Cirrus@Austlit

From author's abstract: 'This article investigates how critical whiteness theory might complement the work of postcolonial studies to reconceptualize and reorient our study of Australian indigenous literature. Based on the premise that reading is an intercultural process in which raced and non-raced identities are negotiated, it examines how the act of reading indigenous texts constitutes an intercultural encounter for the white reader. The work of a Western Australian Nyoongah writer, Alf Taylor, is examined as an exemplary case. ... I will focus on his collection Long Time Now (2001), to show how the stories destabilize white readers' assumptions about the authority and entitlements of whiteness. I argue that one of the prime textual vehicles which destabilizes whiteness in these stories is their humour' (427).