Introduction to Aboriginal Literature (KOCR2612)
2012

Texts

Embassy i "I ravelling in another lands people", Lionel Fogarty , 2002 single work poetry (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 62 no. 2 2002; (p. 69-72)
y separately published work icon Dhuuluu-Yala : To Talk Straight : Publishing Indigenous Literature Anita Heiss , 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.
y separately published work icon That Deadman Dance Kim Scott , Sydney : Picador , 2010 Z1728528 2010 single work novel historical fiction (taught in 43 units)

Big-hearted, moving and richly rewarding, That Deadman Dance is set in the first decades of the 19th century in the area around what is now Albany, Western Australia. In playful, musical prose, the book explores the early contact between the Aboriginal Noongar people and the first European settlers.

'The novel's hero is a young Noongar man named Bobby Wabalanginy. Clever, resourceful and eager to please, Bobby befriends the new arrivals, joining them hunting whales, tilling the land, exploring the hinterland and establishing the fledgling colony. He is even welcomed into a prosperous local white family where he falls for the daughter, Christine, a beautiful young woman who sees no harm in a liaison with a native.

'But slowly - by design and by accident - things begin to change. Not everyone is happy with how the colony is developing. Stock mysteriously start to disappear; crops are destroyed; there are "accidents" and injuries on both sides. As the Europeans impose ever stricter rules and regulations in order to keep the peace, Bobby's Elders decide they must respond in kind. A friend to everyone, Bobby is forced to take sides: he must choose between the old world and the new, his ancestors and his new friends. Inexorably, he is drawn into a series of events that will forever change not just the colony but the future of Australia...' (From the publisher's website.)

Black Poetics Anita Heiss , 2006 single work criticism (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Meanjin , vol. 65 no. 1 2006; (p. 180-191)
'Explores the relationship of Aboriginal poetry with the Aboriginal political voice'. (Meanjin)
y separately published work icon The Cherry Pickers Kevin Gilbert , 1968 1968 (Manuscript version)x401069 Z245424 1968 single work drama (taught in 4 units)

"When the cold August wind abated in its final sigh of emergence from the lean, hard winter months into springtime, the People emerged from the cold, and often leaky shanties, and old discarded car-bodies, which were their home, to gather together their few ragged possessions and tie them in bundles ready for traveling to the cherry orchards, often many hundreds of miles away. Many would travel by bicycle with their swags swinging crazily from the frames; many traveled in old tattered caravans drawn by horses; many just walked beside the caravans through the red sandhill and mallee country, while the more daring 'jumped the rattler', the slow old steam train that chugged across the land.

Wherever the people gathered there too was a spirit of revival, of intense relief, for the "cherry season" meant a temporary release from near starvation. In a good season it could mean some old debts would be repaid. It meant food and toys for the children for the forthcoming Christmas season and, above all, it meant some independence, some freedom, from under the crucifying heels of the local police and the white 'station' managers; an escape from the refugee camps called 'Aboriginal Reserves'. The cherry season was the time for hope, for meeting old friends and relatives, for laughing and for making love. The Cherry Pickers tells it all.' Source: http://blackwebs.photoaccess.org.au/~kevingilbert/books/books.html (Sighted: 12/4/2009).

y separately published work icon Benang : From the Heart Kim Scott , Fremantle : Fremantle Press , 1999 Z135862 1999 single work novel (taught in 31 units) 'Oceanic in its rhythms and understanding, brilliant in its use of language and image, moving in its largeness of spirit, compelling in its narrative scope and style, Benang is a novel of celebration and lament, of beginning and return, of obliteration and recovery, of silencing and of powerful utterance. Both tentative and daring, it speaks to the present and a possible future through stories, dreams, rhythms, songs, images and documents mobilised from the incompletely acknowledged and still dynamic past.' (Publisher's website)
y separately published work icon The Cake Man Robert James Merritt , 1974 Woollahra : Currency Press , 1978 Z157470 1974 single work drama (taught in 1 units) A simple story of an Aboriginal family's hopes, The Cake Man is a compassionate plea for both blacks and whites to look again at the origins of mutual distrust and work together to restore a precious lost heritage. (Back cover of 1978 edition)
y separately published work icon Bennelong : The Coming in of the Eora : Sydney Cove 1788-1792 Keith Vincent Smith , East Roseville : Kangaroo Press , 2001 Z1496114 2001 single work biography (taught in 1 units)

'Biography of Bennelong (c1764-1813), a Sydney Aboriginal man who was kidnapped by Governor Phillip in 1789 and subsequently lived within both the European and Aboriginal cultures. Reveals Bennelong as a clever politician playing a double game between his people and Phillip. Recounts his leadership of a resistance movement against the European invaders, culminating in an unwritten peace 'treaty' in 1790.' (Source: Angus & Robertson website)

y separately published work icon The Seven Stages of Grieving Wesley Enoch , Deborah Mailman , Hilary Beaton , 1995 Brisbane : Playlab , 1996 Z355402 1995 single work drama (taught in 14 units)
— Appears in: アボリジニ戯曲選 : ストールン; 嘆きの七段階 2001;

'This is a proud milestone in Australian theatre history; a contemporary Indigenous performance text from the highly acclaimed Kooemba Jdarra. Appropriating western forms whilst using traditional storytelling, it gives emotional insight into Murri life. This one-woman show follows the journey of an Aboriginal ‘Everywoman’ as she tells poignant and humorous stories of grief and reconciliation. A powerful, demanding and culturally profound text, The 7 Stages of Grieving is a celebration of Indigenous survival, an invitation to grieve publicly, a time to exorcize pain. It has a universal theme told through the personal experiences of one incredible character.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Playlab).

Description

This unit of study provides an introduction to the literature of Aboriginal Australia. It surveys

a range of texts from the late eighteenth to the early twenty-first century, including early letters and chronicles, works of fiction, poetry and plays, and political manifestos and song-lyrics. These texts are read in the light of Aboriginal cultural and political life, the specificities of tradition, colonisation, resistance and survival, and Aboriginal interpolations of modernity, postmodernity and postcolonialism.

Assessment

Participation (10%), presentations (20%), short essay (30%), take-home exan (40%)

Other Details

Levels: Undergraduate
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