Australiana

Meilleurs voeux / Best Wishes!

2011-12-20T16:52:00.000-08:00

Le projet Patrick WHITE pour CERCLES

2011-12-20T16:42:00.001-08:00

CALL FOR PAPERS: PATRICK WHITE’S CENTENARY

The year 2012 marks the centenary of the birth of Australia’s Nobel-prize winning author Patrick White who died just over twenty years ago. Since his death, White’s critical reputation has suffered somewhat, although there are signs now of renewed interest in his work. Cercles, the major French online journal for academic work in the field of Anglophone studies, will dedicate a special issue to Patrick White in 2012 in order to celebrate the centenary of the author.

Submissions for papers to be included in this issue are called for, especially, but not only, from non-Australia based scholars.

Papers can address any major aspect of White’s fiction including, for example, transnational perspectives, regional aspects, metaphysics, myth-making, recognition (including a discussion of the Patrick White award), aesthetics or representations of Indigenous Australians. Papers that address and theorise gender, sexuality and queer readings of White’s work are also welcome.

Proposals of book reviews on Patrick White scholarship are also solicited.

Please submit an abstract of up to 200 words simultaneously to both Editors (details provided below) as soon as possible. Full length essays will be expected by the end of March 2012. The Chicago Manual of Style is the guide for referencing.

Besides publishing several essays on contemporary Australian fiction, Jean-François Vernay is the Co-Editor of a special issue of Antipodes entitled Fear in Australian Literature and Film 23: 1. He is the author of three monographs: Water from the Moon: Illusion and Reality in the Works of Australian Novelist Christopher Koch (Cambria Press, 2007) and Panorama du roman australien des origines à nos jours (Paris: Hermann, 2009) translated as The Great Australian Novel– A Panorama (Brolga, 2010) and a forthcoming essay on fiction, literary theory and criticism that will be published in May 2012 by Editions Pascal. Blog: http://jean-francoisvernay.blogspot.com/ Contact: vernayj@yahoo.com

David Coad is a Lecturer at the University of Valenciennes, in France. After a doctorate on the religious metaphysics of Patrick White, obtained at the University of Paris III – Nouvelle Sorbonne, he published a collection of essays on Patrick White in 1997. Other publications include Gender Trouble Down Under: Australian Masculinities (Valenciennes: PUV, 2002) and The Metrosexual: Gender, Sexuality, and Sport (New York: SUNY, 2008). Contact: coad@neuf.fr

Le projet Patrick White avance et en attendant je vous laisse lire l’article de Anne Le Guellec-Minel publié dans la revue LISA consultable ici:

http://lisa.revues.org/1142

Voss, du roman de Patrick White au livret de David Malouf : simple adaptation ou transformation de l’imaginaire national ?

Voss, from Patrick White’ s novel to David Malouf’s libretto: a faithful adaptation or a betrayal of White’s imagining of the nation ?

Abstract

When a couple of years before Australia’s Bicentenary celebrations, David Malouf accepted the commission from Opera Australia, the Sydney Opera company, to adapt Patrick White’s novel Voss for the operatic stage, he was certainly aware that this meant participating in the Establishment’s efforts to promote a culturally exalted Australian identity on the European model. When the opera was premiered in 1986, the libretto was praised both by the critics and the public for its success in making use of the dramatic potential of the novel and, beyond that, in bringing out the musical possibilities of a style which had often been described as difficult and obscure. This article first undertakes to analyse a few aspects of Malouf’s generic rewriting of the source text, which suggest that insofar as the opera was designed as a monumental celebration to Australian achievement, the libretto does seem to betray, to a certain extent, the novel’s criticism of heroic posturing and complacent patriotism, and to collaborate in the institutional recuperation of what remains a controversial work. However, a closer study of the way in which Malouf writes his own homoerotic poetry into White’s narrative reveals that it subtly contributes to maintaining a truly “post-colonial” ambivalence within the apparent conventionality of the national celebration.

Call for papers: Southerly 2012

2011-12-19T18:05:00.001-08:00

Southerly is calling for papers and expressions of interest for two of its issues for 2012.

The first issue focuses on women's writing after World War Two, particularly Elizabeth Harrower, Jessica Anderson and Shirley Hazzard, where scholarship has been limited, but we will also consider other writers. In the first instance send an abstract to Elizabeth McMahon at e.mcmahon@unsw.edu.au. We would need completed essays by May.

The second issue is titled "Islands and Archipelagoes" and we welcome work on and around this theme. Again, in the first instance please send an abstract to Elizabeth McMahon at e.mcmahon@unsw.edu.au. We would need completed essays by October.

Thanks and regards,
Elizabeth McMahon
Co-editor, Southerly

Call for Papers: The Taboo Conference

2011-12-19T18:03:00.000-08:00

Università di Bologna at Forlì (Italy)
25-27 October 2012

http://taco2012.sitlec.unibo.it

In a world that seems continuously to be pushing the envelope of what is acceptable to the inhabitants of specific linguistic and cultural contexts, this interdisciplinary conference acknowledges the importance of investigating taboos and their reinforcement/breaking in various areas of language, culture and society, and across different cultures. We propose to explore the delicate balance and subtle boundaries between the need for inclusion and respect for different ethnic, religious, sexual, etc. backgrounds – which seems to be at the basis of modern multicultural societies – and a (un)conscious push towards the breaking of existing taboos, for example for shock value, as in the case of humour. In such context, investigation of the linguistic, cultural, social, institutional and personal implications of taboo reinforcement/breaking appears of extreme value. The Conference organizers welcome individual proposals or pre-organized panels from different disciplines pertaining – but by no means limited – to the following thematic areas: sex and sexuality, nudity, death and the afterlife, sickness and disability, scatology/bodily fluids, deformity/otherness, blasphemy, altered states/drug culture, body modifications, fat, prostitution etc.

The working language for The Taboo Conference is English. Each paper presentation should be scheduled for 20 minutes followed by 10 minutes for questions. Abstracts should be submitted through the conference website http://taco2012.sitlec.unibo.it by 15 February 2012. If you are interested in submitting a panel, please contact us by the same deadline at Department of Interdisciplinary Studies in Translation, Languages and Cultures (SITLEC), University of Bologna, C.so Diaz 64, 47100 Forlì, Italy.
Email: dipsitlec.taco2012@unibo.it

Notification of acceptance for both abstracts and panels will be given by 15 March 2012.

Conference: Border Crossings

2011-12-15T18:50:00.000-08:00

Dear Colleagues,

In keeping with our long-standing and successful tradition the Flinders Institute for Research in the Humanities, Flinders University will be hosting a conference at Penneshaw, Kangaroo Island, South Australia. The Conference will be held in the Seafront Hotel from Monday 10 to Wednesday 12 December 2012.

The conference theme is: Border Crossings

The organising committee invites you to submit an abstract for consideration. In the broad field of Humanities, including Literary Studies, Cultural Studies, Language Studies, History, Archaeology, Philosophy, Tourism and the Creative and Performing Arts, proposals should be for papers within the general theme of Border Crossings, including such topics as:
crossing borders of times (e.g. historical novels)
crossing borders of places
crossing borders of languages (e.g. translation)
crossing borders of genres
crossing borders of countries
crossing borders of identities (e.g. migrant narratives)
crossing borders of media (e.g. books into film)

or any other crossing of borders

We look forward to receiving your expressions of interest by 28 February and a 300-word abstract by 30 March 2012.

Given our experience of organising twelve highly successful international/national conferences in the past eleven years, including those held in Kangaroo Island, of which the most recent is Shadow of the Precursor, 7–9 December 2009, we can confidently predict that our conference will attract a select but lively group of participants, including a significant number of postgraduate students from Flinders and elsewhere.

We also plan to referee, select and edit papers for book publication (as is our custom). Previous Kangaroo Island conferences have resulted in the following books:

Alas, for the Pelicans! Flinders, Baudin and Beyond (2002); The Regenerative Spirit (2 vols, 2003 and 2004); London was Full of Rooms (2006); Something Rich and Strange (2009); Journeying and Journalling (2011), and Shadow of the Precursor (2012).

Publishers include Wakefield Press, Lythrum Press, and Cambridge Scholars Press.

As soon as we can we will upload details about the conference, registration form, hotel and other accommodation, Sealink bookings, conference events, side trips etc. at http://www.flinders.edu.au/ehl/firth/firth-conferences/

For further information about the conference, in the meantime, please contact the conference coordinator nena.bierbaum@flinders.edu.aunena.bierbaum@flinders.edu.au>

Kind regards,

Diana Glenn, Graham Tulloch and Nena Bierbaum
Conference Organising Committee

Call for papers: Australia’s Mediterranean Isolario:

2011-12-12T15:41:00.000-08:00

Australia’s Mediterranean Isolario: Writers’ and Artists’ Perceptions of the Mediterranean Islands

Call for Papers for a Special Issue to be submitted for consideration to the Journal of Australian Studies

As an island within the Pacific region Australia writes itself a narrative of having reasonable historical and cultural relationships with other Pacific Islands. Its colonial history with Britain has favoured and endorsed a similar, though perhaps more tenuous, relationship with the Atlantic seaboard. But what about its relationships and links with the Mediterranean islands? Australia’s link with the Mediterranean is older than its settler history and goes back to the notion of Terra Australis, the landmass that mimed Europe. It was this resemblance that led to the pursuit of the inland sea—a ‘mediterranean’— in the middle of the island continent in the nineteenth century. In modern Australia’s imaginary it is al fresco dining that bespeaks a Mediterranean lifestyle. Are there any other connections between Australia and the Mare Nostrum and its islands?

Hardly ever present on the list of must-sees for Australian travellers abroad experiencing their European grand-tour, the islands of the Mediterranean have instead captured the imagination of many Australian writers and artists. From the mid 1950s, when Charmian Clift and George Johnston moved with their family to the Greek island of Kalymnos and later to that of Hydra, a number of them have chosen different Mediterranean islands as home and/or inspiration for their work. Shirley Dean, Shirley Hazzard, Robert Dessaix, Dorothy Porter, Roseanne Dingli, Peter Robb, Venero Armanno and Arnold Zable are probably among the most popular writers whose work has featured an island of the Mare Nostrum as the location for or the subject of their writing (Corsica, Capri, Corfu, Crete, Malta, Sicily and Ithaca respectively). Joined and nurtured by the same sea, though idiosyncratically different from each other, the islands of the Mediterranean fittingly conjure the more recent idea of an ‘island’ as a hybrid space, isolated and connected at the same time, single fragments of a rich and multilayered network. Sites of exclusion, seclusion and freedom, these islands have provided a space where writers and artists from all over the world have come to express their personality and unleash their creativity.

What draws Australian writers and artists to these particular islands? Is it their ancient and mythological dimension, their evoked timelessness, or rather their stark and often simple reality, or is it all these? Is it their geographical dimension and actual isolation or rather their peculiar cross-cultural manifestations and their undermined cosmopolitanism, or none of these? Is it that distinctive sense of freedom that only a circumscribed space, such as a small island, can give? What are the differences and similarities that surface from their Antipodean representations and how do they differ from those of islands in other regions of the world? Is the idea of the ‘island’, with its cultural and geographical imprint a prominent trope in these works? Is the yearning for these smaller islands born from the fact that Australia too is an island? Is the creativity of the artists influenced at all by such hybrid spaces? What lies behind these perceptions? Is it a cultural, historical or geographical phenomenon? What sort of isolario transpires from these specific Australian perceptions? These are just some of the questions and issues this collection aims to focus on at a moment in which the Mediterranean region is featuring prominently on the media. Rather than being merely a taxonomy of representations of the Mediterranean Islands perceived through Australian eyes, this collection aims to uncover the many possible relationships these neglected spaces of cultural production have in Australian Studies and aims to do so from a number of interdisciplinary perspectives.

Expressions of interest and abstracts of 300 words should be submitted to Luisa Pèrcopo at lpercopo@hotmail.com or lpercopo@unica.it by 15 January 2012.

Book Launch: Lentil as Anything: Food, Culture, Community

2011-12-12T15:39:00.000-08:00

For the festive season we have decided to continue our offer of free postage for the Lentil as Anything book right up until Christmas! With profit going directly to Lentil as Anything, this book is the perfect Christmas gift.

Lentil as Anything: Food, Culture, Community is a coffee table/cookbook celebrating food, writing, and cultural diversity—with profiles of key chefs at the Lentil as Anything restaurants, their favourite mouth-watering recipes, interviews with staff members, and writing from established Australian authors Arnold Zable, Alice Pung and Tara June Winch.

Through the lives, struggles, and triumphs of many wonderful people Lentil as Anything: Food, Culture, Community captures the essence of community in a unique cultural and culinary work of exceptional depth.

You can order the book directly through our website www.ilurapress.com or pick it up at any of the Lentil as Anything restaurants for RRP $54.00.

It is also available at the following Melbourne bookstores; other states to follow soon.

• Berkelouw Books (Armadale)
• Books for Cooks (Fitzroy)
• Brunswick St Bookstore (Fitzroy)
• Convent Gallery Bookshop (Abbotsford Convent)
• Coventry Street Bookstore (South Melbourne)
• Dymocks (Camberwell)
• Embiggen Books (Melbourne)
• Hill of Content (Melbourne)
• Paperback Bookshop (Melbourne)
• Readings (Carlton)
• Readings (Hawthorn)
• Readings (St Kilda)
• Stonnington Books (Malvern)

Lentil as Anything: Food, Culture, Community was produced in association with the National Australia Bank and the Australia Council for the Arts.

From the Ilura Press Team, have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

"Do give books ... for Christmas. They’re never fattening, rarely sinful, and permanently personal." -- Lenore Hershey

Vernay gets into TROUBLE once again

2011-12-09T16:10:00.000-08:00

Dearest Readers,

My latest contribution to the double issue Dec/ Jan of Trouble magazine has just been published. Here's the weblink: http://www.introuble.com.au/www2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=353&Itemid=65
The focus on Ned Kelly fiction is a tribute to the State of Victoria where Trouble magazine is based. Wait until you read the forthcoming February Stralian Books section -- it will be a special treat for Valentine's Day fans.

With best wishes, JFV

Publisher's e-letter:

In this issue expect to see big stars as Inga Walton delivers an intense, intelligent review of Made in Hollywood: Photographs from the John Kobal Foundation, now opened at Bendigo Art Gallery (also featured on our front cover). Further wonders may be revealed when Ben Laycock sends Greetings from Natimuk in time to witness the delights of their recent Fringe Festival; while new kid on the Trouble block, Mark S. Holsworth, kicks against the 1% of pricks who manage to keep 99% of us securely in the poorhouse with Small Change for Big Culture.

Greenwish #2 by Danilo Paglialonga also looks at the global Occupy and anti-greed movements, considering how the use of virtual space has been instrumental in organising the occupation of public spaces around the world. And the excellent Jean-François Vernay keeps the outlaw mood going with a comprehensive review of books about Ned Kelly in Stralian Books.

Meanwhile Courtney Symes performs her usual outstanding tricks in Melburnin', looking at the NGV's summer exhibs 'The Mad Square' and British Watercolours 1760-1900, as well as Pipilotti Rist's I Packed the Postcard in my Suitcase at ACCA, and Counihan Gallery's annual Women's Salon, among others. Our own Salon is beautiful, as usual, and there's lot's more besides, including a bonus cartoon courtesy of Matt Bissett-Johnson below. My suggestion – get into Trouble asap.

Call for Papers: Creative Practice as Research

2011-12-08T17:57:00.000-08:00

Call for Papers: Volume 2 Number 1
Creative Practice as Research

The second issue of New Scholar takes up the theme of creative practice, and its relationship to research. In the last few years, creative practitioners in the Australian academy have fought for their work to be included in the Excellence in Research Australia (ERA) measurement, arguing that creative practice contributes invaluably to research culture and to knowledge. Creative writing, visual art and music academics lobbied strongly for recognition in the narrow confines of what constituted ‘research’ in this ranking system, with some success. At a time when the original ERA has been withdrawn and a new system has been introduced, and when degrees in Creative Arts are (paradoxically?) flourishing, creative scholar/practitioners are faced with a particularly charged moment for considerations of the shape of their professional futures.
This issue of New Scholar calls for examinations of creative practice in all its forms, in contexts including and beyond the Australian university sector example. The editors would welcome innovative approaches to submission, for example: photo essays, creative works with an analytical approach or significant exegetical component (including submissions in audio and/or visual formats such animations, sound files and podcasts). Scholarly reviews of creative works (for example: exhibitions of visual arts; written works; film, theatre or audio productions) would also be most welcome.
Submissions might address (but should not be limited to) the following themes:

Publishing cultures
- Creative arts and funding frameworks
- Creative practice and workload arrangements
- Creative practice and research measures in different countries
- Creative practice and policy contexts
- Creative praxis as a form of ‘research’
- Hybrid forms
- Creative arts pedagogies
- Creative practice in health
- The place of creative practice in imagining and inspiring sustainable societies
- Creative practice and green initiatives
- Creative practice and translation
- Adaptation methodologies and their implications
- PhDs in Creative Arts and the function of the Exegesis in the writing process
- Creativity and governmentality
- The politics of creative practice/s
- ‘Creative industries’
- Creative practice and cultural capital
- Creative practice and wellbeing

Submissions should be uploaded to www.newscholar.org.au by Friday 3 February, 2012.
Please see the New Scholar website for updated guidelines for authors.

