Issue Details: First known date: 2011... 2011 The 'Voice' of Nature? Kookaburras, Culture and Australian Sound
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Linking auditory and animal history, this article examines the kookaburra's transformation from a 'bird of evil' to a symbol of and way of hearing nation. From the early colonial period, responses to the bird's aurality and behaviour were highly ambivalent and negative discourses in relation to the kookaburra continued well into the twentieth century. Yet the interwar years became the 'heyday' of the kookaburra as a symbol. The analysis focuses not on the use of the kookaburra as a visual icon in this period but on the kookaburra's growing aural power and presence. Here, discussion is particularly concerned with the role of new mass communication media in integrating nation with nature via the kookaburra. Central to this is the story of Jacko, the 'Broadcasting Kookaburra', a narrative that not only helps to explain the bird's ascent in national consciousness but also the limits to that identification.' [Author's abstract]

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Works about this Work

Barrett Prize: Judge's Ranking and Comments 2012 single work column
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , December vol. 36 no. 4 2012; (p. 529-530)
Barrett Prize: Judge's Ranking and Comments 2012 single work column
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , December vol. 36 no. 4 2012; (p. 529-530)
Last amended 21 Mar 2017 13:43:51
281-295 The 'Voice' of Nature? Kookaburras, Culture and Australian Soundsmall AustLit logo Journal of Australian Studies
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