Preliminary course description:
Recently, Wiradjuri scholar Jeanine Leane has drawn attention to the fact that in the Australian context largely white settler critics and academics decide “what is and isn’t Western literature” (27) and that Indigenous writing is still treated as Australian literature’s ‘poor relation’. It is, hence, the objective of this course to read texts by Indigenous Australian authors which use the English language to expand and resist these colonial and imaginative limits. This course is designed to give students an overview of contemporary Indigenous Australian writing and to introduce them to recent tensions and issues in Indigenous Studies in general. Primary materials will include: novels, poetry, film and artwork.
Please note that this course is designed as a Blockseminar. It has a separate session at the start of term followed by three full day sessions for intense discussions and group work in the first week after the end of term. There will be sufficient breaks scheduled during the latter.
- Lehrende/r: Rita Elizabeth Maricocchi