Exhibition: Contempo Group Show at the Libby Edwards Galleries

2011-12-07T13:53:00.000-08:00

Contempo Group Show

Please join us for Christmas drinks with the Artists 6 - 8pm Thursday 8 December 2011

8 - 22 December 2011 | 1046 High Street, Armadale, Melbourne, Australia | PH 03 9508 8292

Look for the gold star indicating selected artworks throughout the gallery, these have been discounted during this December exhibition (up to 20% off).

Click here to view the Group Show

Literature and Censorship: Australasian Association for Literature Conference

2011-12-03T00:37:00.000-08:00

Literature and Censorship: Australasian Association for Literature Conference
10-12 July 2012
University of New South Wales, Canberra

Keynote speaker: Peter McDonald (Oxford University)

In 2012, the Australasian Association for Literature conference will address the long and traumatic relationship of literature and censorship.

Literature and censorship have been conceived as long-time adversaries, each opposed to the precepts of the other. This conference seeks to understand the degree to which they have been dialectical terms, rather, each producing the other, coeval and mutually constitutive. In 1994, Michael Holquist declared "To be for or against censorship as such is to assume a freedom no-one has. Censorship is. One can only discriminate among its more or less repressive effects." Articulating what was then a new poststructuralist take on censorship, Holquist posited it as not only inescapable but definitive; in fact foundational to speech itself.

After the opening of the USSR's spekstrahn, the enormous collection of literature forbidden under the Soviets, containing more than one million items, this push to redefine censorship so expansively has encountered cogent criticism. German scholars describing the centralised control of East German print publication, for example, have wanted to insist on the substantive difference of pre-publication state censorship from such mundane forms of speech regulation in democracies. Work on South African apartheid censorship and the operations of censorship in colonial countries is also demonstrating its formative role in the institutional structures of literature beyond the metropole. Is literature ever without censorship? Does censorship need the literary? In a globalising era for culture, does censorship represent the final (failed) version of national control?

Offers for papers considering all aspects of literature and censorship are welcomed, but could address:
- Comparative national censorships
- Censorship and colonialism
- Obscenity and empire
- Literary sedition
- Beyond the literary: the censorship of popular and pulp titles
- Censorship histories of the book
- Publishing, library and self-censorship
- Literature, censorship and the law
- Blasphemy, religion and literary censorship
- Obscenity and the literary regulation of sexuality
- The limits of expression and the definition of offence
- Censorship and translation
- Political censorship 'post-ideology'
- Censorship after the book

Please submit titles and abstracts for proposed papers by Friday 24 February 2012 to Shirley Ramsay at s.ramsay@adfa.edu.au.

Conference organiser: Nicole Moore (n.moore@adfa.edu.au)

Professor Peter D. McDonald is a Fellow of St Hugh's College and a member of the English Faculty at the University of Oxford. The Literature Police, his influential study of book censorship in Apartheid South Africa (Oxford University Press, 2009) is accompanied by a database of banned titles and biographies of the South African censors, available at http://www.theliteraturepolice.com/database/. He has published extensively on the history of 'literature' as a category from the nineteenth century to the present day, on publishing history, and on the relationship between literary institutions and the modern state.

Literary tour: 'Such is Life: In Search of Tom Collins'

2011-12-03T00:36:00.000-08:00

'Such is Life: In Search of Tom Collins'
South-West NSW, 11 days from 25 March 2012

Join us on the trail of Tom Collins as we travel through outback NSW looking at the works of Joseph Furphy. We will see the ‘Bend in the Lachlan’, stay at stations like ‘Runnymede’, and explore the Willandra Billabong.

Departing from Canberra, we will follow the Murrumbidgee to Narrandera and Hay before heading north to the Lachlan River, attempting to trace some of the routes Tom Collins would have taken driving his bullock wagon to Runnymede and beyond. We will then spend some time at Willandra Homestead, close to Furphy’s fictitious ‘Runnymede’. The Homestead will be our base for the ‘conference’ portion of the tour.

From Willandra we will return to the Murrumbidgee River at Balranald and visit some local stations before heading north-west to the lake systems of Willandra Creek and the World Heritage listed site of Lake Mungo. We will then move on to Broken Hill via Wentworth and then Menindee, where Burke and Wills rested on their ill-fated expedition. We will also visit Silverton and Mutawintji National Park while in the area. For the full brochure contact Susan Lever: susan.plever@bigpond.com.

Popular Culture Association of America Conference

2011-12-03T00:34:00.000-08:00

Popular Culture Association of America Conference
Boston, 11-14 April, 2012

The Australia and New Zealand Popular Culture Area invites papers for the 2012 conference. We seek papers that focus on popular culture with an Australasian flavour. This encompasses a broad range of topics, not the least being: sports, graphic novels/comics, popular fiction/print cultures, popular science, media/journalism, movies/film/television, food/beverage, design/art, fashion, queer, indigenous, history, celebrity — in fact anything that has an Australasian bent.

The international conference usually has around 3000 attendees so it is an ideal opportunity to network with your overseas colleagues and to pitch your book ideas to the many academic publishers whose editors attend. Also don’t forget to apply for a travel grant, last year several of our people were successful! For more information about the conference go to http://www.pcaaca.org/conference/national.php. For grants go to http://www.pcaaca.org/grant/overview.php.

All papers can be submitted to our journal for publication. Email abstracts (up to 200 words) and panel suggestions (title, presenters and brief description) by 15 December 2011 to Dr Toni Johnson-Woods, President, Popular Culture Association of Australia and New Zealand, at t.johnsonwoods@uq.edu.au.

CREATIVE WRITING: Visions of Martin (Vaughn-) James by Richard-Warren Strong

2011-12-03T00:31:00.000-08:00

Visions of Martin (Vaughn-) James

Visions of Martin Joyce

I read the article in Libération dated 9th July 2009: ‘Martin Vaughan-Joyce s’évade’. MVJ escapes. Martin Joyce ‘graphiste anglais’ dies at the age of 65. Born in 1943 in Bristol. Lived for many years in Brussels. Also stayed for long periods in London, Paris, Toronto, Tokyo. Well known for his ‘visual novels’, The Elephant (1970?) The Cage (1973) published in Toronto. Collaborated with a number of authors for book illustrations. Turned mainly to painting in the mid eighties but with a narrative context. Held exhibitions in France, Germany, Belgium, etc.

In the biographical notes it says very little about the time he had spent in Australia in the fifties and sixties, about ten years. Martin Vaughan-Joyce emigrated to Australia from England as a teenager with his family in the middle or late fifties. They lived in a remote suburb near Hornsby. After graduating from High School, Martin studied Graphic Arts at East Sydney Technical College, Darlinghurst in the same year as Martin Sharp (?) After completing the three-year course in late 1963, he did a Diploma of Education (Dip. Ed.) at Sydney University in 1964. Then he worked in Sydney as an art teacher for several years. Martin Vaughan-Joyce left Australia for Europe (and Canada) towards the end of the sixties. Then he went to Canada around 1970/71 and from there apparently returned to settle in Europe, living mainly in Brussels.

I saw Martin for the last time around Christmas of 1971/72. He was living in Paris with Frannie, his partner or wife from Sydney at the time. They lived near Place Monge in a two-roomed flat. I went to visit them once. I was living in Orleans with a teaching job at the University as ‘lecteur’. I have no idea how I had got Martin’s address or how we had come to know we were both living in Paris. Later that year Martin and Frannie went to back Canada apparently, and then in October I went for a trip to North Africa. So they left Paris and I returned later in January after they had left.

I had not seen Martin Joyce since I left Australia myself in May 1966. He must have left with Frannie about two years later around 1968. And then I lost touch with them both, as one does when changing addresses frequently. So I did not know where he was living or what he had been doing over the past forty years. He had shown me some of his drawings I think in a book, the ones that would become ‘The Cage’ or ‘The Elephant’ with the name Martin Vaughan-Joyce as author. But I knew him as just plain Martin Joyce. He was an art student, he sang folk songs, he played the guitar, and had also learnt to play the banjo. He was a friend of Jon de Z, the Dutchman. At this time 1971/72, Martin and Frannie were hooked on drugs I had that impression hard or soft, I don’t know which, maybe even heroine but I might just have had that impression only. They both looked sick, pale and sick. And Martin was very assertive about himself, very sure of his own talent and that might have irritated me a bit. And if he showed me this book, which he did that he had just published or was going to publish, I did not give it enough credit. But one’s memory plays funny tricks after 35 years or more. I can remember going to this place near rue Monge on the basis of a letter or a post card. Must have arranged this meeting by telephone or by an exchange of post cards or something like that. Maybe someone like Frances Evers had given me the address or else Martin wrote to me in Orleans but how would he have known my address there? Perhaps I was writing to Barbara Nelson at the time and this was how he got my address. Someone had told me that Martin was staying in Paris or someone had told Martin that I was staying in Paris. And I went to see him once, only once though in fact I was now settled for the year in Orleans with a job at the University.

And then we both lost touch completely. Though he was living in Brussels for many years, which is not far away. And if I had known this I could have gone to see him, once or twice at least. And the cultural attachée at the Aussie Embassy around 2001 mentioned some Australian expatriates who were living in Brussels. But Martin was not really an Australian expatriate, since he seems to have lost touch with Australia. I suppose his parents stayed living there in Sydney and his sister. I suppose he went back to see them now and then. Martin and Frannie had no children then in 1971/72. Or perhaps he never went back, had rejected Australia completely from then on. So it does not even appear in his biography or just as a very brief mention on one web site. Though obviously those years are critical, from about 15 to 25, the formative years. We did not have an argument, but we certainly disagreed on something, our relationship to Australia probably. By 1971/72 I wanted to go back to live in Australia. I had already spent five years in Europe.

I had met Martin Vaughan-Joyce in Sydney at some time in the winter of 1963. He was a friend of Jon de Z, the Dutchman who sang folk songs. Jon and Katleen his wife were living in a flat at McMahon’s Point. Jon studied at Sydney University, an Arts degree, evening classes. He also worked in a bank full time as a translater. He did the Arts degree at night, evening courses in three years straight, 1961, 1962, 1963. He was aged twenty-eight, with moustache, strict appearance, tall and lean. In 1962 he was a student in Pyschology II, and so was I. I remember getting off a bus one evening from the University to go to see Sonia at Kings Cross in mid 62. When I got off the bus at Park street Jon was following and approached me to start a conversation. Got off the bus and walked beside me and asked me some question to start talking. He was heading towards the train station. When I told him I was going to see my girlfriend who lived at Kings Cross, he invited us both to come and visit one day. I had already seen him on the suburban train going over the Harbour Bridge in the morning around 8.30 a.m. with his wife Katleen. And sitting in the Pyschology lectures. Then later he invited Sonia and I to his flat at McMahon’s Point.

In Pyschology II lectures I usually sat with a Libertarian girl, Jane Iliffe. Jon de Z came to sit in the row in front of us one evening. He had deliberately arranged this encounter with me, which I considered to be suspect. Jon de Z from La Haye, age 28, was about nine years older than me, a bank employee with moustache, sharp features, thin nose, thick Dutch accent. Why go to this trouble?

I don’t know how Jon had met Martin, when or where, but one of their common centres of interest was folk songs. Same for me. Jon was a trained classical musician. He had studied the trombone at the Conservatorium in La Haye. His wife Katleen was also a classical musician. But he also played jazz guitar, and made arrangements for songs by George Brassens (?) We shared our musical experiences over a cup of coffee or soft drinks on Saturday afternoons or was it Sunday? Jon did everything according to a strict time schedule and Saturday or Sunday afternoons was set aside for invitations to friends to come and play music from about 2 p.m. until midnight. We shared our musical experiences, songs and guitar picks. One day Jon invited Martin Joyce and at the same time he had invited Sonia and I.

To say it more briefly, Jon introduced us to Martin Vaughan-Joyce some time in 1963. Probably around the beginning of the year. At the end of 1963 there were some major domestic upheavals in Sydney. Katleen left Jon and went off to live in Brisbane with her latest lover, Sammy. Jon then rented a house in Glebe from a Hungarian called Mickey, a taxi driver and medical student, who had built a shed in the backyard for himself, and had another Hungarian lodger, Ben, a taxi driver, living permanently in one of the rooms in the main house. The green-painted house was made of weatherboard with a central corridor, two bedrooms on either side, and a kitchen and dining room at the rear. It still stands. Martin Vaughan-Joyce had finished his Art course and started a Dip Ed (Diploma of Education). Now aged twenty, he left his parents house at Waitara, the station after Hornsby, and rented a room in this green house in Glebe. Jon had a front room and a South African called Rocky occupied the other front room on the right. There was also a front verandah. Jon was also doing a Dip Ed and he chose as project to build some 12-string guitars. He set up a workshop in the house near the kitchen in the part that would have been a dining room area.

Early in 1964 I split up with Sonia and found another room in North Sydney, Wyagdon street. Ken and Dawn Burns left their house in Bourke street, East Sydney, and went off to Europe. So Sonia had to vacate the room she had been renting. Through the first half of 63 we had lived together in a small terraced house in Neutral Bay, Neutral street, rented for £6-10 per week. It had been occupied previously by Alain and Sacha, some other friends of Jon and Katleen who were splitting up. So we moved in there around February 1963. Sonia had vacated her room in Victoria street in 1962 around September/October and moved in with me at High street, number 61. It was just a small room, about 12 feet by 8, with a single bed, a small gas stove and a wash basin. On the Harbour Bridge in the early morning on the third trip with her stuff, books, clothes, pots and pans that we had lowered in sheets out of the window into the lane, Earl lane, my motorbike and sidecar came adrift; a big nut came loose and the bike fell sideways. We stopped and Sonia alerted the passings cars while I looked for this big nut, then tied a rope to secure the cycle and sidecar together at the upper link. She was doing a ‘midnight flit’, leaving without paying the rent, 19 shillings per week.

Back to the year 1964 and to Martin Vaughan-Joyce. I was doing the final year of a Science degree at Sydney University. Martin and Jon were doing a Diploma of Education course at Sydney University. They may have met while enrolling for the course. They both got jobs singing at the Folk Attic in Kings Cross in a large 4-roomed flat with no furniture just fluorescent lighting and walls painted black (?). Patrons had to sit on the floor. Folk singers sang for about an hour in one or other of those rooms. Soft drinks were available but no alcohol. Jon and Martin wore bowler hats as a gimmick. They both had motor scooters.

Around the same time in 1963 the Troubadour opened in Edgecliff. Jim Carter (name?) was the boss. Don Henderson did the carpentry. Sonia got a job there as waitress. I got a job there also as occasional dishwasher. We also sang there on one occasion, the Work of the Weavers, Droylesden Wakes, the Four-loomed weaver. “And now the kitchen staff…” said this guy James in his introduction. This was some time in the second half of 1963, we had left the house in Neutral Bay and got separate rooms; I had a 2-roomed attic near Bondi road. Declan Affley sang at the Troubadour. At the Folk Attic a girl called Margaret something (Roadnight?) was a big attraction. But the crowd was not as selective as at the Troubadour. Declan stayed in the kitchen and spoke with us frequently.

In the early months of 1964 I went from time to time to this house in Glebe to see Jon and Martin or to work on the guitars. At Easter I took Martin Joyce to Hill End on the back of my motorcycle. I had assembled a Norton 1934 International OHC 350cc bought in boxes. I bought it in mid 63 while living in Neutral street, then finished assembling it in Sonia’s room in East Sydney, Bourke street, in the latter part of 63. Then I put it through the registration tests. So this bike was now working. I sold my old Ariel 500 single to Don Henderson, he repaired it in his room. It had been stolen, damaged and then recovered by the police. Previously it had been run into while parked and also damaged. So it needed repairs. Don Henderson had rented a house nearby in Woolahra near Bondi road and Paul Marks came to stay there for a while in 1963, with (or without ?) his wife and her three children.

Martin took his guitar and we went to Hill End via Bathurst. We stayed in the hut of an old gold miner met in the local pub. He lived near a creeek and eeked a bare living by panning for gold. We sang a song he knew to the tune of ‘A thousand miles away’. The song was: ‘Take me back to Tambaroora in the rough and restless days, the … and bullock drays... Tambaroora that could lure a thousand diggers in a day… Take me back although the glory of the gold has passed away.’ Martin knew about this place because it was a favourite for the Art students at East Sydney Tec. While we were walking around the hills Martin fell down a hole in the ground about 3 metres deep. But he was not hurt by the fall and climbed out with my help.

