Australian Literature and History (3009HUM)
Semester 2 / 2013

Texts

y separately published work icon Breath Tim Winton , Camberwell : Hamish Hamilton , 2008 Z1457075 2008 single work novel (taught in 21 units) 'Breath is a story about the wildness of youth - the lust for excitement and terror, the determination to be extraordinary, the wounds that heal and those that don't - and about learning to live with its passing.'
Source: Publisher's website
y separately published work icon Monkey Grip Helen Garner , Melbourne : McPhee Gribble , 1977 Z115661 1977 single work novel (taught in 12 units)

Set in inner suburban 1970s Melbourne, Monkey Grip describes the fluid relationships of a community of friends who are living and loving in new ways. Single parent Nora falls in love with Javo, a heroin addict, and together they try to make sense of their lives and the choices they have made.

y separately published work icon Prelude to Christopher Eleanor Dark , Sydney : P. R. Stephensen , 1934 Z824226 1934 single work novel (taught in 22 units)

'Should a woman bear a child knowing that there are traces of insanity in her family? Linda Hainlin, niece of a famous biologist, was aware of the danger when she married Dr. Nigel Hendon, a practical idealist, whose creed was normality and the rational ordering of the world. This book tells how, years later, while temporarily deprived of her husband's sane companionship, Linda feels the oncoming of those homicidal impulses which presage madness. On this tragic theme, 'Prelude to Christopher' is written with strong literary art as a narrative of four days of crisis. The story goes back in memory to the happiness of Linda's love for Nigel, and forward in her frightened imagination to a future from which the strongest must flinch. Christopher, the unborn child, dominates terrific events in which he has no living part to play. The prelude to his birth is told with emotional power.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

y separately published work icon Fly Away Peter The Bread of Time to Come David Malouf , 1982 London : Chatto and Windus , 1982 Z22123 1982 single work novella war literature (taught in 14 units) 'For three very different people brought together by their love for birds, life on the Queensland coast in 1914 is the timeless and idyllic world of sandpipers, ibises and kingfishers. In another hemisphere civilization rushes headlong into a brutal conflict. Life there is lived from moment to moment. Inevitably, the two young men - sanctuary owner and employee - are drawn to the war, and into the mud and horror of the trenches of Armentieres. Alone on the beach, their friend Imogen, the middle-aged wildlife photographer, must acknowledge for all three of them that the past cannot be held.' (Source: Publisher's website)
y separately published work icon My Brilliant Career [and] My Career Goes Bung Miles Franklin , North Ryde : Angus and Robertson , 1990 Z407359 1990 selected work novel (taught in 7 units)
y separately published work icon The Secret River Kate Grenville , Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2005 Z1194031 2005 single work novel historical fiction (taught in 69 units)

'In 1806 William Thornhill, a man of quick temper and deep feelings, is transported from the slums of London to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. With his wife Sal and their children he arrives in a harsh land he cannot understand.

'But the colony can turn a convict into a free man. Eight years later Thornhill sails up the Hawkesbury to claim a hundred acres for himself.

'Aboriginal people already live on that river. And other recent arrivals - Thomas Blackwood, Smasher Sullivan and Mrs Herring - are finding their own ways to respond to them.

'Thornhill, a man neither better nor worse than most, soon has to make the most difficult choice of his life.

'Inspired by research into her own family history, Kate Grenville vividly creates the reality of settler life, its longings, dangers and dilemmas. The Secret River is a brilliantly written book, a groundbreaking story about identity, belonging and ownership.' (From the publisher's website.)

Description

This course examines the way the past figures in recent Australian literature, including poetry, short stories, novels and memoir. It explores the relations of memory and narrative, and memory and place. Incompatible: 3009ART Australian Literature and History Incompatible: HH13A05 Australian Literature and History Incompatible: 3009HUM Australian Literature and History Incompatible: LCS31 Australian Literature and History A, LCS32 Australian Literature and History B Incompatible: 3009AMC Australian Literature and History.

This course aims to:

  • demonstrate how contemporary Australian writing engages with social and historical change
  • explore how memory functions in imaginative and historical narratives
  • investigate the relationship between historical methods and creative processes in the production of literary texts.

Assessment

Written assignment - textual analysis 40%

Research-based assignment - academic essay 60%

Other Details

Offered in: 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012
Current Campus: Gold Coast, Nathan
Levels: Undergraduate
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