Kirril Shields Kirril Shields i(A82322 works by)
Gender: Male
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Works By

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1 y separately published work icon Genocide Perspectives VI : The Process and Personal Cost of Genocide Nikki Marczak (editor), Kirril Shields (editor), Broadway : UTS Press , 2020 21049891 2020 anthology criticism
1 The Tattooist of Auschwitz and the Trivialisation of the Holocaust : A Roundtable Anna Hirsch , Jan Láníček , Samantha Mitschke , Kirril Shields , 2019 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Journal of Jewish Studies , vol. 32 no. 2019; (p. 2-20)
1 Pushing Aside the Nazi : Personal and Collective Exculpation and the Everyday German in Markus Zusak's The Book Thief Kirril Shields , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: Dapim : Studies on the Holocaust , vol. 30 no. 1 2016; (p. 1-15)

'In this paper I argue that Markus Zusak's The Book Thief allows for the personal and collective exculpation of the common or ‘ordinary’ citizens of Germany who lived through the Third Reich. By drawing on the German historian Martin Broszat and his historiographical study of ‘everyday’ life under Nazi rule, I establish that the novel creates a number of contentious themes. First, it suggests that the Nazis were a group who resided on the periphery of German society, and that the rise of Hitler's Third Reich was unpopular among the general German population. Second, while Germans later became victims of Allied bombings and/or Russian invasion, the population was also victim to the nation's political situation. In arguing that German citizens were victims of the Nazis, The Book Thief separates a supposed ‘demonic’ social minority from the ‘everyday’ working class. Depicting the German lower classes as innocent bystanders or victims, the book allows its readers and, in particular, its German readers, to reflect upon this tumultuous historical period with some cultural and social moral fortitude intact. Furthermore, the paper suggests that this novel is just one example of a corpus of Australian texts that have, in recent years, reconfigured traditional literary representations of the Nazi regime and the Holocaust.'

Source: Abstract.

1 Reshaping the Holocaust : Australian Fiction, an Australian Past, and the Reconfiguration of 'Traditional' Holocaust Narratives Kirril Shields , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: Holocaust Studies : A Journal of Culture and History , vol. 22 no. 1 2016; (p. 65-83)

'This article argues that some Australian fiction promotes a unique stance in regards to the Holocaust and the Third Reich. Reading Helen Demidenko/Darville's The Hand that Signed the Paper and James McQueen's White Light, I show that a cultural naivety exists in Australia, forged due to historical and cultural influences played out since the Second World War. These factors have influenced the country's memorialization of, and responses to, the Holocaust and the period's ensuing after-effects, as exampled in these two pieces of Australian fiction.'

Source: Abstract.

1 Communism Usurping Fascism : Political Propaganda in Jean Devanny’s Roll Back the Night and Dymphna Cusack’s Heat Wave in Berlin Kirril Shields , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 30 no. 1 2016; (p. 195-205)
'This essay explores two specific literary and thematic tropes apparent in Jean Devanny's Roll Back the Night (1945) and Dymphna Cusack's Heat Wave in Berlin (1961): first; depictions of the fascist victim and perpetrator that act as a means of didacticism and political pontification in an Australian context; second, each author's belief that the threat of fascism would engulf Australian and/or European politics post-Second World War. While the publication of the two texts is separated by almost two decades, I argue that their similarities highlight an Australian cultural naivety promoted by a geographic and socially removed Australian understanding of the Third Reich. This cultural specificity becomes apparent in Roll Back the Night and Heat Wave in Berlin through the texts' depictions of the Nazi period and the period's ensuing after-effects, drawing one-dimensional character representations of the communist victim and fascist perpetrator that serve not as a means of remembrance or understanding but as Communist propaganda aimed at an Australian audience. Similarly, the cultural and geographic distancing in the two texts is further noted—however influential these stories may or may not have been—in each author's attempts to combat what they suggest is the encroaching threat of the political Right in both Australian and European contexts. It is this lack of character development, alongside each author's political tone and their similar political concerns, that will be explored in this essay. ' (Introduction)
1 y separately published work icon Perpetrators, Bystanders, and Victims: Representations of the Third Reich in Australian Fiction Kirril Shields , St Lucia : 2014 8340006 2014 single work thesis

Kirril Shields considers how, and in what ways, specificities of Australian history and culture have influenced literary representations of the Third Reich perpetrator, bystander and victim. He argues that the depiction of these three roles, in Australian fiction published from the mid-1940s through to the present day, shows some parallels with 'shifts and changes' identified by European scholars in views of the Third Reich, and in perspectives on literary representations of this triad in cultural production. Sheild's contends that Australian fiction enables, in varying degrees, a rearticulation of what may be considered traditional representations of the triad. He argues that that these Australian literary representations also show some extensions of traditional portrayals in Australia and elsewhere, of the Third Reich perpetrator, bystander and victim, in literary and other genres of cultural production.

1 y separately published work icon The Battler's Prince : A Reading of Peter Carey's Fiction Kirril Shields , Sydney : 2006 Z1834911 2006 single work thesis The thesis examines Peter Carey as a nationalist writer, arguing that he is a writer whose characters, society and history reflect and recall the 1890s 'Australian tradition.' Despite the post-modern, post-colonial and fabulist features contained within his novels, Carey reflects the bushman ethos in his portrayal of Australian characters. True Australians are those who possess bush values. Certain elements in his fiction assist this theme, such as the manipulated use of Australian history, or the lack of attention to pluralism in his writing.

Shields examines those recurring traits, interpreting Carey as an Australian Battler's Prince, a man who promotes egalitarianism and mateship while belittling and devaluing a society of colonizing/ neo-colonizing past and present 'squattocracies.' He further argues that it is Carey's commitment to this 'true Australia' that determines the ethical structure of his work: in particular, that characters who offend the egalitarian values of 'true Australia' are more likely to be punished than characters who, whatever their crimes, exhibit 'Australian' virtues. Finally, the thesis questions Carey the nationalist in the context of the ethics of storytelling.
1 15 Dawn Pde Kirril Shields , 2003 single work short story
— Appears in: Philament , September no. 1 2003;
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