century boarding school. The clever and highly imaginative Laura has difficulty fitting in with her wealthy classmates and begins to compromise her ideals in her search for popularity and acceptance.' (From the publisher's website.)

y separately published work icon An Imaginary Life : A Novel David Malouf , New York (City) : George Braziller , 1978 Z828578 1978 single work novel (taught in 8 units)

'In prose that is both elegant and lyrical, David Malouf departs from the little-known facts of Ovid's exile beyond the pale of civilization to create a deeply moving novel of extraordinary beauty. An outcast in a vast wasteland at the edge of the Black Sea, Ovid discovers a feral child. As he teaches the boy to speak the language of the civilized world, the child tutors him in his own tongue, the language of nature, and the once barren landscape begins to resonate with meaning.' (Publisher's blurb)

Lucky Country (from Paese Fortunato) Rosa R. Cappiello , 1983 extract novel (Paese Fortunato : Romanzo) (taught in 2 units)
— Appears in: Meanjin , Autumn vol. 42 no. 1 1983; (p. 7-14)
Creative Writing (ARTS2032) Semester 1
y separately published work icon The Boat Nam Le , Camberwell : Hamish Hamilton , 2008 Z1495449 2008 selected work short story (taught in 42 units)

'In the magnificent opening story, "Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice," a young writer is urged by his friends to mine his father's experiences in Vietnam - and what seems at first a satire on turning one's life into literary commerce becomes a transcendent exploration of homeland, and the ties between father and son. "Cartagena" provides a visceral glimpse of life in Colombia as it enters the mind of a fourteen-year-old hit man facing the ultimate test. In "Meeting Elise" an ageing New York painter mourns his body's decline as he prepares to meet his daughter on the eve of her Carnegie Hall debut. And with graceful symmetry, the final, title story returns to Vietnam, to a fishing trawler crowded with refugees where a young woman's bond with a mother and her small son forces both women to a shattering decision.' (From the author's website.)

Post-Colonial Literature (ENGL3300) Semester 2
y separately published work icon Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies Bill Ashcroft , Helen Tiffin , Gareth Griffiths , London : Routledge , 1998 Z1394887 1998 reference (taught in 2 units) 'As a subject, post-colonial studies stands at the intersection of debates about race, colonialism, gender, politics and language. In the language of post-colonial studies, some words are new, others are familiar but charged with new significance. This volume provides an essential key to understanding the issues that characterize post-colonialism, explaining what it is, where it is encountered and why it is crucial in forging new cultural identities. This comprehensive glossary has extensive cross-referencing, suggestions for further reading at the end of each entry, a bibliography of essential writings in post-colonial studies and is presented in an easy-to-use A-Z format.'
form y separately published work icon The Piano Jane Campion , ( dir. Jane Campion ) Australia : Jan Chapman Productions , 1993 Z352127 1993 single work film/TV (taught in 3 units)

'Ada, her nine-year-old daughter, and her piano, arrive to an arranged marriage in the remote bush of 19th century New Zealand. Of all her belongings, her husband refuses to transport the piano and it is left behind on the beach. Unable to bear its certain destruction, Ada strikes a bargain with an illiterate neighbour. She may earn her piano back if she allows him to do certain things while she plays: one black key for every lesson. The arrangement draws all three deeper and deeper into a complex emotional, sexual bond, remarkable for its naive passion and frightening disregard for limits.'

Source: Screen Australia.

form y separately published work icon Samson and Delilah Warwick Thornton , ( dir. Warwick Thornton ) Scarlett Pictures CAAMA Productions , 2009 Z1561915 2009 single work film/TV (taught in 9 units)

'Samson and Delilah tells the story of two Aboriginal teenagers in a remote community. They live in a sparse environment but one that absorbs all manner of cultural influences, where dot painting and country music exist side by side. Samson gets through his days by sniffing, while Delilah is the caregiver for her nana before taking a moment for herself to listen to Latino music. Their journey ranges across many of the most urgent issues concerning Indigenous people in Australia, homelessness, poverty, domestic violence and substance abuse, but it does so with tenderness, dignity, and even humour.'

