Indigenous Australia in Literature: Listenin' Up (ENGL3045)
School of Humanities and Social Science - University of Newcastle
Semester 2 / 2015

Texts

y separately published work icon Story About Feeling Bill Neidjie , Keith Taylor (editor), Broome : Magabala Books , 1989 Z112047 1989 selected work poetry (taught in 7 units)

'From a master storyteller, this book links personal discovery to a sense of nature. It restores us to a wisdom that is at once powerful and fresh. Includes reproductions of bark paintings and artworks. ' (Publication summary)
y separately published work icon Carpentaria Alexis Wright , Artarmon : Giramondo Publishing , 2006 Z1184902 2006 single work novel (taught in 47 units) Carpentaria's portrait of life in the precariously settled coastal town of Desperance centres on the powerful Phantom family, whose members are the leaders of the Pricklebush people, and their battles with old Joseph Midnight's tearaway Eastend mob on the one hand, and the white officials of Uptown and the neighbouring Gurfurrit mine on the other. Wright's storytelling is operatic and surreal: a blend of myth and scripture, politics and farce. The novel is populated by extraordinary characters - Elias Smith the outcast saviour, the religious zealot Mozzie Fishman, leader of the holy Aboriginal pilgrimage, the murderous mayor Stan Bruiser, the ever-vigilant Captain Nicoli Finn, the activist and prodigal son Will Phantom, and above all, Angel Day the queen of the rubbish-dump, and her sea-faring husband Normal Phantom, the fish-embalming king of time - figures that stand like giants in this storm-swept world. (Backcover)
y separately published work icon Welcome to My Country : Lakak Burarrwanga and Family Sarah Wright (editor), Sandie Suchet-Pearson (editor), Kate Lloyd (editor), Banbapuy Ganambarr , Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr Stubbs , Ritjilili Ganambarr , Laklak Burarrwanga , Gay'wu Group of Women , Laklak Burarrwanga , Sydney : Allen and Unwin , 2013 6344501 2013 single work oral history autobiography children's (taught in 1 units)

'Laklak Burarrwanga and family invite you to their Country, centred on a beautiful beach in Arnhem Land. Its crystal waters are full of fish, turtle, crab and stingray, to hunt; the land behind has bush fruits, pandanus for weaving, wood for spears, all kinds of useful things. This country is also rich with meaning. 'We can go anywhere and see a river, hill, tree, rock telling a story.

'Here too is Laklak's own history, from her long walk across Arnhem Land as a child to her people's fight for land rights and for a say in their children's schooling. She and her family stand tall, a proud and successful Indigenous community.'

Source: Back cover.
y separately published work icon Mullumbimby Melissa Lucashenko , St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 2013 Z1911852 2013 single work novel (taught in 8 units) 'When Jo Breen uses her divorce settlement to buy a neglected property in the Byron Bay hinterland, she is hoping for a tree change, and a blossoming connection to the land of her Aboriginal ancestors. What she discovers instead is sharp dissent from her teenage daughter, trouble brewing from unimpressed white neighbours and a looming Native Title war between the local Bundjalung families. When Jo unexpectedly finds love on one side of the Native Title divide she quickly learns that living on country is only part of the recipe for the Good Life.' (Source: TROVE)
y separately published work icon My People's Dreaming : An Aboriginal Elder Speaks on Life, Land, Spirit and Forgiveness Max Harrison , Sydney : Finch , 2009 Z1648413 2009 single work life story (taught in 3 units) 'The teachings I reveal in this book are the living treasures of my life. The traditional knowledge I talk about includes Creation Dreaming, bush lore, foods and healing, laws and punishment, spirituality and relationship to the land. These are some of the things taught to me by my teachers, my masters. And I will never forget them. They made me look at the Mother with ancient eyes. Not mine. But with ancient eyes and now it is my turn to pass on what I know.' Source: My People's Dreaming: An Aboriginal Elder Speaks on Life, Land, Spirit and Forgiveness (2009)
y separately published work icon The Tall Man : Death and Life on Palm Island Chloe Hooper , Camberwell : Hamish Hamilton , 2008 Z1483259 2008 single work prose (taught in 11 units) In November 2004, in the small township of Palm Island in the far north of Queensland, Detective Hurley arrested Cameron Doomadgee for swearing at him. Doomadgee was drunk. A few hours later he died in a watch-house cell. According to the inquest, his liver was so badly damaged it was almost severed. (Source: Trove)

Description

Indigenality and Indigenous issues in Australia have been constructed and represented through different literary genres and for different political purposes. This course uses both Indigenous and non-Indigenous texts to examine the ways in which "Indigenality" and "whiteness" have been perpetuated and included in mainstream Australian culture using both fictional and non-fictional texts.

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