ERA Arts Book Chapters

First Nations Phantoms and Aboriginal Spectres: The Function of Ghosts in Settler-Invader Cultures

Gerry Turcotte — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 22:52:08 PDT

The New Black

In Specters of Marx Derrida urges us to recognise the phantoms that haunt the literary, the political, the social, the corporate, insisting that '[h]aunting belongs to the structure of every hegemony'.₂ Faced with the recognition of the heavily haunted landscape that we invariably inhabit, we have been compelled to seek out appropriate metaphors to represent such phenomena. Captured through the figure of the ghost, the vampire, the monstrous and the uncanny, the spectral is the new black - we all see dead people! The problem is, of course, that they are not necessarily the same people - or if they are, they mean different things to different folk. Where once these phantoms might have been seen to exist at the limit of the imaginary, they are now recognised as imbuing and infiltrating the very marrow of our being, both troubling and constituting the stories that we tell, the films that we make, the theses that we write.

The research for this paper was made possible by a Faculty Research Program grant awarded by the Government of Canada, through the International Council for Canadian Studies. The grant allowed research to be undertaken in Canada generally including at the National Library of Canada, and it also made it possible to attend the Congress of Learned Societies in Saskatoon 2007. This paper brings together two Keynote addresses, one for ACLAWACQL and the other at the Post-colonial Ghosts Conference in Montpellier. I am grateful to the participants at both conferences for feedback that greatly improved this study, in particular Albert Braz and Armand Ruffo.

₂ Derrida Jacques, Specters of Marx: the State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning,and the New International, trans. Peggy Kamuf (NY: Routledge, 1994): 37.

Due to copyright restrictions this book chapter is unavailable for download.

Mission Impossible: Mudrooroo's Gothic Inter/Mission Statement

Gerry Turcotte — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:05:05 PST

In this essay I am attempting to (un)cover a fair bit of ground. I would like to discuss briefly the question of the Gothic as it has been used to construct a eurocentric notion of Aboriginality, but more importantly, I would like to look at the way the mode has been turned on its head, as it were, by indigenous artists, to produce an oppositional revisionist discourse that undermines European historigraphy. The chief example of this reading will be a series of novels by the writer Mudrooroo, who is interesting in the context of this collection because he locates his ghost and vampire tales at the site of the invasion of Australia by Europeans, and around a battle that was frequently effected through missionary activities.

White Ghost of Empire

Deborah Gare — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:16:48 PDT

As one of Australia’s most readily recognised historians and public commentators, Geoffrey Blainey speaks frequently on important themes. The exhaustive bibliography which concludes this book is testimony to the many important Issues which have received the attention of this controversial historian, as well as the ready access he has to the ear of government and the popular press. His comments on such issues as national identity, symbolism, Indigenous rights, immigration and the republic have provoked heated reaction from a wide range of critics. To many, Geoffrey Blainey is the voice of Australia; to others he represents more the 'Old Dead Tree' of Henry Lawson's and Manning Clark's imaginings. Yet Lawson, fighting impoverishment and alcoholism, died a sorry apologist for empire. Clark, too, struggled all h is life between the 'Old World' and 'Young Tree Green' - as is apparent in his story of Australia and in his three autobiographies. Nearing the end of his career, Clark confessed that he had never relinquished his ties to Europe(1). Significantly - despite their historiographical and philosophical differences - Blainey has shared a similar fate: the inability to relinquish Australia’s ties to empire and the old world. Comprehension of Blainey's Australianness and his sympathies with Australia's experience of empire sheds much light on his interest in such matters as Aboriginal history, multiculturalism, the republic and independence.

Walk Tall, Walk Straight and Look the Whole World in the Eye: The story of Richard Shadforth

Lynette Rodriguez — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 22:40:53 PDT

Whenever anyone in Derby catches sight of a man walking with shoulders back and ramrod straight spine they know it is Richard Shadforth. Richard is a proud man who holds his head up high and wears his Aboriginality like a badge of honour. Never in the lives of those who know Richard could anyone remember a time when he bent his head to either friend or foe. This is Uncle Richard's story.

Italian Australian Studies: a (Post) Colonial Perspective

Gaetano Rando et al. — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:44:37 PDT

In a recent issue of ‘Interventions’ dedicated to a reappraisal of Italian studies, the editors comment on the way postcolonial approaches to the subject of Italian experience have been slow to take hold. They argue that colonialism "is still a significantly under-studied area in the Italian academy when compared to fascism, the Resistance and the workers' movement, on which there is a wealth of scholarship" (De Donna and Srivastava, 2006: 371). If it is true that "It is only very recently that scholars have begun integrating 'the history of Italian colonialism into larger narratives of Italian national experience"' (Ben-Ghiat and Fuller cited in De Donna and Srivastava, 2006: 371), then this present collection is important for expanding the story of Italy's influences in multiple intersecting fields. This volume brings together key essays and testimonials that frame a picture of Italy's rich legacy at "home", in Europe more widely, and of course in the (post)colonial sphere, with a particular emphasis on the Australian experience. What is clear throughout these pages, however, is that past, present and future circulate through and around each other, just as notions of nation - colonial, postcolonial, emigrant and immigrant - jostle for purchase in what is in fact a contested space always under negotiation.

Louis Nowra

Gerry Turcotte — Thu, 21 May 2009 17:40:49 PDT

Louis Nowra is an Australian playwright whose reputation continues to grow. He has become known for his passion for controversy, savage irony, and confrontational drama. Awards he has garnered include an Australian Film Institute (AFI) Award for best screenplay for his 1996 movie adaptation of his 1992 play 'Cosi'; the ALS Gold Medal; the Louis Esson Prize for Drama and the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for his 1993 play 'The Temple'; and the Canada-Australia Literary Award.