Source: Adelaide Film Festival website, www.adelaidefilmfestival.org/ Sighted: 23/02/2009

Seeing Australia (ARTS3030) Semester 1
y separately published work icon Craft for a Dry Lake Kim Mahood , Sydney : Anchor , 2000 Z997375 2000 single work autobiography (taught in 4 units) In Craft for a Dry Lake, Kim Mahood embarks on an extraordinary journey to her heartland - the outback of her youth. Compelled to revisit the haunts of her childhood by the tragic death of her father, Kim seeks to lay his ghost to rest, but instead finds herself faced with many of her own. Her adventures are interwoven with the echoes of childhood memories and peopled by an intriguing cast of outback characters. At times the lines between past and present become blurred as a daughter travels in the footsteps of her father, searching for a sense of place in this landscape she once called home. (Source: Trove)
y separately published work icon Harland's Half Acre David Malouf , London : Chatto and Windus Hogarth Press , 1984 Z81132 1984 single work novel (taught in 3 units)

'Born on a poor dairy farm in Queensland, Frank Harland's life is centred on his great artistic gift, his passionate love for his father and four brothers and his need to repossess, through a patch of land, his family's past. The story spans Frank's life; from before the First World War, through years as a swaggie in the Great Depression and Brisbane in the forties, to his retirement to a patch of Australian scrub where he at last takes possession of his dream. Solitude and society, possession and dispossession, the obsessive and often violent claims of family life and love, illuminate the imagination of the artist and the larger world of events. This is an ambitious novel, presented simply and poetically; the narrative is absorbing, full of incident, and peopled with characters of formidable humour and power.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Vintage reprint).

y separately published work icon Landscape of Farewell Alex Miller , Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2007 Z1434892 2007 single work novel (taught in 2 units)

'Landscape of Farewell ... is the story of Max Otto, an elderly German academic. After the death of his much-loved wife and his recognition that he will never write the great study of history that was to be his life's crowning work, Max believes his life is all but over. Everything changes, though, when his valedictory lecture is challenged by Professor Vita McLelland, a feisty young Australian Aboriginal academic visiting Germany. Their meeting and growing friendship sets Max on a journey that would have seemed unthinkable just a few short weeks earlier.

'When, at Vita's invitation, Max travels to Australia, he forms a deep friendship with her uncle, Aboriginal elder Dougald Gnapun. It is a friendship that not only gives new meaning and purpose to Max, but which teaches him the profound importance of truth-telling in reconciliation with his own and his country's past.' (Publisher's blurb)

y separately published work icon Loaded Christos Tsiolkas , Milsons Point : Vintage Australia , 1995 Z565443 1995 single work novel (taught in 40 units)

'Families can detonate. Some families are torn apart forever by one small act, one solitary mistake. In my family it was a series of small explosions; consistent, passionate, pathetic. Cruel words, crude threats... We spurred each other on till we reached a crescendo of pain and we retired exhausted to our rooms, in tears or in fury.

'Ari is nineteen, unemployed and a poofter who doesn't want to be gay. He is looking for something - anything - to take him away from his aimless existence in suburban Melbourne. He doesn't believe in anyone or anything, except the power of music. All he wants to do is dance, take drugs, have sex and change the world.

'For Ari, all the orthodoxies of family, sex, politics and work have collapsed. Caught between the traditional Greek world of his parents and friends and the alluring, destructive world of clubs, chemicals and anonymous sex, all Ari can do is ease his pain in the only ways he knows how.

'Written in stark, uncompromising prose, Loaded is a first novel of great passion and power.' (From the publisher's website.)

form y separately published work icon Picnic at Hanging Rock Cliff Green , ( dir. Peter Weir ) Australia Adelaide : McElroy and McElroy , 1975 Z822342 1975 single work film/TV mystery horror (taught in 9 units)

On St Valentine's Day 1900, three schoolgirls and a teacher from an exclusive English-style boarding school go missing at the mysterious Hanging Rock in central Victoria. One of the girls is found alive a week later, but the others are never seen again. As morale within the school begins to disintegrate, the headmistress's increasingly incoherent anger is turned towards one student, leading to tragic consequences. Although the police suspect Michael Fitzhubert, a young English aristocrat, and his manservant Albert, who were in the area at the time the girls disappeared, the mystery is never solved. As Paul Byrnes (Australian Screen) notes, the suggested scenarios range from the 'banal and explicable (a crime of passion) to deeply mystical (a crime of nature).'

