Benang : From the Heart
Fremantle
:
Fremantle Press
,
1999
Z135862
1999
single work
novel
(taught in 31 units)
In the vast expanse of Western Australia, a young Indigenous man embarks on a profound journey within himself. Labelled as the successful outcome of his white grandfather's attempts to breed the 'first white man born', Harley wants to be a failure. Finding himself at a difficult point in the history of his country, family and self, Harley's story takes the reader on an eye-opening and heartbreaking narrative of the impact of colonisation on First Nations people in Australia. From one of Australia's most revered storytellers, Benang sheds light on the ongoing struggle for cultural preservation, and is an epic and beautiful story of celebration and lament, beginning and return.
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)
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.
