The Boat
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.)
True Country
Fremantle
:
Fremantle Press
,
1993
Z165486
1993
single work
novel
(taught in 30 units)
'Billy is drifting, looking for a place to land. A young school teacher, he arrives in Australia's remote far north in search of his own history, his Aboriginality, and his future. He finds himself in a region of abundance and beauty but also of conflict, dispossession and dislocation. On the desperate frontier between cultures, Billy must find his place of belonging.' (Source: Fremantle Press website)
How does literature travel? How do texts shape, and get shaped by, place and history? This course will introduce you to a range of critical and contextual approaches to the study of literature. You will examine the ways literary texts have circulated in global culture and how they are connected with notions of empire, nation and exile, international markets and literary celebrity. You will look at literature from diasporic, postcolonial and settler contexts, as well as texts from the heart of empire. Texts studied may include, for example, H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds in light of Neill Blomkamp's 2009 film District 9, and Nam Le's The Boat alongside Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad. You will trace literary genres and movements such as modernism, science fiction and the gothic across time and place in novels, short fiction, film and poetry.
In-class assessment (20%)
Essay (1500 words, 15%)
Online annotated bibliography (15%)
Essay (2000 words, 40%)
Tutorial participation (10%)