[Source: Australian Screen]

Staging Australia (ARTS2124) Semester 2
y separately published work icon The Chapel Perilous, Or, The Perilous Adventures of Sally Banner Dorothy Hewett , Frank Arndt (composer), Michael Leydon (composer), Sydney : Currency Press , 1972 8274485 1972 single work musical theatre (taught in 7 units)

Written in Hewett's freewheeling epic style, The Chapel Perilous is a journey play that spans the period between the 1930s and the late 1960s. The story concerns Sally Banner, an over-reacher who attempts to find fulfilment – whether through her gift of poetic expression, through her sexual relationships, or in later years through political activism - and ultimately finds it through self-acceptance. Thematically the play contains the qualities and concerns which are often associated with Hewett's style – female sexuality, questioning of authority and morality, and anarchic tendencies towards structure in both dramatic text and social attitudes.

As Hewett remarks in her 1979 Hecate article: 'Sally is balanced by several symbolic female figures, the "Authority figures" of Headmistress, Anglican teaching "sister", and mother... [along with the] lesbian love figure, Judith, who stands for intellectual control and denial of sensual love' ('Creating Heroines in Australian Plays', p. 77).

y separately published work icon Inner Voices Louis Nowra , 1970-1977 (Manuscript version)x400892 Z123522 1970 single work drama (taught in 1 units)

The son of Catherine the Great, who has been locked away since childhood, is set upon the throne of Russia knowing only his name

y separately published work icon No Sugar Jack Davis , 1980 (Manuscript version)x400874 Z264453 1980 single work drama (taught in 21 units)
— Appears in: ドリーマーズ : ノー・シュガー 2006;

'The spirited story of the Millimurra family’s stand against government ‘protection’ policies in 1930s Australia.' (From the publisher's website.)

y separately published work icon The Removalists David Williamson , 1971 Sydney : Currency Press , 1972 Z365225 1971 single work drama (taught in 12 units)

A young policeman’s first day on duty becomes a violent and highly charged initiation into law enforcement. Remarkable for its blend of boisterous humour and horrifying violence, the play has acquired a reputation as a classic statement on Australian authoritarianism and is a key work in the study of Australian drama.

(Publication Synopsis)

y separately published work icon The Season at Sarsaparilla : A Charade of Suburbia in Two Acts Patrick White , 1962 (Manuscript version)x400826 Z865952 1962 single work drama (taught in 11 units)
y separately published work icon Summer of the Seventeenth Doll Ray Lawler , 1955 London Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1957 Z522838 1955 single work drama (taught in 56 units)

'The most famous Australian play and one of the best loved, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll is a tragicomic story of Roo and Barney, two Queensland sugar-cane cutters who go to Melbourne every year during the 'layoff' to live it up with their barmaid girl friends. The title refers to kewpie dolls, tawdry fairground souvenirs, that they brings as gifts and come, in some readings of the play, to represent adolescent dreams in which the characters seem to be permanently trapped. The play tells the story in traditional well-made, realistic form, with effective curtains and an obligatory scene. Its principal appeal – and that of two later plays with which it forms The Doll Trilogy – is the freshness and emotional warmth, even sentimentality, with which it deals with simple virtues of innocence and youthful energy that lie at the heart of the Australian bush legend.

'Ray Lawler’s play confronts that legend with the harsh new reality of modern urban Australia. The 17th year of the canecutters’ arrangement is different. There has been a fight on the canefields and Roo, the tough, heroic, bushman, has arrived with his ego battered and without money. Barney’s girl friend Nancy has left to get married and is replaced by Pearl, who is suspicious of the whole set-up and hopes to trap Barney into marriage. The play charts the inevitable failure of the dream of the layoff, the end of the men’s supremacy as bush heroes and, most poignantly, the betrayal of the idealistic self-sacrifice made by Roo’s girl friend Olive – the most interesting character – to keep the whole thing going. The city emerges victorious, but the emotional tone of the play vindicates the fallen bushman.'

