Issue Details: First known date: 2011... 2011 Racial Ambiguity and Whiteness in Brian Castro’s 'Drift'
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'This article focuses on Drift, the fifth novel of contemporary Australian writer, Brian Castro, and concentrates on the ambiguous racial inscriptions of some of its characters. While white experimental British writer B.S. Johnson progressively becomes darker in the novel, his desire to escape his whiteness is complicated by another extreme, the albinism of Tasmanian Aboriginal Thomas McGann. This article discusses one essential aspect of these surprising fictional representations: the critique of whiteness that they articulate. The racial ambiguity of the two main characters offers a subtle reflection on Tasmania‟s colonial legacy. Yet beyond Castro's exploration of the contingencies of the Tasmanian context, the characters‟ racial ambivalence destabilises conventional representations of whiteness. The novel both exposes the metonymic nature of whiteness and critiques the specific modes of reading the body that are involved in preoccupations with whiteness.' Source: Marilyne Brun.

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Last amended 22 Sep 2011 14:18:06
113-126 http://www.ub.edu/dpfilsa/jeasa22brun11.pdf Racial Ambiguity and Whiteness in Brian Castro’s 'Drift'small AustLit logo Journal of the European Association for Studies on Australia
Subjects:
  • Drift Brian Castro , 1994 single work novel
  • Tasmania,
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