We sang all through the afternoon Saturday/Sunday in the local pub and also played pool.. The local cop was in the pub not in uniform. The beer on tap was all froth, the barman had to pour out several glasses and wait for them to go back to liquid, lining them up on the counter, pouring from one glass to the next. We also went to visit an old guy who lived in an old wooden house. The place was a ghost town with less than a hundred permanent residents.

Martin and I also hitchhiked to Brisbane once to see Katleen and Sammy. We went up by the coast road and returned by the inland road, New England highway, stopping on the way down at the place where Tom O’Flynn had found a jade mine in New England (?) We stayed overnight at the house Tom shared with Robbie, a butch girl of about twenty. Tom was already aged about sixty. He was a retired sea captain. He showed us a piece of the jade. Said it would be developed with Japanese capital. This was in mid or late 64 and the Japanese were beginning to invest massively in Australia, nearly twenty years after the end of the war in the Pacific. We went through Surfer’s Paradise in the early hours of the morning having hitched through the previous day and night, leaving from Hornsby sometime in the afternoon. Went first to the house of Martin’s parents, also went to see John Firth-Smith, another friend of Martin’s.

For one reason or another Jon and I fell out at the end of 1964. Mickey, the Hungarian landlord, wanted his house back. Jon started to look for another house in Glebe. He soon found one but there would be no room for me in this house. Barbara was not in favour. At the time I was more or less living with Barbara Nelson and her daughter, Maria. I had rented a room nearby in Glebe but never actually stayed there. Barbara had the front downstairs room vacated earlier by Rocky, the South African. His girlfriend Rose Rankin came to Glebe one night, just around the time that Rocky was leaving to go back to South Africa. I took her back home to Roseville on my motorbike. We then began a relationship that lasted for a few months, but it ended on the night of the Art Students fancy dress Ball in September (?) at Paddington town hall. We all went; Rose was dressed as an angel, I was supposed to be a peasant with leather jerkin and fireman’s boots. At the ball, Rose got drunk and fell asleep. Before that she told me she wanted to go home with Jon. As Jon was carrying her outside into a taxi, a press reporter came up with a camera to take a photo. “Don’t take the photo,” I said. But he did take the photo. I grabbed his camera and threw it into the gutter.

Next day a small newspaper report said: ‘A photographer was threatened and his camera smashed in one the many incidents at the Art Students Ball in Paddington last night.’ There was no photo of Rose.

So Rose left me for Jon after the Art Students ball and soon after that I took up with Barbara Nelson, the other lodger along with Martin Joyce in the house at Glebe. While I was working on the twelve-string guitars she came into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. We talked a bit then I took her to Bondi Beach on my bike for a swim. Barbara was about twenty-five and she had a four year-old daughter, Maria. Paul Ellicott was her father but she didn’t know that yet. So I bought another motorbike to have transport for three people, a Harley Davidson WLA 750 cc with a sidecar. Barbara used to catch a taxi to work in the mornings before that.

At Christmas we went down to Melbourne for a long weekend on this bike and sidecar and stayed with Adrian Rawlins at his house in Jolimont. I had replaced the side car by a large box. Adrian Rawlins had rented a house with several empty rooms with no furniture in them, just piles of books on the floor.

Around the end of 1964 I rented another house in Paddington, Prospect street, Number 24. Martin Joyce had the front downstairs room, which he shared with Frannie, his new girlfriend. He built a mezzanine bed there. Barbara Nelson had the front upstairs room and I had the other smaller room facing the rear of the house. Maria had the upstairs verandah as a bedroom. The rent was £13 per week, which we shared three ways.

Martin had now finished his Dip Ed course and he had a job as an Art teacher somewhere in Sydney. He had bought a motor scooter the previous year. I stayed at this house in Paddington for only about five months until the end of the first term holidays then I went to live in a shed being built beside the carport at the rear of my mother’s house in Waverley. Throughout first term I was working full time as a mail sorter at the GPO in Martin Place. I was doing evening classes at the University, repeating Science III which I had failed the previous year, Maths, Physics. This year I did Maths and Pyschology.

At the 1964 Art Student’s Ball, Gabrielle’s wig fell off. We discovered that she was bald, because of some illness she said. Gabrielle from NZ was Martin’s girlfriend then, another Art student at East Sydney Tec. Later they separated and he took up with Frannie, a small fashion-conscious young woman who worked as clothing designer. Barbara Nelson had a number of queer friends who came around frequently to this house in Paddington. Also the cook Tony Batson came to the house and made a ‘bouillabaisse’ one day for Barbara Nelson. I separated from Barbara after a few months at Paddington because she was having affairs right and left.

Jon de Z had wanted to form a rock and roll band in 1964. He and Martin Joyce would play the electric guitar and I would play the bass. There was no drummer involved yet. Jon bought the electric guitars, so then I owed him the money. Though I soon got rid of the bass guitar; I was not interested by this project much. Finally Jon rented another house in Darlinghurst and Rose, now aged eighteen, left home and came to live with him.

I can also remember talking with Martin one Saturday afternoon in the street at Rushcutter’s Bay, shortly before I left Australia in May 1966. But I can’t remember much about what we were talking about. I was probably telling him that I would be leaving the country soon to go to Europe.

I suppose he told me that he was saving up to do the same thing.

END

Création: "chutes" par Richard-Warren Strong

2011-12-03T00:23:00.000-08:00

CHUTES

par Richard-Warren Strong, 2011

Bloc de correspondance uni …

C’est l’histoire de quelqu’un qui écrit des histoires ou qui voudrait bien en écrire, des histoires. Je pense à ‘Molloy’, les premières pages du livre où Beckett nous décrit l’histoire d’un mec qui est revenu chez sa mère et qui écrit une histoire. La sienne sans doute, d’histoire. Le début, celui qu’il voulait, c’est deux personnes à pied sur une route de campagne qui se croisent et puis qui s’éloignent l’une de l’autre. L’une va en direction de la montagne ou des collines et l’autre va en direction de la mer. Je pense à ‘Molloy’ et donc ce roman est déjà presque fini, nous sommes déjà sorti du discours narratif pour rentrer dans le discours sur le discours narratif. Si ‘je pense’ alors ce n’est déjà plus un roman, à moins que je ne sois un personnage du dit roman, roman écrit à la première personne, une personne qui penserais “moi” ou qui aurait penseé “moi” . “C’était l’histoire d’un mec qui écrivait des histoires.” C’était car ce ne l’est déjà plus. De toute façon “C’est l’histoire d’un mec” est de Coluche, breveté.

Retour à la case départ.

Bloc uni de correspondance acheté chez Casino. C’est l’histoire d’un mec qui voulait écrire une nouvelle histoire. C’est l’histoire d’un mec qui ne savait plus très bien comment écrire des histoires. Panne sèche. Ouvrir le robinet pour voir ce qui se passera. “Write the top off your head.” Technique de Robbe Grillet. Tu décris la chambre. Tu décris la photo sur le mur de la dite chambre. Tu décris les personnes dans la photo accrochée sur le mur de la dite chambre, qui se mettent à bouger comme dans la vraie vie pour faire l’avant et l’après-photo. La photo sur le mur les aurait pris en mouvement à un instant donné, un instant “t” qui ne serait qu’un moment de passage dans la vie des mêmes personnages. Inventer le reste, retourner à la photo, le cliché, parfois, de temps en temps, seulement. Seule réalité “vraie” avec des guillemets.

Bloc de correspondance uni en provenance de chez Casino à Sartrouville, un soir d’hiver ou bien un samedi après-midi. Qui le sait ? Quel importance de toute façon ? C’est seulement le support de ce début de livre. Cela commence par un acte volontaire, vouloir écrire un livre. A quel sujet ? La recette. Thème et trame. Quelqu’un a bien dit que le plus dur au départ, lorsque l’on voulait écrire un roman, c’est de trouver les personnages. Une fois que l’on a trouvé les personnages, le reste va tout seul. Dit-elle. Quelqu’un l’a bien dit. Qui déjà ? A chacun sa recette. Faut bien laisser la porte ouverte à l’imprévu. Je réfléchis à cela dans le RER ce matin en direction d’Evry et en face de moi assis sur les rangées de l’une des banquettes du compartiment de train il y a quatre jeunes gens de la deuxième génération d’immigration africaine qui discutent des élections à venir, deux beurs et deux filles blacks, noires. La discussion est animée mais je n’arrive pas à la suivre vraiment, je ne fais qu’écouter l’énergie vocale du discours. Je retiens des paroles ici et là, des petits bouts de phrases mais il y a quelque chose qui m’empêche de vouloir comprendre plus loin, quelque chose de plus que la surdité naissante et le bruit du train qui couvre tout. Ils sont bien habillés, des étudiants peut-être ? Mais à Evry Courcouronnes ils s’en vont en direction du centre commercial. Ils y bossent sans doute, ce sont des travailleurs. “Ministère de l’identité nationale” cela veut dire quoi au juste ? Et bien nommé à ce poste, je commencerais immédiatement par ficher tout le monde, en faisant le fichier de la carte d’identité : couleur des cheveux, couleur de la peau, type d’empreinte digitale sur l’index de la main droite, couleur des yeux, taille, poids, âge, nom, prénoms… comme dans l’exposition au centre commercial d’Evry. Après avoir fiché ainsi la population entière, j’arriverais à la conclusion suivante : Le Français moyen est ainsi : cheveux --- sans compter Loréal, peau ---, yeux ---, etc. Voilà pour l’identité nationale des français !

Quatre jeunes personnes qui n’avaient rien à faire dans ce livre se sont trouvées là ce matin par hasard, alors que je méditais sur les débuts d’un roman. Roman qui commencerais par : C’est l’histoire d’un mec qui écrit des histoires… Ils sont là sans avoir rien demandé et c’est déjà presque indécent. D’ailleurs je me fais engeuler d’avance pour avoir pris cette photo, cette carte postale indiscrète. Deux personnes vues de dos, deux autres personnes vues de face. Assises les unes en face des autres dans le RER, compartiment à deux étages. L’une des deux filles parle un peu fort, trop fort et vite, un peu trop vite. L’autre se tait ou presque. Elle ne cherche pas, elle, a impressionner les deux garçons, les deux jeunes hommes. Bribes de conversation parfois mais je respecte leur intimité, vous ne saurez rien de plus à propos de ce qu’ils disaient, de ce qu’ils ont dit ce matin. L’un des garçons est en costume. Avec un petit porte-documents. Les filles ont des sacs à main ou en bandoulière. Mais pas de porte-documents, donc ce n’est pas des étudiantes. Ils s’en vont vers le centre commercial d’Evry, à quatre ensemble en sortant du train. Je les vois en imagination travailler au centre commercial chez Carrefour, par exemple, où je regarde le rayon des livres à midi entre le sandwich jambon-fromage et le café. Rayon livres où trône ma romancière préférée avec son nouveau roman…

Bloc uni acheté chez Casino à Sartrouville un soir d’hiver ou un samedi après-midi. Elle est venue nous parler de son nouveau roman à la bibliothèque municipale devant un petit parterre de lecteurs dévoués, invitée par la présidente depuis plus d’un an déjà. Elle ne saurait être un personnage de mon roman à moi ! Cette fois-ci je n’ai pas osé lui parler alors que les gens faisaient la queue pour lui faire dédicacer leur livre. A quoi bon je me dis ? Lui dire que finalement j’avais trouvé un éditeur, que j’avais réussi à les faire publier, mes sacrés bouquins, mais que manifestement cela ne suffisait pas pour faire de vous de moi un écrivain. Elle se livre complètement, elle raconte sa façon d’écrire, son travail et sa vie au travail. Le type à côté de moi au fond de la salle est journaliste pour le canard local. Il me pose des questions indiscrètes. Pourquoi aimez-vous les livres de ma romancière préférée. Est-ce que vous les lisez en anglais ou en français ? Je répond évasivement. Ne pas chercher à raconter comment nos vies se sont croisées il y a très longtemps déjà comme des personnages de Molloy et puis se sont éloignées l’une de l’autre. Elle avait lu mon premier essai sur Beckett le roman ‘Murphy’, mémoire de maîtrise intitulé “La subversion narrative : ‘Murphy’ de Samuel Beckett” . Elle s’en souvenait. Mais de la lecture de mon premier roman ‘Overlanders’ rien du tout. A mon avis elle ne l’a pas lu. Elle a dû le feuilletter rapidement, en lire quelques pages et puis me le rendre tel quel sans aller plus loin. C’était un roman écrit à la troisième personne, elle avait remarqué cela. Elle a fait une remarque au passage : “Merci d’avoir partagé cela avec moi.” Bien sûr je l’avais écris à la première personne, ce bouquin encore dans un état de manuscrit inachevé. Elle dit que son premier livre est une collection de récits je ne l’ai pas encore lu. Je l’ai revue à plusieurs reprises après, dans les années qui ont suivi la publication de son premier livre. Elle a une très belle voix, une voix douce et claire, une voix de cristal. Trouver une histoire, ce n’est pas chose facile déjà.

* * *

Bloc de correspondance uni acheté chez Casino à Sartrouville un samedi après-midi. C’est l’histoire d’un mec qui ne voulait plus écrire d’histoires. Cela commençait par une décision en général vite mise au rebut, classée, de démarrer un nouveau livre sans trop savoir jusqu’où cela le mènerait. De quoi parler déjà ? Thème, trame, histoire. Le thème ? Roman psychologique ? C’est déjà beaucoup affirmer. La table bouge, elle n’est pas stable dans ce café chez X à Y. Comment dans ces conditions déplacer la plume le stylo bille à la bonne vitesse, dans la bonne direction ? Trame ? La France a voté. Le nouveau président est élu. Sa victoire est claire et nette, sans contestation possible. En voilà pour les repères spatio-temporelles. Et pour le reste ? voir bloc de correspondance, page 14. Thème, trame, histoire. Le thème est libre. Mettons la jeunesse ou bien la vieillesse. Le trame, c’est le fil des événements du récit. Seconde par seconde, minute par minute. L’histoire, c’est le jeu des personnages, les trouver, les définir. On a le droit comme cela de déblatérer un moment à condition de tomber finalement zéro in sur le noyau du roman.

9/7/2007

Hier j’ai vu le film “Raisons d’Etat” inspiré par la vie de J. Edgar Hoover. C’est un film fort intéressant sur la guerre froide, les sociétés secrètes, les dessous de la politique.

Bloc de correspondance uni, acheté chez Casino, un soir d’hiver ou d’été ou un samedi après-midi. Par temps pluvieux ou venteux. Peu importe finalement. Puisque ce n’est pas encore cette fois çi que l’on fera une nouvelle histoire. Dans le scénario du film “Raisons d’état” qui traduit le titre “The Good Shepherd”, l’on voit se dérouler la vie à partir de l’âge de huit ans du héros Edward W ou un nom semblable jusqu’au moment en avril 1961 où il se fait piéger. On découvre le projet de l’invasion de Cuba la baie des Cochons en faisant des écoutes à Brazzaville au Congo du fils d’Edward W qui est au lit avec une belle métisse. On lui envoie des clichés à Edward pour le prévenir et il découvre l’origine de ces clichés mais pas sans effort. Qui les a envoyé ? Sa contrepartie chez les Soviétiques sans doute, nom de code Ulysse, qui veut retourner notre héros Edward W. Il résiste néanmoins puisque le mal est fait déjà, l’invasion de Cuba a été bloquée They knew where to find us, il dit “Ils savaient où nous trouver”. C’est donc qu’il y a eu une fuite. Et l’on retracera dans le scénario du film, la vie d’Edward pour retrouver la fuite et qui en est le responsable, son fils.

Bloc de correspondance UNI, acheté chez CASINO un soir d’hiver ou un samedi après-midi. J’ai lu récemment la page sur Internet qui est consacré à Don Henderson, musicien et auteur-compositeur australien. Don était l’auteur de quelques 300 chansons et son recueil ‘A quiet country’ est épuisé. Il fait partie de la bande du “folk revival” des années 50 et 60 en Australie, avec Paul Marks, Chris Kempster, Alec Hood et bien d’autres comme Brian Mooney et Martin Wyndham-Read. Mais à la différence des autres, Don n’est pas un “folk singer”, il ne chante pas dans les cafés et les pubs, il écrit des chansons dans la tradition folklorique, un peu à la manière d’un Bob Dylan mais sans l’avoir imité le moins du monde. On cite des articles sur les protest songs en comparant Don Henderson à Bob Dylan et à Ewan McColl. Mais il s’agit davantage d’un constat que d’une protestation de la part de Don. Parenthèses fermées.