Source: McCallum, John. 'Summer of the Seventeenth Doll.' Companion to Theatre in Australia. Ed. Philip Parson and Victoria Chance. Sydney: Currency Press , 1997: 564-656.

y separately published work icon Too Young for Ghosts Janis Balodis , Sydney : Currency Press Stage Company , 1985 Z27945 1985 single work drama (taught in 2 units)
y separately published work icon Traitors Stephen Sewell , 1979 (Manuscript version)x401389 Z1164836 1979 single work drama (taught in 4 units)
Writing Bodies (ENGL3950) Semester 2
y separately published work icon Hard Yards Melissa Lucashenko , St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 1999 Z509740 1999 single work novel (taught in 1 units)

'Roo Glover has two highly desirable talents - he can fight, and he can run like the clappers. In the inner-city's harsh code there are losers and survivors, and Roo's a survivor. He's made it through adoption, through juvenile detention, through poverty. He's an athlete in training, aching towards the dream of Olympic qualification. He's even coping with being white in the turbulent Aboriginal family of his girlfriend. But when cousin Stanley dies in custody, and Roo finds his father the same week, trouble starts to catch up with him.' (Source: UQP Website: www.uqp.uq.edu.au)

y separately published work icon The Smoking Book Lesley Stern , Chicago : University of Chicago Press , 1999 Z1249535 1999 selected work prose (taught in 2 units)

'The Smoking Book is a dreamlike structure built on the solid foundation of two questions: how does it feel to smoke, and what does smoking mean? Lesley Stern, in an innovative, hybrid form of writing, muses on these questions through interesting stories and essays that connect, expand, and contract like smoke rings floating through the air.' 'Stern writes of addictions and passionate attachments, of the body and bodily pleasure, of autobiography and cultural history. Stern has written a book, at once intensely personal and kaleidoscopically international, that weaves the intimate act of a solitary person smoking a cigarette into a broad cultural picture of desire, exchange, fulfillment, and the acts that bind people together, either in lasting ways or through ephemeral encounters.'- Book jacket.

form y separately published work icon The Tracker Rolf De Heer , ( dir. Rolf De Heer ) Australia : Vertigo Productions , 2002 Z1036534 2002 single work film/TV (taught in 4 units)

'A set of mountain ranges in the outback, 1922 ... horseback country, and the Fanatic leads the two other white men, the Follower and the Philosopher, and the Tracker, in the pursuit of the Fugitive. Through massacre and murder the hunt continues, until the clear-cut notions of truth and justice are subverted and the questions become not will the Fugitive be caught, but what is black and what is white and who is leading whom?'

Source: Screen Australia.

Writing for Performance (ARTS2120) Semester 2

2009

Advanced Creative Writing (ENGL3754) Semester 2
Proudflesh Deborah Robertson , 1997 single work short story (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Proudflesh 1997; (p. 143-159) Western Australian Writing : An Online Anthology 2003;
y separately published work icon Shadowboxing Tony Birch , Carlton North : Scribe , 2006 Z1244852 2006 selected work short story (taught in 2 units) 'A collection of ten linked stories in the life of a boy growing up in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy in the 1960s.' (publisher's blurb)
form y separately published work icon Blue Murder Ian David , ( dir. Michael Jenkins ) Sydney : Southern Star Entertainment ABC Television , 1995 Z1359650 1995 series - publisher film/TV detective crime (taught in 1 units) This two part mini-series is based on the events that led to the Wood Royal Commission on Police Corruption in New South Wales (1996). It focuses on both the intricacies of corruption in the police force and the sometimes Byzantine behaviour and 'moral' codes of the organised crime world. Roger Rogerson, a larrikin detective with an egalitarian, blokey demeanour, builds a lucrative alternative career based on bribery, drug money, and murder. He join forces Arthur 'Neddy' Smith, one of Australia's most notorious underworld thugs who, by being the conduit between the police and the criminal underworld, has built an extensive drug empire in Australia. Their activities are threatened when a young police officer declines a bribe offered to him by the police chief. His refusal to engage in illegal activities results in an escalating war, with police and criminals committing increasingly desperate and murderous acts.
form y separately published work icon The Boys Stephen Sewell , ( dir. Rowan Woods ) Surry Hills : Arenafilm , 1998 Z917499 1998 single work film/TV (taught in 1 units)

Inspired in part by Sydney nurse Anita Cobby, who was gang raped, tortured and murdered by five men who kidnapped her as she waited for a bus to take her home late one night, The Boys takes the viewer into the world of a violent and dysfunctional family controlled by the intelligent, malevolent, violent, and manipulative eldest son.

