Introduction to Australian Literature (ENGL1100)
Semester 1 / 2009

Texts

y separately published work icon Behind the Moon Hsu-Ming Teo , Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2005 Z1201374 2005 single work novel (taught in 8 units)

'Justin Cheong, Tien Ho and Nigel Gibbo' Gibson have been best friends since school in a world divided along ethnic lines into skips, wogs and slopes. Together they've survived a suburban tragedy, compulsory karaoke nights and Justin's mother's obsession with clean toilets. They thought they would always be there for each other but they hadn't counted on the effects of jealousy, betrayal, and their desire to escape themselves.

'Ho Ly-Linh, Tien's mother, wasn't around for much of Tien's childhood. Left behind in a rapidly changing Vietnam, she risked everything to follow her family to Australia. Having spent so much of this dangerous journey alone, she is ready now to find love. On Saturday, 6 September 1997 they all meet at the Cheongs' house for the first time in years because Princess Diana is dead and their mothers have decided to hold a Dead Diana Dinner to watch the funeral on television. Nobody realises just how explosive this dinner will be, or how complicated life is going to get.

'This is a story of three families' discovery of the meaning of love and friendship.' [Source: publisher's website]

y separately published work icon Coonardoo : The Well in the Shadow Katharine Susannah Prichard , 1928 Z1081769 1928 single work novel (taught in 39 units) Set in North-West of Western Australia, it describes life on cattle stations and the relationship between the white owner of the station and Coonardoo, an Aboriginal woman.
y separately published work icon Johnno : A Novel David Malouf , St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 1975 Z25348 1975 single work novel (taught in 9 units)

'Dante and Johnno are unlikely childhood friends, growing up in the bustle of steamy, wartime Brisbane. Later, as teenagers, they learn about love and life amidst the city's pubs and public libraries, backyards and brothels, Moreton Bay figs and tennis parties. As adults, they make the great pilgrimage overseas and maintain an uneasy friendship as they seek to build their lives.

'An affectionate and bittersweet portrait, Johnno brilliantly recreates the sleazy, tropical half-city that was Brisbane and captures a generation locked in combat with the elusive Australian dream.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Penguin).

y separately published work icon Bitin' Back Just Call Me Jean Vivienne Cleven , St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 2001 Z669132 2001 single work novel (taught in 7 units) 'When the Blackout's star player Nevil Dooley wakes one morning to don a frock and 'eyeshada', his mother's idle days at the bingo hall are gone forever. Mystified and clueless, single parent Mavis takes bush-cunning and fast footwork to unravel the mystery behind this sudden change of face... Hilarity prevails while desperation builds in the race to save Nevil from the savage consequences of discovery in a town where a career in footy is a young black man's only escape. Neither pig shoots, bust-ups at the Two Dogs, bare-knuckle sessions in the shed or even a police siege can slow the countdown on this human time bomb.' (Source: Publisher's blurb)
y separately published work icon The Australian Short Story : An Anthology from the 1890s to the 1980s Laurie Hergenhan (editor), St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 1986 Z380969 1986 anthology short story (taught in 13 units)

Description

The aim of this course is to introduce students to a diverse and interesting selection of some of the most significant Australian writing, and to develop students' skills in reading and understanding literary texts: poetry, novels, and short stories.

“Introduction to Australian Literature” (ENGL1100) provides a general introduction to the study of Australian literature. In reading texts from a range of periods, students will be introduced to critical reading skills, and to significant themes in Australian writing.

The course comprises three sections:

1. Relationships on the frontier. Legacies of colonial society, masculinity and femininity. Character and narrative. Study of stories, some poems and Coonardoo.

2. Humour, irony and satire. Whiteness and sexuality. Rise of Aboriginal published writing. Study of some mainly urban fiction: stories and Bitin' Back..

3. Study of two novels that focus upon growing up and being young in mid-20th to early 21st century Australia, the formation of cultural identities, and the crossing of boundaries and borders. Johnno and Behind the Moon.

The course will also introduce you to research resources in the field of Australian literature, among which the most helpful is the Austlit database (at http://www.austlit.edu.au/). You are encouraged to browse in Austlit to get a sense of the range of contemporary and historical writing, and criticism.

Assessment

Short-answer questions

Analysing Literature: Coonardoo/stories

20%

1000 words

Tutorial Participation

Tutorial Participation mark.

10%

Essay

Essay 1: Humour, Irony and Satire. Cleven/stories

30%

1500-1600 words

Essay

Essay 2:Crossing Borders and Boundaries Teo/Malouf

40%

Supplementary Texts

Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royle. Literature, Criticism and Theory. Third edition. Edinburgh Gate: Pearson Education Ltd, 2004.

AustLit: Online Database for Australian Literature (available through the UQ Library Website)

Baldick, Chris. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Second edition. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001.

Wilde, William, Joy Hooton and Barry Andrews. The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature. 2nd ed. Oxford: London, 1994.

Other Details

Offered in: 2008, 2007, 2006
Current Campus: St Lucia
Levels: Undergraduate
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