Inutile de rester à l’intérieur. Je sors de la maison pour me promener. Direction Glebe, la maison verte de Mickey le Hongrois. Elle est toujours là, la maison verte en bois. Elle paraissait bien plus grande à l’époque, il y a plus de quarante ans. Mais c’est le monde qui rétrécit maintenant, partout de toutes parts. Je n’ai pas de plan, j’erre comme Molloy et Moran de la ville de Shit au village de Hole ou l’inverse, ou ce sont deux villes ou deux villages. Glebe, c’est un quartier de la ville de Sydney où j’erre pour la n-ième fois, poursuivis par mes vieux démons, la mémoire. Oublier tout voilà ce qu’il faudrait pouvoir faire, ne pas s’encombrer de ce passé visqueux, collant qui me poursuit partout. Nous allons apprendre que Chauncy traine depuis de nombreuses années un fardeau, un immense fardeau, un boulet de forçat. C’est sans doute le poids de sa mauvaise conscience, par exemple ? Qu’a-t-il fait de si grave ou pas fait qu’il aurait dû faire ? De Harris street on se dirige d’abord vers Glebe Point Road en passant par Broadway. Mais il y a aussi un autre chemin plus tordu qui passe dans les collines de Glebe. En allant plus loin on atteint un parc au bord de l’eau. Un pont en face de l’autre côté s’appelle Glebe Point Bridge ? Un peu plus loin l’on voit le pont de Gladesville. Arrivé là je retourne sur mes pas. Ne pas traîner trop longtemps aux mêmes endroits. C’est le problème des fantômes, ils n’arrivent pas à s’en aller, à quitter un lieu précis. On dit qu’il est hanté par les fantômes qui l’habitent, les souvenirs des événements passés.

J’imagine Beckett, un stylo à la main en train d’écrire le roman ‘Molloy’. Ou un crayon ou une plume, je ne le vois pas devant sa machine à écrire. Avait-il un plan ? Le temps nous ensevelit. Les gens meurent et on casse les briques de leurs habitats. La laisse n’est pas bien longue. Dans ‘Molloy’ qui est composé de deux longues nouvelles à-peu-près complètement séparées, Moran part à la recherche de Molloy en compagnie de son fils Jacques, les ordres venant de Youdi sont transmises par le messager Gaber, mais en fait Moran ne trouvera pas Molloy et il perds son fils Jacques en chemin. Il le retrouvera après. Moran retourne ensuite chez lui pour écrire son rapport, le texte que nous lisons où il raconte cette aventure depuis le jour du départ, un dimanche d’août. Gaber arrive peu avant midi, l’heure de la messe et Moran part à pied un peu avant minuit. Sa mission consiste à s’occuper de Molloy, mais nous ne savons pas au juste de quelle façon. De toute façon avant de retrouver Molloy, il reçoit l’ordre d’abandonner sa recherche et de retourner chez lui.

Nous sommes dans la deuxième partie du roman, dans la première partie Molloy raconte une autre aventure. Il part à la recherche de la maison de sa mère, mais il se perd en chemin et à la fin on le retrouve dans un fossé pour le ramener chez sa mère qui est déjà morte. Son récit démarre sur une route de compagne à la sortie de la ville. Il va ensuite le lendemain dans la ville à bicyclette et il se fait arrêter par un agent de police. Ensuite il est relâché et il écrase un chien dans la rue avec son vélo. La propriétaire du chien l’héberge pendant un certain temps puis il s’en va en direction de la plage et ensuite de la forêt. Tout cela prend un temps considérable, plusieurs mois et même plusieurs saisons. La correspondance avec le deuxième récit n’est jamais pleinement établie. Pourquoi Youdi veut-il que l’agent Moran s’occupe de Molloy ? Molloy est un vagabond âgé d’au moins 70 ans. On n’apprend jamais le détail de la mission de Moran, il a oublié. Moran est un personnage assez désagréable depuis le début. Mais l’on sait que Molloy finit son parcours dans la maison de sa mère où il écrit son histoire. Et le seul lien serait la voix d’un enfant : ‘te bile pas, Molloy, on arrive.’ Le fils Jacques aurait-il pris la place du père Jacques pour retrouver Molloy ? Il y a aussi les deux personnes qui s’occupent de Molloy en lui apportant à manger en échange des pages qu’il écrit quotidiennement.

Voilà moi Chauncy, à 32 ans je trouvais tout cela sans intérêt aucun. Publié en 1951, alors que Beckett est né en 1906, il a donc 45 ans environ lorsqu’il publie ce roman. C’est l’âge approximatif du personnage de Moran qui a un fils de 12 ou 13 ans. Il y a assez peu de personnages féminins. La mère de Molloy, décrite seulement, Lousse la femme qui héberge Molloy pendant un certain temps, Ruth ou Edith qui est une autre femme avec laquelle il aurait connu ‘l’amour’, et dans la deuxième partie Marthe la domestique de Moran et les sœurs Elsner des voisins. Molloy n’a pas d’enfants en tout cas il ne se souvient pas d’avoir eu des enfants. Il a un père Dan disparu depuis longtemps et une mère Mag disparu depuis peu. Mais il n’a pas de frères ou sœurs, oncles, tantes, cousins, cousines, etc. Il en va de même pour Moran, qui vit seul avec son fils et sa bonne. Il a une belle maison avec jardin dans un village. Molloy n’a rien excepté quelques ‘possessions’ qu’il évite de dénombrer dans le détail, menus objets tout au plus. Il a une bicyclette au départ qu’il laisse chez Lousse et des béquilles pour l’aider à se déplacer. J’ai donc étudié Murphy, personnage beaucoup plus sympathique et si j’avais vraiment envie pour parler comme Beckett je pourrais vous donner quelques pages de cette monographie. On verra bien. En attendant je rentre à Harris street

Ne pas rappeler ces occasions manquées. On avait chacun ses problèmes - ‘I’ve got enough problems of my own already,’ elle dit en anglais. Je la connais déjà depuis plusieurs années avant d’en arriver là, à lui proposer bêtement que l’on passe aux choses sérieuses mais il est déjà trop tard. Est-ce plus tard que je vais chez elle un jour rue des Rosiers et elle m’héberge pour la nuit ? Elle a un petit appartement deux pièces, en location j’imagine. Ce jour-là je n’avais pas d’endroit où aller dormir, cela arrive des fois. On s’est rencontré à l’école de commerce, rue de Tocqueville, où elle venait parfois remplacer un professeur d’anglais. D’abord pour la session intensive en début d’année scolaire en Octobre. Et ensuite de temps en temps, tous les ans jusqu’à l’année où tous les profs d’anglais sont virés de cette école en commençant par le chef de département. J’ai plusieurs fois vu dans la rue Christine Angot, sans jamais lui parler, qui met en scène ses Jules dans ses romans. J’ai déjà deux récits qui s’entrecroisent. Les choses ne s’arrangent pas.

* * *

Moran a mis un an à faire ses pérégrinations vers la ville de Hole (could this be Hull ?) qui est au nord de la ville (ou village ?) de Shit où il habite avec son fils dans un pavillon avec un jardin autour. Comme Molloy il part à travers les champs, il traverse la campagne et les bois en évitant soigneusement les routes. Beckett l’auteur est un grand observateur. Il décrit le moindre objet dans le détail. 4000 mots sur la bicyclette, il ne le fait pas, mais il en est tout à fait capable. Sur la danse des abeilles, 3 pages. Tous les événements se valent et tous les objets aussi. Mais parfois il y a l’ellipse lorsque par exemple Moran assomme une personne avec son trousseau de clés d’un kilo. Les missions de Moran sont variées, Murphy, Watt et Mercier sont passés par là comme si l’auteur est en train de se débarrasser de ses personnages. Les technologie est presque absente du récit, la voiture par exemple. Il y a bien un tracteur mais avec la bicyclette et le vélomoteur la mécanique s’arrête là. Molloy écrase un chien accidentellement avec sa bicyclette. Il est sur un boulevard dans une ville avec des remparts. Peu de villes en Angleterre ou en Irlande ont des remparts. Les distances se mesure en milles et les noms de lieu sont en langue anglaise. Bally serait-elle la ville de Belfast ? Ou bien une ville imaginaire ?

* * *

Le but de ce mémoire est de démontrer que ‘Murphy’, deuxième des romans de Samuel Beckett après ‘More Pricks than Kicks’, constitue le début d’une tentative de subversion du roman classique. Nous nous bornerons à l’étude de ‘Murphy’, version française de 1947, sans anticiper sur l’œuvre ultérieure de Beckett. Une telle entreprise de subversion peut se concevoir de plusieurs façons. Elle ne sera pas forcément brutale et/ou radicale. Ainsi à la première lecture Murphy peut paraître “inoffensif”, si bien que certains critiques du roman beckettien considère ‘Watt’ et non pas ‘Murphy’ comme marquant le début de l’entreprise de destruction systématique du roman tel qu’il avait été conçu jusqu’alors. (O. Bernal, ‘Langage et fiction dans de roman de Beckett’.)

Pourtant s’il est vrai que ‘Murphy’ obéit en général aux règles et traditions du roman classique, nous trouverons bon nombre d’infractions isolées, de sorte qu’il est possible d’affirmer que ces exceptions à la règle sont volontaires et constituent une mise en valeur négative des “règles”.

Toute histoire étant construite en partie pour reprendre le terme de R. Barthes (Communications 8) de “phrases constatives” ou si l’on préfère de “phrases affirmatives”, il existe dans le récit tout comme dans le discours argumentatif la possibilité d’un jeu argumentatif qui consiste à étayer ou à contredire des affirmations déjà faites. Nous examinerons Murphy dans cette optique aussi (aspect capital dans la pièce En attendant Godot).

Même lorsque “l’histoire ” disparaît, il reste au romancier subversif la tâche de démonter le langage dont elle est faite, que ce soit du point de vue de la sémantique, du sens, ou de la syntaxique, la structure.

Diégèse, argumentation, sémantique, syntaxe, telles sont me semble-t-il les quatre directions où une tentative de subversion est possible. Reste à savoir si Beckett les emploie toutes les quatre dans son deuxième roman, et à quel degré.

Diégèse, introduction

Nous utiliserons comme point de départ la méthode d’analyse fournie par G. Genette dans ‘Figures III’. Il s’agira de voir si Murphy tout en respectant les règles de la construction romanesque de façon générale présente des anomalies ou exceptions volontaires et peu nombreuses, permettant ainsi un “affichage” de chaque règle.

Il ne fait pas de doute que le livre intitulé Murphy “raconte une histoire” qu’il possède une diégèse, qu’il est effectivement un récit. Cette diégèse nous pouvons la résumer. Elle est faite de deux parties qui après une première séparation, ne se rejoignent qu’au moment du dénouement. D’une part une “histoire d’amour” entre Murphy et Célia, d’autre part une “histoire de poursuite” entre Murphy et Neary. La mort de Murphy constitue la fin logique des deux parties, confirmant l’échec de l’histoire d’amour, et mettant un point final à la poursuite : mort, Murphy n’est plus en mesure d’être “poursuivie”.

On peut résumer ainsi l’histoire de Murphy et de Célia : un chômeur Murphy, rencontre une prostituée, Célia, à Londres. Le logement de Murphy étant condamné, ils s’installent ensemble ailleurs. Célia oblique Murphy à chercher un emploi. Au bout de quelques semaines, Murphy trouve une place d’aide soignant interne dans un hôpital psychiatrique. Il meurt, une dizaine de jours plus tard, à la suite d’un accident, un feu provoqué par une mystérieuse fuite de gaz dans sa chambre à l’hôpital. Célia retourne à son travail de prostituée, qu’elle avait quitté pour aller vivre avec Murphy.

Voici le résumé de l’histoire de Neary. Neary, professeur mystique, résidant à Cork, aime Mademoiselle Counihan, qui prétend aimer, et être aimée de Murphy, ancien élève de Neary. Elle rejette les avances amoureuses de Neary, provisoirement, en attendant d’avoir des nouvelles de Murphy, qui est, selon elle, parti à Londres chercher fortune. Neary envoie son “esclave” Cooper à Londres, à la recherche de Murphy. Cooper le retrouve, mais perd sa trace à la suite d’une semaine de noce, Murphy ayant déménagé entre temps. Neary à Dublin rencontre ensuite Wylie, un autre de ses anciens élèves. Wylie conseille à Neary d’aller à Londres. Wylie séduit Mademoiselle Counihan pendant que Neary, à Londres, attend de ses nouvelles, ayant congédié Cooper. Retourné à Dublin, Cooper retrouve Wylie et Mademoiselle Counihan, et tous les trois se rendent ensemble à Londres. Neary apprend que Wylie a trahi sa confiance par les aveux donnés par Mademoiselle Counihan et par Wylie, lui-même. Il fixe ses affections sur Murphy, en tant que “Ami unique “, et charge les deux autres de le retrouver. Au bout de quelques jours, Cooper, qui avait déjà vu Célia sortir du logement ancien de Murphy, la revoit dans Hyde Park. Il la suit jusque chez elle.

Le lendemain Neary, Wylie, et Mademoiselle Counihan, avertis par Cooper, se rendent chez Célia, et s’y installent, en attendant le retour de Murphy. Maintenant Neary convoite Célia, et Murphy est redevenu un obstacle. Un mot arrive de l’hôpital psychiatrique, pour dire que Murphy vient de mourir. Tous les cinq vont à la morgue identifier le corps. Neary paie Cooper, Wylie, et Mademoiselle Counihan pour les services rendus, et règle les frais d’incinération du corps de Murphy.

Le récit consiste en grande partie de scènes, librement commentés par le narrateur, et entrecoupées par de grandes ellipses. Parfois les scènes comportent des analepses complètes, où un personnage raconte ce qui lui est arrivé dans un passé récent. Ces “récits dans le récit “sont du nombre de quatre, et sont présentés indirectement en tant que sommaire “expurgé, accéléré, corrigé et réduit” (pages 19,50, 11, une assez bonne définition du terme de Genette (note introduction différente, page 84, récit indirect, page 131).

L’impression de réalité qui domine malgré l’invraisemblance de certains détails de la diégèse tient à la qualité des scènes de dialogue. La description “psychologique” des personnages, (à l’exception de Murphy et ceci pour une raison que nous verrons plus loin) passe en grande partie par leur propre langage. Parfois d’ailleurs le mimesis “envahis “le diégesis, lorsque par exemple les tics de langage de Mademoiselle Counihan sont rapportés à l’intérieur d’un sommaire (page 53).

L’originalité de la diégèse réside surtout dans le fait que les deux parties sont presque indépendantes, comme s’il s’agissait de deux récits et non plus d’un seul. (Cette séparation est encore plus nette dans ‘Molloy’.) Par rapport à “l’histoire de Murphy” toute “l’histoire de Neary” est un leurre, car Neary n’est finalement pour rien dans la mort de Murphy. Mais pour le lecteur, Neary représente une menace à la vie du héros, préparée soigneusement depuis le début de l’histoire. (Selon une optique freudienne il est assez facile de voir dans Neary une transformation de l’image du père. Notons que Murphy n’a plus sa mère, ni son père.)

De la même manière que pour la diégèse, il n’y a aucun doute sur l’existence même des “personnages”, même s’il est vrai que par rapport aux personnages du récit du 19ième siècle, nous sommes très mal renseigné sur leur passé, surtout celui de Murphy. Nous apprenons le nom et les aspirations du médecin-accoucheur, mais nous n’apprenons rien sur ses parents, ni sur sa première jeunesse. Il est né à Dublin. Il a été étudiant en théologie. Il a visité Paris et séjourné à Hanovre. Il a un oncle en Hollande. Voilà tout. Nous ne savons même pas son prénom. Il est sans doute irlandais, à juger d’après son patronyme.

Si nous écartons ces “lacunes biographiques” l’histoire d’amour de Murphy et de Célia est somme toute vraisemblable. Par contre, “l’histoire de Neary” est fantastique, burlesque. Neary est un professeur mystique, possédant un “gymnase” à Cork. Il est bigame, il a séjourné longtemps en Inde, où il a acquis une faculté surhumaine : arrêter son cœur volontairement. (Ce qui constitue l’un des pouvoirs “ traditionnels” d’un yogi ; il s’agit d’un quasi-arrêt, où il n’y a pas de pouls, mais où l’activité cardiaque peut être détectée par des moyens électromagnétiques modernes et s’accompagne d’une grande activité cérébrale détectée par électroencéphalogramme, selon un témoignage radio diffusée le 13 juin 1975 à Europe 1.)

page 4

Neary est l’esclave de ses impulsions sexuelles, aussi est-il incapable de fixer ses affections sur une seule personne. Il est sans scrupule, capable de faire un crime (page 56). Au début de l’histoire il est motivé par un désir amoureux se situant à l’intérieur d’un “polygone” tout à fait invraisemblable du point de vue statistique, sinon du point de vue logique. Wylie, le malin, est un magicien (le mouchoir de soie, page 201).

Mademoiselle Counihan paraît à peine plus vraisemblable que Neary. Elle oblige Neary à chercher, à traquer Murphy en prétendant qu’elle aime Murphy, ce qui ne l’empêche pas de se laisser séduire par Wylie. Elle fait figure de bourgeoise corrompue par contraste avec Célia, la prostituée au cœur d’or. Son rôle dans l’histoire consiste essentiellement à présenter Murphy comme obstacle à l’entreprise de séduction menée par Neary. Elle est riche, oisive, prétentieuse, elle a raté de justesse son certificat d’études. On se demande ce qu’elle peut bien chercher, sinon à tenir Neary en haleine. Elle pourrait, à la rigueur, dans le “triangle” Murphy-Neary-Mademoiselle Counihan représenter l’image maternelle, si l’on veuille bien voir derrière la “poursuite” une représentation latente du conflit œdipien. (A noter qu’il n’y a aucune “Madame” dans le récit, en dehors du “testament” que Murphy adresse à “Madame Murphy”.)

