Issue Details: First known date: 2011... 2011 Sea-change or Atrophy? The Australian Convict Inheritance
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

This paper is an offshoot of a larger project which explored the possibility for the erstwhile settler-colonizer undergoing the sea-change into settler-indigene emergent through a study of selected novels of Patrick White. It became apparent to me that the convict figure, who played an ancillary role in these works, could lay claim to the status of white indigene well ahead of the main protagonist. Robert Hughes (in The Fatal Shore) discredits the idea of any bonding between the convict and the Aborigine but acknowledges examples of "white blackfellas"—white men who had successfully been adopted into Aboriginal societies. Martin Tucker's nineteenth century work, Ralph Rashleigh, offers surprising testimony of a creative work which bears this out in a context where Australian literature generally reflected the national amnesia with regard to the Aborigine and barely accorded them human status. Grenville's The Secret River (2005), based broadly on the history of her own ancestor, appears to support Hughes' original contention but is also replete with ambivalences that work against a simple resolution. This paper will explore some of the ambivalences, the 'food for thought' on aspects of the Australian experience highlighted by these literary texts, and glances briefly also at variations on the theme in Carey's Jack Maggs and the The True Story of the Kelly Gang. (Author's abstract)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Coolabah Food for Afterthought no. 5 2011 Z1819728 2011 periodical issue

    'As the guest editor of the present issue of Coolabah (No. 5, 2011), entitled Food for Afterthought, I have had the honour and pleasure of dealing with a series of challenging essays derived from the congress Food for Thought, held from 1st to 5th February 2010 at the University of Barcelona. This event was organised by the Australian Studies Centre of the University of Barcelona, Spain, together with the Centre for Peace and Social Justice of the University of Southern Cross, Lismore, Australia, directed by Dr Susan Ballyn and Dr Baden Offord respectively. Their commitment and work front and backstage both in Barcelona as well as in Australia are responsible for the range and depth of this international conference. Indeed, Food for Thought forms part of a cycle of congresses on Australian Studies that started out commuting between Australia and Spain, but since 2008 have had Barcelona as their one and only venue, without losing their original international and interdisciplinary appeal and objective.' (Editorial introduction)

    2011
Last amended 17 Dec 2024 11:24:47
https://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/coolabah/article/view/15703 Sea-change or Atrophy? The Australian Convict Inheritancesmall AustLit logo Coolabah
Subjects:
Newspapers:
    Powered by Trove
    X