Australian Crimes: Crime narratives on page, stage and screen (ENGL2081/ENGL6024)
Semester 1 / 2016

Texts

y separately published work icon His Natural Life For the Term of His Natural Life Marcus Clarke , 1870-1872 Z1032375 1870-1872 single work novel (taught in 15 units)

'Scarcely out of print since the early 1870s, For the Term of His Natural Life has provided successive generations with a vivid account of a brutal phase of colonial life. The main focus of this great convict novel is the complex interaction between those in power and those who suffer, made meaningful because of its hero's struggle against his wrongful imprisonment. Elements of romance, incidents of family life and passages of scenic description both relieve and give emphasis to the tragedy that forms its heart.' (Publication summary : Penguin Books 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 Boys Gordon Graham , 1991 Paddington : Currency Press , 1994 Z273156 1991 single work drama (taught in 7 units)
y separately published work icon Last Drinks Andrew McGahan , St Leonards : Allen and Unwin , 2000 Z668642 2000 single work novel crime (taught in 2 units) 'It's a decade since the infamous Inquiry into corruption tore the state of Queensland apart. But for George Verney, disgraced journalist and bit-player in the great scandals of his day, the Inquiry has never quite finished. After ten years of self-imposed exile, drawn by the terrible death of a man who was his friend, he reluctantly returns to Brisbane, the city of his downfall. In a town he no longer recognises and through an underworld that has forgotten him, George must seek out the other hidden survivors of his times, to confront the truth about their common past, and to find a way to let the dead rest in peace.' (from back cover)
y separately published work icon The Monkey's Mask Dorothy Porter , South Melbourne : Hyland House , 1994 Z528794 1994 single work novel crime (taught in 31 units)
Red Harvest, Hammett, Dashiell

Description

This course examines a range of Australian literary, theatrical and cinematic crime narratives from the 19th century to the present. It explores Australian literary, stage and screen history through the ideas of crime and the criminal, introducing students to key 19th and 20th century Australian texts and investigating the relationships between literature, ethics, law and society. It also introduces students to a range of critical approaches to reading generic or 'popular' fiction and film. Writers considered may include Marcus Clarke, Mary Fortune, Fergus Hume, Peter Temple, Doris Pilkington and Andrew McGahan.

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