After being released from a twelve-month prison sentence, Brett Sprague returns to his mother's suburban Sydney home and the tension within the family rises almost immediately. His mother tries to keep the peace, only to see her three sons turn on her new boyfriend. The narrative climaxes when after eighteen hours of drinking and fighting, the boys go out and cruise the streets, looking for trouble. It is then that they see a girl waiting for a bus on her own.

[Source: Australian Screen]
form y separately published work icon Bush Mechanics David Batty , Francis Jupurrula Kelly , ( dir. David Batty ) Lindfield Yuendumu Australia : Film Australia Warlpiri Media Association ABC Television , 1998 Z1662471 1998 series - publisher film/TV humour (taught in 4 units)

'This off-beat series follows the exploits of the Bush Mechanics, a group of engaging Aboriginal characters, as they travel through central Australia.

'In each episode, the Bush Mechanics from the remote Warlpiri community of Yuendumu are presented with a new set of challenges - catching a car thief, getting a nephew out of jail, racing to an outback rock concert and travelling thousands of miles to gather pearl shells for a rainmaking ceremony. As they travel through the desert in their clapped-out vehicles, they solve multiple car problems with wacky and inventive bush repair techniques.'

Source: ABC TV Documentaries (http://www.abc.net.au/tv/documentaries/stories/s359476.htm). (Sighted: 12/10/2012)

y separately published work icon A Difficult Young Man Martin Boyd , London : Cresset Press , 1955 Z500015 1955 single work novel (taught in 2 units)

' Handsome, proud, reprehensible, misunderstood. Dominic Langton is the dark heart of A Difficult Young Man. His brother Guy can scarcely understand where he fits into the pattern of things or what he might do next. Martin Boyd’s much loved novel is an elegant, witty and compelling family tale about the contradictions of growing up.' (Publication summary)

form y separately published work icon Head On Andrew Bovell , Ana Kokkinos , Mira Robertson , ( dir. Ana Kokkinos ) Australia : Head On Productions , 1998 Z796585 1998 single work film/TV (taught in 6 units)

Set over the course of one night, Head On focuses on Ari, a handsome nineteen-year-old boy of Greek descent who finds himself torn between his traditional upbringing and his sexual identity. As he attempts to come to terms with where he fits in, Ari careens between hanging out with his friends and bickering with his family while also becoming involved in several heterosexual and homosexual encounters.

y separately published work icon Praise Andrew McGahan , North Sydney : Allen and Unwin , 1992 Z563591 1992 single work novel (taught in 16 units) 'Praise is an utterly frank and darkly humorous novel about being young in the Australian of the 1990s. A time when the dole was easier to get than a job, when heroin was better known than ecstasy, and when ambition was the dirtiest of words. A time when, for two hopeless souls, sex and dependence were the only lifelines.' (from back cover)
y separately published work icon The Twyborn Affair Patrick White , London : Jonathan Cape , 1979 Z448841 1979 single work novel (taught in 14 units)

'Eddie Twyborn is bisexual and beautiful, the son of a Judge and a drunken mother. With his androgynous hero - Eudoxia/Eddie/Eadith Twyborn - and through his search for identity, for self-affirmation and love in its many forms, Patrick White takes us into the ambiguous landscapes, sexual, psychological and spiritual, of the human condition.' (From the publisher's website.)