En bref, à côté d’une histoire simple et plausible, tout au moins dans ses grandes lignes, se trame une autre histoire fantastique, qui pose l’hypothèque d’une menace sur les héros de la première histoire, un peu à la manière d’un délire de paranoïaque.

La méthode analytique proposée par G.Genette consiste à chercher dans l’organisation du récit cinq niveaux de structure, à savoir ordre, durée, fréquence, mode, voix. Ce sont des aspects “universels” du récit écrit. Qu’on me permette de passer directement aux conclusions de cette analyse en ce qui concerne Murphy. Certains détails seront présentés dans les tableaux en fin de chapitre.

1. ordre

Les événements du récit sont indexés selon une chronologie rigoureuse et cohérente, avec une seule et unique “bavure” que nous devons considérer comme volontaire en raison justement de la précision de l’ensemble. (Cette bavure n’existe pas dans la version anglaise de 1938, ce qui prouve qu’elle est volontaire.) Il s’agit de “l’erreur du dimanche”. Célia quitte Brewery Road pour la première fois depuis le départ de Murphy, l’après-midi du samedi 19, alors que Murphy passe à Brewery Road le dimanche 20 prendre sa berceuse. Les deux événements sont censés coïncider puisque Murphy trouve Célia absente. D’autres détails (Murphy passe la journée du dimanche dans sa berceuse, par exemple) indiquent que Murphy a dû sortir de la M.M.M.M. (hôpital psychiatrique) le samedi et non pas le dimanche.

page 5

Par ailleurs tous les éléments de ce que Genette appelle l’anachronie (décalage entre l’ordre dans la diégèse et l’ordre dans la narration) se trouvent présents dans Murphy, en raison d’abord du “front multiple” de narration, ensuite de l’emploi (parcimonieux) d’analepses et de prolepses. Il s’agit d’un phénomène parfaitement “normal”, en accord avec les règles. Pourtant on peut remarquer l’aspect prémonitoire de beaucoup de phrases de dialogue, non attribuable directement au narrateur (“Mets un terme à une fréquentation forcément funeste, dit Monsieur Kelly, pendant qu’il est encore temps.” Page 29) dont Genette ne semble pas avoir tenu compte dans son analyse des prolepses.

Et comment classifier l’exploit de “clairvoyance” de Murphy à la page 15 ? “Pas exactement un ami, dit Murphy, un vieux type qui joue aux échecs. Un vieux monsieur délicieux. Propre, sourd, et muet.” Repris plus loin, page 28 : “A son vieux monsieur délicieux, dit Célia.” Ceci correspond à la description de Monsieur Endon (page 165 : “Il semblait qu’il était lié avec Monsieur Endon, non seulement par la fiche, mais par un amour de la plus pure espèce”) qui joue aux échecs, et qui ne parle jamais. Pour d’autres exemples, page 36, Murphy : “et parce que mon monde est en deuil.”

Genette n’a pas non plus tenu compte de la possibilité pour le narrateur (ou un personnage) de se tromper partiellement ou complètement dans ses anticipations sur l’avenir, l’exemple le plus frappant étant les remarques du narrateur à propos de Ticklepenny, page 85 « “Le moindre des pions entre Murphy et ses astres, il fait son petit coup, engage une action, et est balayé de l’échiquier. Il est concevable que, dans le loto d’un enfant ou dans le solitaire d’un critique littéraire, Austin Ticklepenny, avant de sombrer dans ses sécrétions, trouve encore à s’employer. Mais sur l’échiquier on ne le verra plus. “Or, si l’échiquier signifie le récit, l’affirmation contenue dans ce pseudo-prolepse est fausse, car c’est Ticklepenny qui trouve un emploi pour Murphy, et qui bricolera l’appareil de chauffage responsable de sa mort. Voir page 106 pour une contre-affirmation “si lourde de conséquences “. Autre exemple, partiellement faux, page 98 : “Faisons ici nos adieux à Mademoiselle Dew, car nous ne la reverrons peut-être plus”. … page 246 “De l’autre côté de L’Eau Longue Mademoiselle Dew et Nelly, qui n’était plus amoureuse non plus, se tournaient vers la maison…”

Nous trouvons plusieurs exemples d’amorce (l’appareil de chauffage, dont le robinet se ferme tout seul, page 156, 157 “ce qui dépassait sa compréhension, c’était comment le robinet qu’il avait réellement ouvert, avait pu se refermer” (Ticklepenny), et qui s’ouvre tout seul ; la tâche de vin sur la fesse droite de Murphy (page 33) qui permet à Célia de l’identifier (page 135). L’individu “patibulaire” page 31 est en fait Cooper, page 112 (paralepse).

Page 6

Un autre problème que pose ‘Murphy’ c’est celui de savoir où situer le début du récit premier. Si nous choisissons la journée qui correspond à la première page du récit (jeudi, le 12 septembre, 1935) toute une partie de l’histoire de Neary sera antérieure à cette date, (qui correspond à la journée où Cooper retrouve l’adresse de Murphy pour la première fois) bien que racontée par analepses (récit de Cooper, récit de Neary). Une seule scène racontée directement par le narrateur sera antérieur, “la scène des adieux” entre Murphy et Neary. C’est là le “point de divergence” des deux récits parallèles, le “point de convergence” étant la scène du rencontre entre Neary et Célia. Il y a donc lieu de la considérer comme véritable point de départ du récit premier. D’autant plus que relativement peu des analepses ont une portée plus longue. (Neary, page 11, “Cette rare faculté, acquise aux Indes, après de longues années d’application…” ; Célia, page 18 “Elle avait quitté l’Irlande à l’âge de quatre ans” ; page 19 “Quand périrent ses parents… Célia, enfant unique, pris le trottoir” ; Cooper, page 183 ; Murphy, page 70, page 14, page 36 ; Célia, page 208.

Du côté des prolepses nous en trouvons un bien extradiégétique, page 219 : “Cette distribution sans précédent de visites eu sur Bom un effet permanent et continua, jusqu’au jour de sa mort inclusivement, à déjouer tous ses efforts pour y comprendre quelque chose… Et la M.M.M.M. garde encore aujourd’hui le souvenir de Murphy, souvenir fait de pitié, de moquerie, de mépris et d’un léger effroi… Cela ne le console pas. Il n’est plus consolable.” Un autre l’est “de justesse”, page 175, à propos du polygraphe hindou : “Car déjà il se plaignait des sensations qui, quelque semaines plus tard, jusqu’au moment où il tombait sur l’Ecole de Norwich, devait l’amener au four à gaz.”

D’autres événements du récit, qui ne “débordent” pas l’amplitude chronologique du premier récit, sont extradiégétique par leur contenu. Page 70 : “Parmi les membres de l’Académie Blake, le bruit courrait que Bildad, Sçuhite, tel que l’avait conçu le maître, avait pris corps de chair, et parcourait Londres…” ; Page 31 : “L’autorité du Port de Londres restait calme. On s’attendait à des marées exceptionnelles.” Ceci n’est pas étonnant en soi, mais témoigne de l’effort que fait le narrateur pour inclure toutes les formes de construction narrative. Ici, il s’agit d’un “survol” qui peut inclure au gré du narrateur un “zoom” (par exemple, page 19, les détails sur la mort des parents de Célia). La perspective ici est celle du récit panoramique, avec narrateur omniscient.

It goes on like this for another 100 pages.

After two pages of this monograph she falls asleep. So there we are…

11/2/10

Je lis ‘More Pricks’ et on aurait bien du mal à trouver un roman plus prétentieux (au départ). C’est du Joyce remâché…

11/2/10

Notes. Je lis ‘More Pricks’ et on aurait bien du mal à trouver un roman aussi chiant et plus prétentieux au début. C’est du Joyce remâché, à la sauce Beckett. Le portrait de l’antihéros Belacqua, qui est tiré de Dante, paraît-il, mais je ne vais quand même pas m’emmerder à lire ‘la Divine Comédie’ juste pour le savoir. Vu à travers dix scènes. Belacqua est un personnage assez fade et antipathique. Le narrateur prend ses distances avec lui, mais on voit bien SB derrière tout cela, en train de décrire des personnages de son Dublin en caricature, lui-même compris. Il courtise vaguement quelques belles et moins belles, qui sont jeunes ou moins jeunes : Winnie, Lucie, Thelma, la Smeraldina, l’Alba. Sa première Winnie, il la plaque devant l’hôpital psychiatrique, vole un vélo et repart avec le vélo. Lucie, la seconde, il l’épouse, mais elle a un accident de cheval peu avant le mariage, et elle décède deux ans plus tard. De toute façon, il lui propose de se prendre un amant, avant même le mariage. Lucy morte, il fait la cour à Thelma, qui a des parent aisés. S’étant débarrassé de Thelma, mais comment (?) il épouse la Smeraldina, qui est une allemande bien en chair. Il meurt à l’hôpital sous l’effet de l’anesthésie, et la Smeraldina s’empresse de l’oublier. Voilà Belacqua en dix tableaux de la jeunesse à la mort. Il était un enfant prodige, il parle l’italien, l’allemand, et le français.

Dans Dante et le lobster (chapitre 1), il a une vieille tante. Dans ‘Draff’ (chapitre 10) il est enterré. Certains des personnages reviennent dans les différents tableaux : par exemple, les trois épouses : Lucy, Thelma, et la Smeraldina. Belacqua a une maison avec un jardinier dans Draff, numéro 10 et une bonne. A la mort de Belacqua, le jardinier viole la bonne et mets le feu à la maison. Dans ‘Dante et le lobster’ Belacqua est étudiant à Dublin. Il prend des leçons d’italien, et il évite soigneusement la conversation avec d’autres étudiants. Il ne travaille pour ainsi dire jamais, et il fait le beau auprès des dames d’un certain âge. Pour le reste on ne sait pas grand chose de Belacqua. Son physique est décrit par la Smeraldina, dans son billet doux.

Personnages, dans l’ordre ou le désordre : Belacqua, Blissful Beatrice, Dante, McCabe the murderer, Cain, The grocer, Adriana Ottolenghi the Italian teacher, Mademoiselle Glain the French teacher, Winnie Coates, Doctor Sholto, Tom, A hatless woman, The narrator, Mistinguette, Tommy Moore, Chas, The Frica, The Alba, The poet, The arithmomaniac, The man of law, The Parambimbi, The communist painter and decorator The glorious Komsomelet, the P and D, The curate, Grock, The Venerilla, The Polar Bear, the PB, Dan, The SJ, jesuit, The shetland shawly, Caliken Frica also the Frica, Caliken, Ruby, Mrs Tough, mother of Ruby, The student, The poet, A gaggle of nondescripts, The public botanist, The Galway Gael, Chas and the Shetland shawly, The Beldam, The saprophile, The rising strumpet, The space writer, The professor of Ovoidology and Comparative Bullskrit, The sister of the parodist, My sometime friend Belacqua, Nino Belacqua, Two banned novelists, A bibliomaniac and his mistress, A paleographer, A violinist d’amore, A merchant prince, Two grave Jews, Three more poets with Lauras, A disaffected cicisbeo, A chorus of playwrights, The envoy of the fourth estate, A phalanx of Stürmers, Jeremy Higgins, The Count, The botanist, Pansy, Lilly Neary, Tall Tib, Slender Sib, Alma Beatrix, Alba ---, the Alba, The Smeraldina, Larry, A civic guard, Lucy, Maestro Gormely, Larry O’Murcahaodha, …

Anne Judell wins 2011 Dobell Prize for Drawing

2011-12-01T16:38:00.000-08:00

Anne Judell (born Melb. 1942) Breath (triptych) 52 × 37, each image pastel, graphite

It was announced today at the Art Gallery of New South Wales that Anne Judell is the winner of the 2011 Dobell Prize for Drawing for her work Breath, a triptych in pastel on fine paper.

Anne Judell was awarded $25,000 for winning Australia’s most important prize for drawing. A record number of 734 entries were entered this year, of which 49 are included in the exhibition, on display from today until 5 February 2012.

A frequent inclusion in the exhibition of finalists of past Dobell Prize exhibitions, Judell’s work is widely admired amongst artists, critics and collectors of contemporary Australian art.

Her drawings and pastels are often described as abstract because she deals with the ineffable:

Art, for me, is the mystery itself, as well as being the means to explore the mystery.
– Anne Judell

The Prize was judged this year by the distinguished artist Guy Warren. Of the winning entry he writes:

Although there are many works in this year’s Dobell which call urgently for serious consideration, the chosen work demands attention by calling softly. In a world of clashes and chaos this work speaks of something different. With dense layers and subtle surfaces it talks of the mystery of growth, of essences and fragility, of quiet contemplation. It is like a thought once understood and lost, which one tries to grasp again.

Born in Melbourne in 1942, Anne Judell studied at RMIT, has lived and travelled in Europe and the USA and moved to Sydney to live in 1977. Since 1992 she has lived and worked in the southern highlands of New South Wales. The Campbelltown City Art Gallery staged a survey exhibition of her work in 2002.

The Dobell Prize for Drawing, initiated by the Trustees of the Sir William Dobell Art Foundation is an acquisitive award, first awarded in 1993.

On view
2 Dec 2011 – 5 Feb 2012
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Art Gallery Road, The Domain, Sydney

Admission
Free

Entretien accordé à SBS, publié le 29/11/2011

2011-11-29T05:30:00.000-08:00

Il y a quelques semaines, j'ai eu le plaisir d'accorder à SBS un entretien sur ma nouvelle fable. J'avais bien trouvé un éditeur, mais j'ai dû décliner le contrat léonin qui n'accordait aucun partage des droits dérivés...retour à la case départ à la recherche d'un bon éditeur :
Un grand merci à Christophe !

http://www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/french/highlight/page/id/194309/t/Jean-Francois-Vernay/

CALL FOR PAPERS: Special issue of Asiatic

2011-11-29T05:23:00.000-08:00

Special issue of Asiatic, June 2012

Expatriation, Immigration and Return in Recent South Asian Fiction

Guest Editor: Professor Fakrul Alam, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh

In the first phase of South Asian fiction written in English, its writers were rooted in India and wrote entirely about the subcontinent and its people based on their vision of the quotidian experience of Indians. In their very different ways, Mulk Raj Anand, R. K. Narayan and Raja Rao authored novels about people and places in colonial India to represent distinctive Indian ways of life. It was perhaps Kamala Markandaya’s The Nowhere Man (1972) that began a phase of the South Asian novel in English where characters from the subcontinent are set in overseas locales to depict the complexities of acculturation, but it was only in the 1980s that a generation of writers emerged who were mostly bent on telling diasporic stories. Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses (1988) no doubt attracted disproportionate attention due to its controversial treatment of Asian immigrants in England, but many other novelists of the subcontinent preoccupied themselves with tales set in the West that dealt with what Bharati Mukherjee had characterized in one of her nonfictional pieces as either “the aloofness of expatriation” or “the exuberance of immigration”. Any numbers of writers from the subcontinent were now attracted to fictionalizing diaspora. For example, the peripatetic Amitav Ghosh in the The Circle of Reason (1986) told stories of the outward flow of dispossessed people to the Middle East or beyond while the Pakistani born Bapsi Sidhwa, now settled in the United States, combined her experience of continents in An American Brat (1994), or Monica Ali, a writer of Bangladeshi origin, juxtaposed immigrant lives with deshi ones in Brick Lane (2003). In other words, there was great variety in the fiction of writers who had chosen to narrate stories of South Asian diasporas in their works.

A clutch of new novels that have been published in recent years, however, signal the arrival of a new phase of South Asian fiction in English where the novelists are fascinated by either the mythos of return or legendary tales of outward flows. Thus, Priya Basil’s The Obscure Logic of the Heart, Tishani Doshi’s The Pleasure Seekers, Shilpi Somaya Goda’s Secret Daughter and Roma Tearne’s The Swimmer, all published in 2010, have a few things in common: they are novels by writers of South Asian origin who have settled overseas or moved to the West in their childhood or are descendants of Indian families who have become immigrants for some time now; they are all novels written from a desire to overcome feelings of aloofness and loss incurred by diasporas and by a longing for reconciliation with what was left behind; they all straddle cultures and attempt to unite families and people across space, time and political and racial borders. In this they differ from a novel of disgruntled return, Mohsin Hamid’s 9/11 inspired The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Finally, two novels published in 2010, Amitav Ghosh’s The Sea of Poppies (2008) and Tabish Khair’s The Thing about Thugs (2010) indicate that South Asian novelists are now also drawn to tell tales of the outward flow of their people that have been occluded for long or that have acquired legendary status at this time.

