Dhuuluu-Yala : To Talk Straight : Publishing Indigenous Literature
Canberra
:
Aboriginal Studies Press
,
2003
Z1058158
2003
multi chapter work
criticism
(taught in 5 units)
This work discusses the history of defining Aboriginality in Australia and the experience of being Aboriginal. Both these factors have impacted on the production of Aboriginal writing within the wider context of Indigenous writing. The author also focuses on Indigenous publishing in other countries and how best to market and publish Aboriginal literature.
This course provides you with an opportunity to read, enjoy and evaluate a wide range of autobiographical and historical accounts, novels, short stories, poetry and drama written by Aboriginal Australians. You will also have the opportunity to study films, play scripts and performances (when available). For the purposes of this course, we use the term Aboriginal voices and Aboriginal writing interchangeably to encompass a whole array of Aboriginal self-representation and storytelling practices.
Aboriginal writing, both in its creative and critical response to paradigms of history, race and representation, has emerged as an important genre within Australian literature in the last thirty years. We will be exploring these texts as a way of understanding the diversity of experiences that have shaped Aboriginal people, their attitudes, values and aspirations today. At the same time, the works offer important insights into Australian society generally as they redress non-Indigenous representations of social history, politics, economic life, and provide a wealth of detail about daily life and cultural values over the last hundred years. Importantly, these texts speak back to colonial and western ways of thinking and representing race and identity.
to read extensively from a range of texts by Aboriginal authors from specific places and different generations, and engage with a variety of genres and media.
to explore the way Aboriginal people were represented in literature in the early twentieth century and trace the emergence of a significant body of Aboriginal writing over the last thirty years.
to discuss the political motivations behind writing and other forms of Indigenous self-representation.
to examine Aboriginal writing as both literature and history from a number of different theoretical perspectives, from literary analysis to postcolonial and poststructuralist critique.
demonstrate familiarity with a wide range of Aboriginal texts.
set the emergence of Aboriginal literature in its historical, political, social, economic and intellectual context.
identify central themes, issues, styles and forms within the literature according to region and generation.
make comparisons with other literary and historical representations of Aboriginal life.
to discuss the texts in their potential for dialogue between non-Indigenous and Indigenous Australians, and examine the politics of audience in the context of Reconciliation.
have an understanding of Aboriginal perspectives on Australian society.
analyse the texts within a range of contemporary theory relating to historiography, phenomenology, representation, construction of identity, and postcolonial literature.
Book Review - 600 words - 15%; Tutorial Presentation and 1500 word essay - 35%; Major Essay - 2400 words - 50%
Shoemaker, A. Black words, white pages: Aboriginal literature 1929-1988. St Lucia; University of Queensland Press, 1988.
Broome, R. 2002, 3rd edn, Aboriginal Australians: black responses to white dominance, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards, NSW.
Other Critical References
Brewster, A. 1996, Reading Aboriginal womens autobiography, Sydney University Press, Melbourne.
Anita Heiss and Penny Van Toorn (eds). Stories Without End. Southerly, 62.2 (2002). Sydney: Halstead Press.
Jennings, K. 1993, Sites of difference: cinematic representations of Aboriginality and gender, Australian Film Institute Research & Information Centre, South Melbourne.
Langton, M 1993, 'Well, I heard it on the radio and I saw it on the television': an essay for the Australian Film Commission on the politics and aesthetics of filmmaking by and about Aboriginal people and things, Australian Film Commission, North Sydney.
Mudrooroo (Colin Johnson) 1977, The Indigenous literature of Australia: Milli Milli Wangka, Hyland House, South Melbourne.
Sarup, M. 1993, An introductory guide to poststructuralism and postmodernism, Harvester-Wheatsheaf, New York.
Worby, G. & Rigney, L.I. (ed.) 2006, Sharing the Space, Lythrum Press, Perth.
Anthologies
Abbey, S. & Phillips, S. 2003, Fresh Cuttings: A Celebration of Fiction and Poetry from UQPs Black Writing Series, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia.
Davis, J., Muecke, S., Narogin, M. & Shoemaker, A. (eds) 1990, Paperbark: a collection of black Australian writings, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia.
Sabbioni, J., Schaffer, K. & Smith, S. (eds) 1998, Indigenous Australian voices: a reader, Rutgers University Press, New Jersey.