The Ham Funeral Patrick White , 1947 single work drama (taught in 7 units)
— Appears in: Four Plays 1965; (p. 11-74) Collected Plays : Volume I 1985; (p. 11-74)
y separately published work icon The Boat Nam Le , Camberwell : Hamish Hamilton , 2008 Z1495449 2008 selected work short story (taught in 42 units)

'In the magnificent opening story, "Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice," a young writer is urged by his friends to mine his father's experiences in Vietnam - and what seems at first a satire on turning one's life into literary commerce becomes a transcendent exploration of homeland, and the ties between father and son. "Cartagena" provides a visceral glimpse of life in Colombia as it enters the mind of a fourteen-year-old hit man facing the ultimate test. In "Meeting Elise" an ageing New York painter mourns his body's decline as he prepares to meet his daughter on the eve of her Carnegie Hall debut. And with graceful symmetry, the final, title story returns to Vietnam, to a fishing trawler crowded with refugees where a young woman's bond with a mother and her small son forces both women to a shattering decision.' (From the author's website.)

Post-Colonial Literature (ENGL3300) Semester 2
y separately published work icon Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies Bill Ashcroft , Helen Tiffin , Gareth Griffiths , London : Routledge , 1998 Z1394887 1998 reference (taught in 2 units) 'As a subject, post-colonial studies stands at the intersection of debates about race, colonialism, gender, politics and language. In the language of post-colonial studies, some words are new, others are familiar but charged with new significance. This volume provides an essential key to understanding the issues that characterize post-colonialism, explaining what it is, where it is encountered and why it is crucial in forging new cultural identities. This comprehensive glossary has extensive cross-referencing, suggestions for further reading at the end of each entry, a bibliography of essential writings in post-colonial studies and is presented in an easy-to-use A-Z format.'
form y separately published work icon The Piano Jane Campion , ( dir. Jane Campion ) Australia : Jan Chapman Productions , 1993 Z352127 1993 single work film/TV (taught in 3 units)

'Ada, her nine-year-old daughter, and her piano, arrive to an arranged marriage in the remote bush of 19th century New Zealand. Of all her belongings, her husband refuses to transport the piano and it is left behind on the beach. Unable to bear its certain destruction, Ada strikes a bargain with an illiterate neighbour. She may earn her piano back if she allows him to do certain things while she plays: one black key for every lesson. The arrangement draws all three deeper and deeper into a complex emotional, sexual bond, remarkable for its naive passion and frightening disregard for limits.'

Source: Screen Australia.

form y separately published work icon Samson and Delilah Warwick Thornton , ( dir. Warwick Thornton ) Scarlett Pictures CAAMA Productions , 2009 Z1561915 2009 single work film/TV (taught in 9 units)

'Samson and Delilah tells the story of two Aboriginal teenagers in a remote community. They live in a sparse environment but one that absorbs all manner of cultural influences, where dot painting and country music exist side by side. Samson gets through his days by sniffing, while Delilah is the caregiver for her nana before taking a moment for herself to listen to Latino music. Their journey ranges across many of the most urgent issues concerning Indigenous people in Australia, homelessness, poverty, domestic violence and substance abuse, but it does so with tenderness, dignity, and even humour.'

Source: Adelaide Film Festival website, www.adelaidefilmfestival.org/ Sighted: 23/02/2009

Staging Australia (MEFT2300) Semester 2
y separately published work icon Return to Coolami Eleanor Dark , London : Collins , 1936 Z824242 1936 single work novel (taught in 2 units)
y separately published work icon Carpentaria Alexis Wright , Artarmon : Giramondo Publishing , 2006 Z1184902 2006 single work novel (taught in 47 units) Carpentaria's portrait of life in the precariously settled coastal town of Desperance centres on the powerful Phantom family, whose members are the leaders of the Pricklebush people, and their battles with old Joseph Midnight's tearaway Eastend mob on the one hand, and the white officials of Uptown and the neighbouring Gurfurrit mine on the other. Wright's storytelling is operatic and surreal: a blend of myth and scripture, politics and farce. The novel is populated by extraordinary characters - Elias Smith the outcast saviour, the religious zealot Mozzie Fishman, leader of the holy Aboriginal pilgrimage, the murderous mayor Stan Bruiser, the ever-vigilant Captain Nicoli Finn, the activist and prodigal son Will Phantom, and above all, Angel Day the queen of the rubbish-dump, and her sea-faring husband Normal Phantom, the fish-embalming king of time - figures that stand like giants in this storm-swept world. (Backcover)
y separately published work icon An Imaginary Life : A Novel David Malouf , New York (City) : George Braziller , 1978 Z828578 1978 single work novel (taught in 8 units)