For this special issue of the Asiatic, we seek essays of around 5,000 words on the novels that have been published in recent decades on the themes of expatriation, immigration and return in South Asian Fiction. Papers can be on these and other related themes:

Fictions/Novelists of the South Asian Diaspora

South Asian Fictions of Transnational Migration

Aloofness and Expatriation in South Asian Novels

Immigrant Tales

The Mythos of Return in South Asian Fiction

Historical Fiction of the Outward Flow of South Asians

The themes listed above is meant to be suggestive and is no ways to be seen as exhaustive!

The deadline for submission is April 30, 2012. Please send email articles (using British spelling and the MLA Style) to the guest editor of the issue, Professor Fakrul Alam at falam57@gmail.com.

Inquiries could also be forwarded to the journal’s editor, Professor Mohammad A. Quayum at mquayum@gmail.com.

We also invite author interviews, review articles and book reviews on the subject for this issue.

Fakrul Alam is Professor of English at the University of Dhaka. He has been a Fulbright Scholar and a Visiting Associate Professor at Clemson University, USA, and has also been Visiting Professor at India’s Jadavpur University and Visva-Bharati. He was a member of the jury of the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for 2003 (Eurasia region) and is currently an adjudicator for the DSC South Asian Prize for Literature, 2011. He is also the author of Imperial Entanglements and Literature in English (Dhaka: writer’s ink, 2007); South Asian Writers in English (Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2006); Jibananada Das: Selected Poems (Dhaka: UPL, 199); Bharati Mukherjee (Boston: Twayne’s Contemporary United States Authors, 1996) and Daniel Defoe: Colonial Propagandist (Dhaka: University of Dhaka Publications, 1989). He has been editor of Dhaka University Studies, Part A (Humanities) and the Asiatic Society Journal. His most recent work, which he has co-authored with Radha Chakravarty, is The Essential Tagore (Boston, Mass.: Harvard UP, April 2011 and Kolkata, Visva-Bharati, August, 2011). His translation of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s Unfinished Memoirs will be published in January 2011 by University Press Ltd. in Bangladesh and Penguin Books elsewhere.

Call for Papers: special issue of the Journal of Australian Studies

2011-11-25T15:38:00.000-08:00

'Australia’s Mediterranean Isolario: Writers’ and Artists’ Perceptions of the Mediterranean Islands'

As an island within the Pacific region Australia writes itself a narrative of having reasonable historical and cultural relationships with other Pacific Islands. Its colonial history with Britain has favoured and endorsed a similar, though perhaps more tenuous, relationship with the Atlantic seaboard. But what about its relationships and links with the Mediterranean islands? Australia’s link with the Mediterranean is older than its settler history and goes back to the notion of Terra Australis, the landmass that mimed Europe. It was this resemblance that led to the pursuit of the inland sea — a ‘mediterranean’ — in the middle of the island continent in the nineteenth century. In modern Australia’s imaginary it is al fresco dining that bespeaks a Mediterranean lifestyle. Are there any other connections between Australia and the Mare Nostrum and its islands?

Hardly ever present on the list of must-sees for Australian travellers abroad experiencing their European grand-tour, the islands of the Mediterranean have instead captured the imagination of many Australian writers and artists. From the mid 1950s, when Charmian Clift and George Johnston moved with their family to the Greek island of Kalymnos and later to that of Hydra, a number of them have chosen different Mediterranean islands as home and/or inspiration for their work. Shirley Dean, Shirley Hazzard, Robert Dessaix, Dorothy Porter, Roseanne Dingli, Peter Robb, Venero Armanno and Arnold Zable are probably among the most popular writers whose work has featured an island of the Mare Nostrum as the location for or the subject of their writing (Corsica, Capri, Corfu, Crete, Malta, Sicily and Ithaca respectively). Joined and nurtured by the same sea, though idiosyncratically different from each other, the islands of the Mediterranean fittingly conjure the more recent idea of an ‘island’ as a hybrid space, isolated and connected at the same time, single fragments of a rich and multilayered network. Sites of exclusion, seclusion and freedom, these islands have provided a space where writers and artists from all over the world have come to express their personality and unleash their creativity.

What draws Australian writers and artists to these particular islands? Is it their ancient and mythological dimension, their evoked timelessness, or rather their stark and often simple reality, or is it all these? Is it their geographical dimension and actual isolation or rather their peculiar cross-cultural manifestations and their undermined cosmopolitanism, or none of these? Is it that distinctive sense of freedom that only a circumscribed space, such as a small island, can give? What are the differences and similarities that surface from their Antipodean representations and how do they differ from those of islands in other regions of the world? Is the idea of the ‘island’, with its cultural and geographical imprint a prominent trope in these works? Is the yearning for these smaller islands born from the fact that Australia too is an island? Is the creativity of the artists influenced at all by such hybrid spaces? What lies behind these perceptions? Is it a cultural, historical or geographical phenomenon? What sort of isolario transpires from these specific Australian perceptions? These are just some of the questions and issues this collection aims to focus on at a moment in which the Mediterranean region is featuring prominently on the media. Rather than being merely a taxonomy of representations of the Mediterranean Islands perceived through Australian eyes, this collection aims to uncover the many possible relationships these neglected spaces of cultural production have in Australian Studies and aims to do so from a number of interdisciplinary perspectives.

Expressions of interest and abstracts of 300 words should be submitted to Luisa Pèrcopo at lpercopo@hotmail.com or lpercopo@unica.it by 15 January 2012.

Reminder: launch of the memoirs of Marjorie Quinn

2011-11-25T15:33:00.000-08:00

The memoirs of Marjorie Quinn are to be launched by Professor Robert Dixon at the State Library of NSW, Mitchell Wing, in the Dixson Room on 10 December 2011, from 2 to 5 pm. For more information about the book, please go to http://www.marjoriequinnmemoirs.com.au. This is a catered event and RSVPs are requested by 2 December 2011.

Please RSVP to kathberr@bigpond.net.au.

Release: Latest issue of Australian Humanities Review

2011-11-25T15:32:00.000-08:00

We are pleased to announce publication of Issue #51 of AHR (available at http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-November-2011/home.html). Our November 2011 issue begins with essays by Maria Nugent and Roger Hillman. Guest edited by Lisa Milner is a special section, ‘On the Table: Food in Our Culture’, which includes essays by Colin Bannerman, Barbara Santich, Adrian Peace, Elspeth Probyn, Ferne Edwards, Jemal Nath and Desiree Prideaux. It also includes book reviews by Kelly Donati, Bethaney Turner, Mandy Hughes, Lauren Williams, John Germov and Donna Lee Brien. Our Ecological Humanities section continues the special ‘food’ theme with three book excerpts and a review focused on consumption and the human/animal divide.

Happy reading,
Monique Rooney & Russell Smith

Exhibition: A Love Magic Coo-ee Christmas

2011-11-24T15:05:00.001-08:00

A Love Magic Coo-ee Christmas
Give a Gift - Get a Gift

each work is - natural earth pigments on canvas board, 23 x 30.5 cm

Bula'Bula Arts
A selection of the works from Bula'Bula Arts in Ramingining, Arnhem Land, N.T

each work is - natural earth pigments on canvas board, 23 x 30.5 cm

Weave Art Centre
The Weave Arts Centre is a not-for-profit organisation established as a cultural focal point within the Redfern and Waterloo area. Its’ mission is to promote public awareness, understanding and appreciation of outsider art and Indigenous Art in the wider community.

each work is - synthetic polymer paint on canvas board, 23 x 30.5 cm

Warlukurlangu Artists

A selection of the works from Warlukurlangu Artists in Yuendumu, N.T

Opening Saturday 3rd December

at 3pm

6 communities – 60 Artists - 200 Artworks

All works under $300

Last year's 9x12" Coo-ee Christmas was a spectacular success with over 100 people on the day jostling for the works they wanted.

This year is bigger and better with twice the amount of artworks!

Be quick to avoid disappointment
RSVP: info@cooeeart.com.au or (02) 9300 9233

The images and details of all the artworks are now available online.

Small-scale affordable works from remote communities.

Participating art centres this year include Ngaruwanajirri Artists in the Tiwi islands, Bula’bula Arts in Ramingining, Warlukurlangu in Yuendumu, Waringarri Artists in Kununurra and Weave Art Centre – Redfern Sydney.

Click here to download the exhibition price list

Due to the high interest no works will be sold before the opening at 3pm on the 3rd of December. If you are unable to attend, view the works online before hand and call or email before 3pm on the day of the opening to reserve the work(s) of your choice. We can not promise that you will get your desired artwork so it is advised to make a 'wish list' of works in preference order so we can endeavour to get you the work/s you admire.

each work is - synthetic polymer paint on canvas board, 23 x 30.5 cm

Warnayaka Art Centre

A selection of the works from Warnayaka Art Centre in Lajamanu, N.T -

each work is - natural earth pigments on canvas board, 23 x 30.5 cm

Ngaruwanajirri Artists
A selection of works from Ngaruwanajirri Artists on Bathurst Island, Tiwi, N.T

Love Magic

Passion knocks lovers sideways. Love unites them forever…
Anonymous French saying

All You Need is Love
Beatles song, 1960s

Love is never having to say you’re sorry…
Love Story, 1970, dir. Arthur Hiller

Few people realize that love is a universal theme in Aboriginal culture just as it is in Western culture. There are however many interesting contrasts. For Anglo-Europeans, the heart is considered to be the seat of the emotions, of feelings, intuition, and love. For many Aboriginal peoples, the primary seat of the emotions is not the heart, but in one’s miyalu, or stomach!

Falling in love Warlpiri- or Kukatja-style is described very differently from describe the experience.

We talk about happiness, sadness, rage, anger, desire, concern, anxiety, depression, with expressions like ‘broken-hearted’, ‘heart-breaking’, ‘heart-rending’, ‘heartache’, ‘open-hearted’, or ‘heart-throb’ used to describe a sexually attractive person, while Warlpiri and Kukatja people use the expression ‘miyalu-kari’ (other-stomached) to describe a person in a state of being low in spirits, depressed, or down-at-heart.

For them, the throat (‘waninja’) is the primary location of love, amorous feelings, sexual yearning and attraction. Falling in love is described as ‘waninja-nyinami’ (throat-sitting). When Warlpiri and Kukatja people fall in love, it gets them in the throat, not in the heart! For this reason necklaces and other body adornments worn about the neck, close to one’s throat, hold special significance and are often used in ceremonies pertaining to love. Often these are woven out of hairstring and used in yilpinji (Love Magic) ceremonies.

Aboriginal people have powerful traditions of love magic rituals and ceremonies, involving the singing of secret love songs as well as other forms of artistic expression. Sometimes this involves the painting of special designs onto their bodies or the production of 'love objects' to enact these ceremonies. Called 'Yilpinji' in the Warlpiri language, these ceremonies are enacted separately by men and women as a means of attracting the object of their sometimes adulterous or otherwise forbidden desire.

All of the works in this exhibition in some way relate to the theme of love, or love magic. But most of all they are about compassion, and generosity, two emotions that seem perfect for a special Christmas exhibition.

Adrian, Anne and Mirri are delighted invite you to the opening of our special ‘Love Magic ‘Christmas. Come and join us for a chirstmas drink.

An ideal Christmas present for all of our, and your, best friends and supporters.
-Adrian Newstead

Conference: Researching the Other, Transfers of Self. Ego-Histoire, Europe and Indigenous Australia

2011-11-24T14:55:00.000-08:00

Researching the Other, Transfers of Self.

Ego-Histoire, Europe and Indigenous Australia

8-9 December 2011, University Paris XIII

December 8th, 2011, Institut Galilée, amphi D

9.30: Welcome

10-10.30: Karen Hughes, Monash University, Australia

Crossing Lake Alexandrina: Family Silences and National Lies at Confluence of Other and Self

Break

11-11.30: Vanessa Castejon, Université Paris 13, France

Am I my studied Other? Aboriginality, the Spanish Civil War and the French Ghettos

11.30-12: Anna Cole, Goldsmiths College, University of London

Connecting Personal Histories and Cultural Myths

12-12.30: Oliver Haag, Austrian Center for Transcultural Studies, Austria

Race – an Australian Obsession and a German Oblivion

Lunch

14-14.30: Roser Bosch Darne, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain

When Remoteness Becomes Familiar or When Indigenous Studies Meet Spanish Civil War Studies and Catalan Imaginary

14.30-15: Jessica de Largy Healy, CNRS/EHESS College de France, Australian National University, Australia

“A special mention must also be made of…”: Belongingness and Participation in the Field. An Anthropological Reflection on Acknowledgement Practices in Scholarly Works.

Break

16–16.30: Roslyn Poignant, author

Layers of being: Aspects of Researching and Writing Professional Savages

16.30 –17: Geoffrey Gray, AIATSIS, Canberra, Australia

Where Do You Really Come From?

17-17.30: Franca Tamisari, University of Venice, Italy

Start By Your Own Story: Reflections on Teaching and Learning Anthropology and Indigenous Studies in Europe and Australia

19.00: Conference dinner at “Perraudin” http://www.restaurant-perraudin.com/

December 9th, 2011, Institut Galilée, amphi Euler

9-9.30: Christine Winter, Australian National University, University of Queensland, Australia

Living Legacies of Germany in the Pacific

9.30-10: Gabriella Espak, University of Debrecen, Hungary

The Roads Taken: Reflections on Possible Positions for a Teacher of Indigenous Studies

10-10.30: Cynthia Lytle, University of Barcelona, Spain

“Coloured” Like Me: Multiraciality and Transgressing Borders Through Literature

Break

11-11.30: 11.30-12: Fiona Magowan, Queen’s University Belfast, UK

Unsettling Art. Colouring Emotions and the Politics of Identity in Aboriginal Australia

12-12.30: Helen Idle, King's College, UK

Art Works From Home, Out of Place

Lunch

14-14.30: Ludivine Royer, Université de la Réunion, La Réunion

Should European Scholars Step Out of Australian Indigenous Studies? Some Thoughts on 'Shared Benefits’

14.30-15: Jan Idle, University of technology, Sydney

Mrs Dance, Yagan, Painting, Whiteness and Storytelling

15-16: Final comments and discussion

Submissions for Prosopisia

2011-11-22T14:23:00.000-08:00

Message for all creative writers!

Please consider submitting previously unpublished works of poetry and short fiction for the next issue of Prosopisia, to be published in Jan. 2012.

Submissions should be emailed to Anuraag Sharma - sharma_anuraag@yahoo.com

Release: A Frog in the Billabong by Marie-Paule LEROUX

2011-11-22T14:18:00.000-08:00

I wish to let you know that the translation of my book La Grenouille dans le Billabong into English has been completed and has been published under the apt title A Frog in the Billabong.

The book was originally written in French from a French perspective and for the French market but many have asked me to have it translated. It is a funny book about my then 12 years in Tasmania as a “frog”, the many faux-pas Alain and I made, the culture shock, our many encounters, the food and wine industry, my then business Exquisite Flavours, Richmond where we lived (and we are back) of course. It’s also a book about Tasmanian History and culture. Above all it’s a book that tells of my love for Tasmania.

Tell your friends. Thank you. You can use the enclosed flyer or visit my website to order : www.tasmania-conquest.com

For bookshops : the usual discount apply.

Pls note my book is published by Littlefox Press (WA) and has been printed on Australian non-bleaced recycled paper and binding is with non-toxic glue.

Marie-Paule LEROUX

Marie-Paule LEROUX est née au Loroux-Bottereau, un charmant petit village au milieu des vignes, près de Nantes. Après son Baccalauréat en 1979 et son BTS en 1981, elle entre au Service Export d’une grande maison du vignoble Nantais, un poste qui lui a permis de voyager dans le monde entier pendant plusieurs années. En 1991, elle émigre, avec son mari, en Tasmanie Australie. Ils obtiennent la nationalité australienne en 1993.

Son site: http://www.tasmanie-vivezlaventure.com/

Article: Projections and Utopianism in Contemporary Australian Fiction

2011-11-19T17:16:00.000-08:00

Jean-François VERNAY. “Projections and Utopianism in Contemporary Australian Fiction: Toward an Exploration of the Paranoid Mind”. Alizés : Revue angliciste de la Réunion 33, 2010, 183-199.

In an age of anxiety where protection from putative nightmare scenarios is offered as a substitute for the dreams and hopeful promises of yesteryear, utopianism is waxing fruitful in contemporary Australian fiction. Had Australia’s birth as a nation not been so painfully established on dissatisfaction with most of its population attempting to escape the British class system or being unenthusiastically transplanted, it would be quite unlikely that many Australian writers would have been so inclined to sprinkle their narratives with repetitive utopian impulses (see works cited section). In numerous novels, the mainland or its southern geographical appendage is either depicted as the setting of these unthought-of and rather offbeat ideal societies or as the model with which they implicitly compare. I will here use the terms “utopianism” or “utopian impulse” rather than “utopia,” because if I were to speak strictly of “utopia,” discussion would be limited to Gerald Murnane’s The Plains (1982), which is the closest Australian narrative to Thomas More’s Utopia (1516).

