Issue Details: First known date: 2012... 2012 Ruins or Foundations : Great War Literature in the Australian Curriculum
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'The Great War has been represented in Australian curricula since 1914, in texts with tones ranging from bellicose patriotism to idealistic pacifism. Australian curricula have included war literature as one way of transmitting cultural values, values that continue to evolve as successive generations relate differently to war and peace. Changes in ethical perspectives and popular feeling have guided text selection and pedagogy, so that texts which were once accepted as foundational to Australian society seem, at later times, to document civilisation's ruin.

In recent years, overseas texts have been preferred above Australian examples as mediators of the Great War, an event still held by many to be of essential importance to Australia. This paper first considers arguments for including Great War texts on the national curriculum, exploring what war literature can, and cannot, be expected to bring to the program. Interrogating the purpose/s of war literature in the curriculum and the ways in which the texts may be used to meet such expectations, the paper then discusses styles of war texts and investigates whether there is a case for including more texts by Australian authors.' (Author's abstract)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon JASAL Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature; Field, Curriculum, Emotion vol. 12 no. 1 2012 Z1883636 2012 periodical issue 2012
Last amended 21 Jan 2014 17:43:10
http://nla.gov.au/nla.arc-63067-20130124-0000-www.nla.gov.au/openpublish/index.php/jasal/article/view/2261/2956.html Ruins or Foundations : Great War Literature in the Australian Curriculumsmall AustLit logo JASAL
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