Dichotomies in Indigenous Imaging (ABST201)
Semester 1 / 2015

Texts

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 Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature Anita Heiss (editor), Peter Minter (editor), Nicholas Jose (editor), Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2008 Z1483175 2008 anthology poetry drama prose correspondence criticism extract (taught in 19 units)

'An authoritative survey of Australian Aboriginal writing over two centuries, across a wide range of fiction and non-fiction genres. Including some of the most distinctive writing produced in Australia, it offers rich insights into Aboriginal culture and experience...

'The anthology includes journalism, petitions and political letters from both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as major works that reflect the blossoming of Aboriginal poetry, prose and drama from the mid-twentieth century onwards. Literature has been used as a powerful political tool by Aboriginal people in a political system which renders them largely voiceless. These works chronicle the ongoing suffering of dispossession, but also the resilience of Aboriginal people across the country, and the hope and joy in their lives.' (Publisher's blurb)

Description

In contrast to past-colonial curatorial practices, some recent museum exhibitions involving Indigenous cultural heritage have sought and achieved some measure of meaningful collaboration with the descendants of the people whose culture is represented. This has often presented interesting problems and paradoxes, especially when the descendants are thought, by museum curators, to no longer practice traditional culture. These problems are made particularly manifest when the traditional objects exhibited are specially manufactured by living people using modern technology. In this unit we interrogate the concept of tradition and consider different ways of understanding it. We do this by undertaking some comparative analyses of some recent museum exhibitions.

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