The idea for an article linking paranoia and utopianism through an exploration of the concept of projection in four narratives in the past twenty-five years by Murnane (The Plains), Peter Carey (The Unsual Life of Tristan Smith), Christopher Koch (Out of Ireland), and Rodney Hall (The Last Love Story), came after the reading of Christian Marouby’s Utopie et primitivisme. In this seminal book, Marouby argues that utopia and primitivism are both the result of the projection of European consciousness although they come under different expressions. According to Marouby, the utopian construct appears to be in its geography, architecture, political organization, social hierarchy and repressive policy a “structure of defence” against a threat perceived in all aspects of nature. Following Marouby’s analysis, I will argue that utopian thinkers (referring here to novelists and characters alike) appear in their Meliora sequamur quest somewhat as silent tyrants laying the foundations for the birth of a totalitarian society. I will try to show that utopianism-packed narratives, whether they are set in the past or future, are the result of projections.

The very notion of projection challenges Raymond Ruyer’s “utopian mode” which he defines in L’Utopie et les utopies as “a mental exercise on lateral possibilities,” as Frank Manuel reminds us (Manuel x). To my mind, utopian possibilities–unlike the possibilities offered in the sister speculative genre of science fiction–cannot be lateral, since utopian projects, as the Latin etymology indicates (pro jactare), are invariably cast (jactare) forward (pro) on a vertical axis with stories which might be set in the past but whose prime intent is that of transcendence, the primitivist yearning for some golden age or for some paradisiacal states. They may also be projected on a horizontal axis with tales set in the future, i.e. cast forward in time. This idea owes much to Paul Tillich’s theory

of two orders, one in the horizontal plane, the order of finitude with its possibilities and impossibilities, its risks, its successes and failures; and another, a ‘vertical order’ (the term now used symbolically), an order which secular and religious utopias have expressed in symbols such as “Kingdom of God,” “Kingdom of heaven,” “Kingdom of justice,” and “the consummation.” (Tillich 308)

I will attempt to demonstrate that because utopian impulses are born of a present regarded as so constricting, writers feel the urge to seek elevation of the spirit or to open up the possibility of a brighter future. Consequently, these impulses can only be conceived of as projects or projections, as models cast forward in space or in time precisely because human beings cannot associate reality with parallel or lateral dimensions; hence the shifting into the future of a vision of a society imagined in the present and the yearning to recover a bygone Earthly paradise.

By and large, utopian projects seem to be little more than consciousness-raising blueprints for a better place, or more specifically, distinct worlds of perfection located elsewhere. A survey of literary representations of perfect worlds will show that utopias are far-off locales encapsulating otherness whose depictions either derive from imaginative tales (diegesis) or from imitations of reality (mimesis). In both instances, the mechanism of projection that underpins utopian visions in the form of extraterritoriality (projection in space) and extra-contemporaneousness (projection in time) is essential to disconnect and distance fantasy from reality. Because there remains little land to be discovered covering our thoroughly charted globe, the selected contemporary utopias are either established in remote imaginative geographies like Rodney Hall’s and Peter Carey’s utopian cities, or in realistic settings which either belong to a bygone era, exemplified by Koch’s Beotian Vandemonia, or to uchronia like Gerald Murnane’s Inner Australia in The Plains.

Despite its landmass of sweeping plains that gives an impression of “southern emptiness” (Koch 321), Australia-as-an-island is almost a byword for isolation as understood both in terms of seclusion and abandonment, for these writers who were all born before or during World War II[1]. Space therefore becomes an obsession for utopian thinkers; hence the topocentric titles of utopianism-packed narratives like Out of Ireland (1999) and The Plains. Because of this sense of claustrophobic isolation, utopian projects are often perceived as journeys of the mind, “mental exercise[s],” or to use Pr Abraham Maslow’s felicitous term “eupsychia,” synonymous for good thinking (Manuel 71). In this respect, utopian thinkers dreaming about alternative worlds can be regarded as visionaries, if not escapists. Because utopias are all about abstract thinking as illustrated by Murnane’s The Plains, narratives must be idea-driven to pertain to the utopian genre. In other words, the individual, being part of what Fredric Jameson calls the “statistical population” (Jameson 39), is depersonalised and sacrificed to the community. Therefore, character-driven novels like the ones written by Carey, Koch and Hall can only be said to contain at best utopian impulses, at worst–a streak of utopianism.

Actual space must be left aside so as to open up the dimensions of an imaginative space in which the feeling of abandonment is projected. Invariably, the mysterious place is secluded, desired and unattainable because it is always perceived as lost. Located, like Thomas More’s Utopia, in an isolated dimension that sustains a vivid imagination for a world of otherness, Murnane’s secluded society of plainsmen, described as “marooned on their grassy islands impossibly far from the mainland” (34), appears as a self-contained entity lying at the heart of the world’s largest island. Fittingly enough, the verb “to maroon” which means both to abandon on a desolate island and “to isolate as if on a desolate island” recurs in all four narratives (Carey 117, Hall 10; Koch 228). Mr Handley-Smythe in Out of Ireland exclaims:

We’re marooned […] on this fucking wretched island, and nothing to the south of us but the Pole. One can never be at home here: do you see? One is always–lonely. (228)

Carey’s narrator, the eponymous Efican Tristan Smith, voices his feeling of seclusion from the outset of the novel:

How can I make you know what it is like to be from Efica–abandoned, self-doubting, yet so wilful that if you visit Chemin Rouge tomorrow morning we will tell you that the year is 426* and you must write your cheques accordingly. (5)

It seems that Hall, Carey, Koch and Murnane have all been affected by this anxiety, which derives from the feeling of having been abandoned on an island in the South Pacific. These telling examples would certainly come as grist to David Malouf’s mill, as he has already pointed out Australians’ “self-pitying sense of being unloved and abandoned by a bad stepmother, in a place far from home.” (Malouf, 98).

Common to the four novels is the depiction of a society set in secluded space, the geography of which is either imaginative or reality-based. In Peter Carey’s The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith (1994), both the Republic of Efica and Great Voorstand are archipelagos whose existence is attested by illustrative maps (1, 225), and incorporated in the reader’s actual world through the mention of existing nations such as France, Holland and England. In this fictitious world, Efica implicitly parallels Australia and imperialistic Voorstand the United States. Common to Peter Carey’s The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith and Rodney Hall’s The Last Love Story (2004) is the depiction of companion territories that stand in sharp contrast to each other. Hall’s outlandish geography is, however, tangentially related to reality, as the writer confesses in an endnote. In The Last Love Story, an isolated metropolis is split into twin cities facing each other across the Friendship Bridge, following a violent uprising on Grand Day, six years previous to the storytelling time. Although no pointer in the narrative would determine a particular environment, the cityscape borrows from actual divided cities in Germany, Israel and Palestine.

Driven by the desire for perfection, utopian writers are bound to strive for controlling every little detail in the conception of these channelled and regulated ideal societies which, once they have been tried out, might reveal themselves as sheer hells. In Rodney Hall’s City South, citizens are depicted as free in a successful and thriving town conducive to youthful romance, as depicted in the relationship between Judith Stott and Paul Bergson. But there, in the apparently perfect City South, repressed corruption is rampant and can be taken as a forewarning of a situation which could potentially degenerate and come close to what is experienced in Slow City, the dystopian City North where people are ruled by a harsh and strict regime: “let’s not imagine there was satisfaction in the south either. […] [A] corrupt council and foreign franchises flourished.” ( 9).

By contrast, Murnane’s version of utopianism is firmly grounded in Australia at an unspecified time. The plains of Inner Australia appear as an almost impossible otherness that belongs to the ineffable and to the indefinable. In keeping with the utopian genre, the ideal society that Gerald Murnane proposes in The Plains has not been discovered but created. Although the microcosmic society of plainsmen has a history, a culture and a political life of its own, it remains a nation in progress in search for its distinctiveness, awaiting completion. The unnamed narrator-cum-protagonist regarded as “a film-maker of exceptional promise” (108), has set himself to interpret the flat landscape ever on the brink of being disclosed with a “film that would reveal the plains to the world” (19). In a society with a taste for endless speculations, the filmmaker’s achievement lies not in the result (as the narrator, suffering writer’s block, struggles with his still-to-be-written screenplay) but in his unceasing attempt to capture ‘a distinctive landscape’. As he puts it, “What they praised was […] my years spent in writing and re-writing notes for introducing to a conjectured audience images still unseen” (109).

In a sense, Murnane’s visionary dream of a perfect world is motivated by the persistence of desire that propels the narrative into motion. The narrator’s challenge is therefore to avoid possession so as to prolong both desire and the utopian dream. Revelling in the prolongation of desire, the narrator proclaims that the visible is not satisfactory to any valid definition of the plains and so sets to “explore whatever [is] beyond the illusions that [can] be signified by simple shapes and motifs” (38-39).

As with Murnane’s, Christopher Koch’s utopianism is projected in Australia, more specifically in Van Diemen’s Land. The utopian blueprint in Out of Ireland does not serve as a “mirror image of the existing reality which it critically confronts” (Nuzzo 128; translation mine), but quite the reverse. It purports to reflect the nineteenth-century Australian experience of settlement within a romanticized landscape, while hinting at some nostalgia for the earthly paradise, a yearning for an unsullied prelapsarian society. Christopher Koch conceived the genesis of Tasmanian society as a Mundus alter, a not fully accessible utopian city (easy of access by seaway only) whose authorities have wiped out History with a twin denial: the eclipse of both the convict system and of Aboriginal civilisation. According to Christian Marouby, “[t]he construction of the utopian city is at variance with the past and with its incoherent remains; one must make a clean sweep and begin with a smooth surface like the blank page on which its creator designs” (Marouby 54; translation mine). This could explain why Doctor Howard sees Van Diemen’s Land as ‘a free society’ that is coming into being and why the colonial authorities “want it re-named Tasmania. The Australian colonies are a new America, in their view” (264). Gradually, however, Koch’s utopian impulses will shape up and transmogrify into what Northrop Frye calls a “utopian satire”, namely “a world-state assumed to be ideal […] in terms of slavery, tyranny, or anarchy” (Frye 28). In classical utopias “appearances and the real must overlap” (Marouby 6; translation mine), therefore if the island purports to be a reassuring place and a picture of perfection, one should be able to read happiness on the faces of its citizens. But ultimately, the mock utopian society in Out of Ireland is constructed on imperfection. Koch’s society, which struggles to preserve its image of a paradisiacal world, shows patent signs of lurking hostility. Beotia turns out to be infested with poisonous vegetation and peopled with an aggressive non-native population (mainly convicts who are responsible for the latent insecurity) along with barbarous ‘savages’. In order to contain every individual’s asocial drive and search for personal interest, the community remains subject to strict ratio and stern rules. By pushing this logic of protecting the people against themselves too far, justification for a whole penal world of coercion to emerge would be found. This repressive system is organised in concentric circles in Out of Ireland–a postcolonial rewriting of Inferno, the first part of Dante Alighieri’s Divina Commedia (c.1307-21) (Vernay 166-78).

The creation of an Eden replica goes hand in hand with the preservation of that pocket of unsullied world that comes under the patriarchal surveying control of its creator(s). The creator’s almightiness is therefore expressed in his all-seeing ability, which is either established by a network of surveyors as in Out of Ireland or through cutting-edge technological devices such as “hidden surveillance cameras” and “surveillance monitors” in The Last Love Story. The pervasive surveillance system is oppressive and may build up a paranoid mind. In The Last Love Story, Judith “got used to the thought of being watched” (243). Unlike the totalitarian City North, in which there are solid grounds to develop fear of “unseen danger” (37), the inhabitants of the South, like Judith, should feel much freer. However, they feel compelled to protect themselves and so the residents of City South end up sharing the same situation with the citizens in the dystopian North. This coercive surveillance system helps the citizens to self-regulate their behaviour and to preserve harmony and order.

Surveillance is even more domineering in Out of Ireland, where the colonial power-as Christian Marouby has it-organises itself around “a centralising thought” and a policy of openness which vouches for the safety and order within the city. Koch therefore is able to draw a parallel between the colony’s internal organization and Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon:

-You know, what the British have created on this island is a Panopticon, he said. Do you realise that, Devereux ?

-The term's unfamiliar to me, I said. Expound, my boy.

-I'm referring to the penal theories of Jeremy Bentham. He recommended that a prison be built in such a way that every section radiated out from a central observation room, or tower. In this monstrous “Panopticon” of his, the prisoners would thus be spied on at all times, do you see. “A machine for grinding rogues honest,” but what I put to you is this. Van Diemen's Land is itself a Panopticon! [...]

-This is a colony infested everywhere by spies–you must have learned that already. So I ask you: is not every felon and ex-felon watched and accounted for at all times? And doesn't our Grand Turnkey Denison sit at the centre of the machine like a spider–kept informed of everything through his many official agents and convict informers? You see? The entire bloody colony is a Panopticon! (278-79)

Robert Devereux eventually embraces the theory of constant and ubiquitous surveillance when he states, “this island is truly a Panopticon. Everyone must watch everyone else” (Koch 365). In a Foucauldian sense, it is not the certainty of being spied which impacts on human behaviour, but rather the uncertainty of whether one is or is not being watched which forces the prisoner into steady discipline. Illustrating Foucault’s theory in Discipline and Punish, the Van Demonians–who are being seen without seeing–are disempowered and thereby reassure their masters of their harmlessness. To some degree, this abnormal stress on homeland security is an indication that utopias contain paranoid tendencies in embryonic form.

Paranoia is fundamentally an experience of anxiety, an affective state experienced by the ego which, according to Freud, arises “as a response to a situation of danger; it will be regularly reproduced thenceforward whenever such a situation recurs” (Freud 72).[2] The anxiety-stricken person behaves “as though the old danger situation still existed,” remaining “under the spell of all the old causes of anxiety” (Freud 90). Facing an anxiety-packed situation, the paranoid mind will therefore aim at relocating the fear of an endopsychic danger situation, turning an internal conflict into an external one thanks to a mechanism of projection. This delusional system has been identified by Freud as a “neuro-psychosis of defence,” which, in an attempt to make one feel safer, ironically attributes to a seemingly harmless environment an unambiguously hostile and menacing quality. The psychoanalytical predisposition of men to psychoses may account for the patent fact that utopian and dystopian narratives are gender-marked as largely masculine, as reflected in the current selection of writers.

Christian Marouby argues cogently in Utopie et primitivisme that utopia presents itself as a “structure of defence,” insularity being understood as a paranoia-prone space. To Marouby’s mind, the utopian insular vision tends to project an internal danger against which its organisation has defensively over-structured itself onto the outer world. As I have argued, all of the selected narratives feature insular societies located, or at least felt to be located, on an island whose overprotective and overprotected environment acts as a buttress against deep-seated anxieties of penetration and aggression. This fantasy of physical inviolability seeks to ward off putative dangers of invasion, contamination, and degeneration that the openness of borders cannot prevent in the normal course of events. This defence mechanism rests on the illusion that evil has been shut out of the now sanitized enclosed and self-contained space. Dreams of paradise also indicate that utopian thinkers regard evil as a threat that they keep at bay. This dread of evil, with which writers are over-concerned, morphs into visions of overwrought and strictly controlled societies.

Such fantasies of control and domination exemplify the utopian writer’s indulgence in wishful thinking. In this illusory world, the quest for the earthly paradise fulfils an ab initio fantasy that finds expression in an exaltation for beginnings. The craving to regress into a state of original bliss, along with the enhancing of the omnipotence fallacy[3] account for such exaltation while hinting at the idea that utopian thinkers are dissatisfied with and overcritical of their world which they see as fallen and imperfect.

Roger Mucchielli’s definition of ideal cities in Le Mythe de la cité idéale (1961) refers to the utopian city as a “myth, awakened by the personal revolt against the human condition in general in the shape of existing circumstances, which meets the obstacle of impotence and evokes in the imagination an other or a nowhere, where all obstacles are removed” (Manuel xi). There is, in the minds of utopian thinkers, a feeling of impotence that morphs into fantasized omnipotence and turns them into perfection-shapers. Paradoxically enough, the impotence of utopian writers lies less in their inability to have their ideas put into practice–time will probably tell!–than in their ability to create ideal societies. I tend to see these visionary dreams of perfect worlds as the overcompensation of our unalterable actual society, which writers cannot change, save by imagining flawless alternatives which alleviate frustration. However, as in the case of most fantasies, utopian visions are best to remain impulses that are not acted out, lest they would lose their soothing effect on the thinkers’ discontented minds.

