Issue Details: First known date: 2010... 2010 New York City Limits : Australian Novels and American Print Culture
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'One of the questions posed by this conference is, 'Why has Australia received so little attention in US literary circles?' This paper aims to propose an answer to that question by identifying American editions of Australian novels and by widely surveying reviews of these novels in journals and newspapers throughout the twentieth century. This survey will rely on searches conducted via the online version of the Book Review Digest and will be informed by Richard Ohmann's Politics of Letters (1987). Drawing on several sociological studies and other empirical data, Ohmann argues that canonization in the USA has relied on a small group of professional readers and a similarly small number of newspapers and journals in which these books were discussed, most of which were based within New York City limits. While Australian novels might not have been considered for canonization, the established print culture networks through which they moved ultimately influenced their critical and commercial success. Examining the degree to which Australian novels were included in the 'book talk' of these print culture networks provides a suitable foundation for statements about the space provided for Australian novels in US print culture. Ultimately, the limited and irregular inclusion of Australia in the 'book talk' of a small number of New York intellectuals and periodicals goes a long way to explaining why Australia has received so little attention in US literary circles.' (Author's abstract)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Reading Across the Pacific : Australia-United States Intellectual Histories Robert Dixon (editor), Nicholas Birns (editor), Sydney : Sydney University Press , 2010 Z1754436 2010 anthology criticism 'Reading Across the Pacific is a study of literary and cultural engagement between the United States and Australia from a contemporary interdisciplinary perspective. The book examines the relations of the two countries, shifting the emphasis from the broad cultural patterns that are often compared, to the specific networks, interactions, and crossings that have characterised Australian literature in the United States and American literature in Australia.
    In the twenty-first century, both American and Australian literatures are experiencing new challenges to the very different paradigms of literary history and criticism each inherited from the twentieth century. In response to these challenges, scholars of both literatures are seizing the opportunity to reassess and reconfigure the conceptual geography of national literary spaces as they are reformed by vectors that evade or exceed them, including the transnational, the local and the global.
    The essays in Reading Across the Pacific are divided into five sections: National Literatures and Transnationalism, Poetry and Poetics, Literature and Popular Culture, The Cold War, and Publishing History and Transpacific Print Cultures' (Source: Publisher's website).
    Sydney : Sydney University Press , 2010
    pg. 299-308
Last amended 23 Feb 2011 15:43:50
299-308 New York City Limits : Australian Novels and American Print Culturesmall AustLit logo
Subjects:
  • New York (City), New York (State),
    c
    United States of America (USA),
    c
    Americas,
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