'In prose that is both elegant and lyrical, David Malouf departs from the little-known facts of Ovid's exile beyond the pale of civilization to create a deeply moving novel of extraordinary beauty. An outcast in a vast wasteland at the edge of the Black Sea, Ovid discovers a feral child. As he teaches the boy to speak the language of the civilized world, the child tutors him in his own tongue, the language of nature, and the once barren landscape begins to resonate with meaning.' (Publisher's blurb)

y separately published work icon Judith Wright : Selected Poems Judith Wright , Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1963 Z565587 1963 selected work poetry (taught in 1 units)
Lucky Country (from Paese Fortunato) Rosa R. Cappiello , 1983 extract novel (Paese Fortunato : Romanzo) (taught in 2 units)
— Appears in: Meanjin , Autumn vol. 42 no. 1 1983; (p. 7-14)
y separately published work icon Maurice Guest Henry Handel Richardson , London : Heinemann , 1908 Z821550 1908 single work novel (taught in 6 units)

'A passionate and controversial novel set in turn-of-the-century Europe

'Henry Handel Richardson’s debut, published in London in 1908, is set in the music scene of Leipzig, a cosmopolitan centre for the arts drawing students from around the world—among them Maurice Guest, a young Englishman, who falls helplessly in love with an Australian woman, Louise Dufrayer. Maurice Guest is the story of this overwhelming passion.

'The novel was deemed too controversial to be published as Richardson intended, and she was forced to cut twenty thousand words from the original manuscript and tone down its language.' (Publication summary)

y separately published work icon Sadness William Yang , St Leonards : Allen and Unwin , 1996 Z1129731 1996 single work autobiography (taught in 1 units)
Writing Bodies (ENGL3950) Semester 2
y separately published work icon Look Who's Morphing Tom Cho , Artarmon : Giramondo Publishing , 2009 Z1580990 2009 selected work short story (taught in 6 units)

Look Who's Morphing is a collection of bizarre, funny, often menacing stories in which, along with his extended family, the central character undergoes a series of transformations, shape-shifting through figures drawn from film and television, music clips and video games, porn flicks and comics. He is Godzilla, a Muppet, and Whitney Houston's bodyguard; the Fonz, a robot, a Ford Bronco 4x4 - and, as a climax, a Gulliver-sized cock rock singer, played upon by an adoring troupe of sexy Lilliputians in short skirts and sailor suits and cheerleader outfits. Within these fantasies there is a deep intellectual and emotional engagement, a fundamental questioning of the nature of identity, and the way it constructs itself in a world dominated by the images of popular culture. – From the publisher's website.

y separately published work icon A Most Immoral Woman Linda Jaivin , Pymble : HarperCollins Australia , 2009 Z1551989 2009 single work novel historical fiction (taught in 1 units)

'It is 1904. At the age of forty-two, the handsome and influential Australian George Morrison, Peking correspondent for The Times of London, is considered the most eligible Western bachelor in China. But Morrison has yet to meet his match - until one night, where the Great Wall meets the sea, he encounters Mae Perkins, the ravishing and free-spirited daughter of a California millionaire, and a turbulent affair begins.

'War, meanwhile, has broken out between Russia and Japan for domination over northeast China. Morrison's colleague Lionel James has an idea that will revolutionise war correspondence. But the Russians, the Japanese, and even The Times's own editor, it seems, would rather see James hung from the nearest yardarm. James believes that only Morrison can help. Just as Mae seems to be slipping away from him, James's quest propels Morrison into her magnetic orbit once more.

'Inspired by a true story, A Most Immoral Woman is a surprising, witty and erotic tale of sexual and other obsessions set in the "floating world" of Westerners in China and Japan at the turn of the twentieth century. At its heart stands an original and devastatingly honest woman, as seen from the perspective of the extraordinary man who was drawn to love her.'

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