Because utopias are chiefly hope generating in their intent, the utopian dream should be attainable in the eyes of most readers. In no way should readers be under the impression that they are unable to seize their chance to carry out the dream, or worse, that they might have missed it. There lies the contradictory essence of utopianism, which simultaneously jettisons all dawning hopes and sustains them. Indeed, anything belonging to the future is contingent (in other words, it can or cannot occur), and yet, because anticipation turns putative things into the soon-to-be-realized present, there is still hope for the project to be carried out. Paradoxically, utopias hinge on the possibility of being realized–through their seeming accessibility and sense of immediacy–and the impossibility of being pinned down. Their desirability is thereby safeguarded, and, these contradictory elements explain their elusiveness and allusiveness, as reflected in vague time markers and indistinct geographical landmarks. In the greatest utopian tradition, the existence of the imaginary islands of the Republic Efica and the Great Voorstand in The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith are geographically attested by illustrative maps which, as in More’s Utopia, are part of the paratextual apparatus. The fact that these maps are systematically decontextualized enlargements that cannot be used to pinpoint the exact location of utopian societies goes towards proving the point about elusive geographical bearings. In addition, Rodney Hall’s utopian-inspired “fairytale” articulates the aforementioned paradox when he challenges the typical ahistorical trait of utopias with a romance taking place in an unspecified time without jeopardizing its accessibility.

Indeed, his “fairytale of the day after tomorrow” (as the subtitle goes) can still be imprecisely identified as the early years of the twenty-first century. Though endowed with a contemporary past that witnessed an anthrax scare, the Twin Towers collapse, and the Bali bombings, The Last Love Story is set in a very near future, close enough to give a sense of impending bliss or doom within reach. This extremely thin borderline between promised ecstasy and looming tragedy testifies to the fact that utopian and dystopian writers have always been closely related, in that what the former conceives of is but the sanitized version of the latter’s project.

In a sense, utopian thinkers could be regarded as silent tyrants in so far as they superimpose their models of better social systems onto the existing one to which they have to comply half-heartedly. Their utopian impulses do not appear as a straightforward spelt-out demand for change, rather they present themselves as suggested counter-models, altered blueprints for the society in which a given people lives, so as to point out in a most oblique way the dysfunctions inherent in reality. Even though these are imagined worlds, it follows that utopianism is for these novelists the cement which consolidates the foundations of their mute tyrannies under which life is ritualised, well-organized and closely controlled, forcing people into becoming overcautious and extremely regimented. Otherwise, “[h]ow to account for the fact that in such confined spaces so many individuals can co-exist without killing or mortally detesting one another,” as Emile Cioran has put it? (Cioran 103, translation mine). Happiness becomes a moral duty, the norm–a rule, companionship–a lifestyle, and seclusion from the external world–an essential requirement. And when you think of it, the denial of complaint, the compliance to a norm, communitarian activity and isolation, are all defining traits of prison life. Because utopian schemes are a response from a discontented mind to the present, they are hardly more than a sublimated vision of a corrupt world making the here and now more endurable to the utopian thinker.

Because utopian fantasies of perfection, control and domination are the mirror image of a foredoomed imaginary dystopian threat, utopianism contains the seed of the paranoia that is developed at the core of dystopian fiction. By and large, utopian projects are excessive in the sense that they are constructed with excess, to excess, and in response to excessive feelings. While utopianism feeds on surplus, dystopia flourishes in saturation. In other words, what can be read between the lines in utopian writings is simply explicated, elaborated on and brought to a pitch in dystopian novels. Just as hate cannot be felt without experiencing love, dread cannot be felt without going through anxiety.

This psychoanalytical approach demonstrates that the dystopian narrative can no longer be perceived as the negative counterpart of utopian fiction, since the former turns out to be the logical expansion, if not the aggravation of paranoid tendencies that transpire in the latter. Far from being poles apart and antagonistic as they are classically represented, utopias and dystopias should be seen as two adjacent markers on the gradation continuum, proving the dystopian impulse to be an additional projection. All things considered, dystopias and utopias alike remain to various degrees cast forward-in time, in space, in thought and in anticipation.

Jean-François Vernay[4]

Works Cited

Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. Vol I: Inferno, Victoria: Penguin, 1984.

Albinski, Nan Bowman. “A Survey of Australian Utopian and Dystopian Fiction,” Australian Literary Studies 13.1, 1987, 15-28.

-------------------------------. “Visions of the Nineties,” Journal of Australian Studies 20, 1987, 12-22.

Carey, Peter. The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith, St Lucia: UQP, 1994.

Cioran, Emile. Histoire et utopie, Paris: Gallimard, 1960.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan, New York: Vintage Books, 1995.

Freud, Sigmund. The Problem of Anxiety, trans. Henry Alden Bunker, New York: The Psychoanalytic Quarterly Press / Norton & Company, 1936.

Frye, Northrop. “Varieties of Literary Utopias,” Utopia and Utopian Thought, ed. Frank E. Manuel, Boston: Beacon Press, 1965: 25-49.

Hall, Rodney. The Last Love Story, Sydney: Picador, 2004.

Healy, John. “The Lemurian Nineties,” Australian Literary Studies 8.3, 1978, 307-16.

Ikin, Van. “Dreams, Visions, Utopias,” Australian Literary Studies 13.4, 1988, 253-66.

Jameson, Fredric. “Politics of Utopia,” New Left Review 25, Jan. / Feb. 2005, 35-54.

Koch, Christopher. Out of Ireland, Sydney: Random House, 1999.

Malouf, David. A Spirit of Play: The Making of Australian Consciousness, Sydney: ABC Books, 1998.

Manuel, Frank. “Introduction,” Utopia and Utopian Thought, ed. Frank E. Manuel. Boston: Beacon Press, 1965: vii-xxiv.

--------------------. “Toward a Psychological History of Utopias,” Utopia and Utopian Thought, ed. Frank E. Manuel. Boston: Beacon Press, 1965: 69-98.

Marouby, Christian, Utopie et primitivisme. Essai sur l'imaginaire anthropologique à l'âge classique. Paris: Seuil, 1990.

More, Thomas. Utopia, New York / London: WW Norton & Company, 1992.

Murnane, Gerald. The Plains, Michigan: New Issues Press, 2003.

Nuzzo, Enrico. “Le double statut de l'insularité: l'île entre imaginaire et réalité dans la littérature de l'utopie anglaise du XVIIème siècle,” L'insularité. Thématique et représentations, eds. Jean-Claude Marimoutou & Jean-Marie Racault, Paris: L'Harmattan, 1995: 127-34.

Pordzik, Ralph. The Quest for Postcolonial Utopia: A Comparative Introduction to the Utopian Novel in the New English Literatures. New York: Peter Lang, 2001.

Tillich, Paul. “Critique and Justification of Utopia,” Utopia and Utopian Thought, ed. Frank E. Manuel, Boston: Beacon Press, 1965: 296-309.

Vernay, Jean-François. Water From the Moon: Illusion and Reality in the Works of Australian Novelist Christopher Koch, New York: Cambria Press, 2007.

Walton, Robyn. “Utopian and Dystopian Impulses in Australia,” Overland 173, 2003, 5-20.

Whitlock, Gillian. “From Eutopia to Dystopia,” The Time to Write: Australian Women Writers 1890-1930, ed. Kay Ferres, Ringwood: Penguin, 1993, 162-82.

______________

[1] Koch is born in 1932, Hall in 1935, Murnane in 1939 and Carey in 1943. Given their historical and geographical contexts, it is no wonder pre-World War II generations of Australians have resented their isolation as a punishment, being thus deprived of a direct affective relationship with Mother England. In terms of history I allude to the strong record of transportation and exile whereas, geographically, Australia is poles apart from Great Britain.

[2] See also Sigmund Freud. The Schreber Case. Trans. Colin McCabe, Ringwood: Penguin Books, 2003. Freud’s view of paranoia as a defence against homosexual drives following his analysis of Schreber’s case has fallen into disrepute with the Neo-Freudians. We will thus disregard this lead.

[3] The omnipotence fallacy mainly accrues from the possibility of re-shaping things thanks to the potential expressed through fiction writing. In other narratives, it might take the form of an attempt to give History a new course.

[4] Dr. Jean-François Vernay is the author of Water From the Moon: Illusion and Reality in the Works of Australian Novelist Christopher Koch (New York: Cambria Press, 2007) and of Panorama du roman australien des origines à nos jours. (Paris: Hermann, 2009). In June 2009 he published a special issue of Antipodes on the theme of fear in Australian culture which he guest-edited with Dr. Nathanael O’Reilly.

To quote this article:http://laboratoires.univ-reunion.fr/oracle/documents/projections.html

Literary Project Update

2011-11-15T05:11:00.000-08:00

Dear Followers and blog fans,

Thanks heaps for joining my blog and making it colourful with your pics and cheerful with your smiles.

David and I are making good progress with our Patrick White editing project:

http://jean-francoisvernay.blogspot.com/2011/08/antipodes-fear-in-australian-literature_06.html

So far, there are six book reviews expected to be turned in by experts in the field.

Books coming under close scrutiny are:

Writing the Nation. Patrick White and the Indigene, by DRIESEN, Cynthia vanden
Amsterdam/New York, NY, 2009, XXXVI, 207 pp./

Postcolonial Issues in Australian Literature, Edited by Nathanael O’Reilly, Amherst (New York): Cambria Press, 2010 , Hardcover. xii +317 p.

Messengers of Eros: Representations of Sex in Australian Writing by Xavier Pons, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, viii + 362 pp

John Beston's Patrick White within the Western Literary Tradition.

Change – Conflict and Convergence : Austral–Asian Scenarios, Cynthia and Ian vanden Driesen (Eds.)

Remembering Patrick White. Contemporary Critical Essays. By McMahon, Elizabeth and Brigitta Olubas (Eds.) Amsterdam/New York, NY, 2010, XVII, 218 pp.

g good pr

Introducing the Art of Nora Wompi

2011-11-15T05:03:00.001-08:00

The vulupcious strokes of colour that explode and bounce off a Wompi canvas are at times more reminiscent of the Edvard Munch painting the Scream.

On the surface Wompi's art is more alined to the great abstraction works of non indigenous artists and yet this Great Sandy Desert artist is oblivious to such genres.

As a tribal elder, Wompi goes about her daily business of hunting , providing for family and painting. Her fluid brushstrokes render dreaming sites, talis, soak holes and bush tucker, creating visions of Kunawarritja (Well 33) on the Canning Stock Route in Western Australia reflecting her intimate knowledge and spiritual connection to her country.

At first glance, these colours appear not to be those iconic desert colours, but looking closely at the landscape through Nora’s eyes, these hues often entice and encapsulate the visual. For in the numerous salt lakes that pattern this landscape, the whiteness of the salt is blinding within the sun’s beat, but as the sun sets, so too does the landscape bask in softer tones of reds, pinks and purples.

Similarly, although the desert may be blanketed in yellow grasses and brush, various plants with their winter green/silver foliage and flowers of muted whites, purples and pinks provide the land with a nuance of softness and delicacy.

When looking at her latest artworks, many of the canvases are classic stylised Nora pieces created with vibrant colours, swirls and strokes of intense movement – all indicative of what may be perceived as reflections of the ‘desert landscape’. However, several pieces are created from within a concourse of muted whites with shimmers of winter greens, plum purples, soft apricots and dust pink.

This senior artist’s mastery of her art has increased with age. Her work possesses a confidence and grandeur of vision. It is a retelling of time old stories but also an affirmation of now.

The Suzanne O'Connell Gallery In association with Warlayirti Artists are excited to present Nora Wompi's first solo Sydney exhibition at the Depot Gallery, 2 Danks Street Waterloo .

From Tuesday 15 November till Saturday 26 November with the opening function at 2pm

on Saturday 19 November.

Nora will be in attendance.

Release: Transnational Literature 4:1

2011-11-11T16:15:00.000-08:00

Volume 4, Issue 1
November 2011

Letter from the Editor

Special feature: Literary Transculturations. Guest Editor: Jena Habegger-Conti

Jena Habegger-Conti	Letter from the Guest Editor
Anne Holden Rønning	Literary Transculturations and Modernity: Some Reflections
John McLeod	Sounding Silence: Transculturation and its Thresholds
Joel Kuortti	Transnational Literary Slippages and Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses
Ulla Rahbek	Uniquely local? Reading Manjula Padmanabhan’s Short Story ‘Feast’
Anne Sophie Haahr Refskou	Can Transcultural Theatre Raise the Dead? Exploring Kaj Munk’s Ordet (The Word) via Peter Brook’s Essentialist Aesthetic
Jena Habegger-Conti	‘Beautiful Infidels’ and ‘Poisonous Fruits’: Expressing and Contesting the Transcultural Tradition of The Thousand and One Nights
Erik Falk	Translating Modernity: Charles Mungoshi’s Modernist Aesthetic Space
Kamal Sbiri	Writing Refugee in the Era of Displacement: Reflections on Poetry
Milda Danyte	Choosing Self-Hatred: How Canadian Ethnic Minority Novels of the 1950s Reflect Racist Ideas Propagated Earlier by the Dominant Majority
Rūta Šlapkauskaitė	Bears, Bodies and Boundaries in Douglas Glover’s Elle: A Novel

Articles

Nicholas Birns	The Solid Mandala and Patrick White's Late Modernity
Md. Rezaul Haque	The Nation and One of Its Fragments in Kanthapura
Diana Jovaišienė	Herkus Kunčius’ Novel The Ornament as a Postmodernist Analysis of Contemporary Lithuanian Society
Holly E. Martin	Falling Into America: The Downside of Transnational Identities in Ha Jin’s A Good Fall
Umme Salma	Woman and the Empire in Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock: A Rereading

Review Essay

Dorothy Driver	Trauma, Memory and Narrative in South Africa: Interviews edited by Ewald Mengel, Michela Borzaga and Karin Orantes

Interviews

Gillian Dooley	Walking on Graves: An Interview with Amy T. Matthews
Sandra L.M. Rota	‘The Globalisation of Ideas and Thoughts is a Supremely Hopeful Development’: An Interview with Altaf Tyrewala

Translation

Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain	Woman’s Downfall [‘Istrijatir Abanati’] translated and introduced by Mohammad A. Quayum

News and Views

Gillian Dooley	Fiji without Snorkelling: a report from the Fiji Literary Festival, October 2011

Creative writing – Poetry:

David Adès	A Girl, Her Mother, and Me
David Adès	Gesher Haziv 1974
David Adès	Snapshot at Maedan Beach
David Adès	Step After Step
David Adès	Yesterday’s Feast
Yiorgos Anagnostou	-Αμέeriκα
Yiorgos Anagnostou	Pale Imitation
Claudia Grinnell	Damaged Women
Claudia Grinnell	In the Room of Lost Things
Susan Gorgioski	Ballast
Dean Gui	Good Laundry Day
Md. Rezaul Haque	Comrades, March on
Md. Rezaul Haque	For J.: An Elegy
Deb Matthews-Zott	Adelaide
Loula S. Rodopoulos	Epistrophe
Loula S. Rodopoulos	Rocks of Resistance
Loula S. Rodopoulos	Township
Ian C. Smith	That Hot Night
Ian C. Smith	Wells-next-the-Sea
Lesley Synge	Excursion to Jiri San before the mid-term holiday
Heather Taylor Johnson	linger on
Heather Taylor Johnson	Two Trees
Heather Taylor Johnson	Waterfall

Creative writing – Prose:

Jonathan Bellot	Viola and the Passing of the Ghost Train
Chalsey Dooley	A Signature – in Blood: Based on a True Story
Catherine McKinnon	Will Martin
Lesley Synge	Heaven’s Gate

Reviews – Creative and life-writing:

Sophie Alexander	Tripping Over Feathers: Scenes in the Life of Joy Janaka Wiradjuri Williams: A Narrative of the Stolen Generations by Peter Read
Wendy Alexander	Ali Abdul v the King: Muslim Stories from the Dark Days of White Australia by Hanifa Deen
Craig Billingham	I Hate Martin Amis Et Al by Peter Barry
Nicholas Birns	A Whistled Bit of Bop: Poems by Ken Bolton
Sue Bond	Comedy in a Minor Key by Hans Keilson
Vivek Kumar Dwivedi	The Weekend by Bernhard Schlink
Tina Giannoukos	Collected Poems: Francis Webb edited and introduced by Toby Davidson
Susan Gorgioski	Last Man in Tower by Aravind Adiga
Sneja Gunew	Her Father’s Daughter by Alice Pung
Kay Hart	Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
Kay Hart	The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht
Elisabeth Holdsworth	The Foxes Come at Night by Cees Nooteboom
Elisabeth Holdsworth	Iphigenia in Forest Hills by Janet Malcolm
Hannah Kent	Animal People by Charlotte Wood
Gay Lynch	Sarah Thornhill by Kate Grenville
Gay Lynch	Those Who Come After by Elisabeth Holdsworth
Jennifer Osborn	Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks
Punyashree Panda	Black Swan by Eileen Harrison and Carolyn Landon
Miriam Räthel	The Map of Time by Félix J. Palma
Loula S. Rodopoulos	The Reinvention of Love by Helen Humphreys
Loula S. Rodopoulos	Surface to Air by Jaya Savige
Christine Runnel	The Beauty of Humanity Movement by Camilla Gibb
Susan Sheridan	Primavera, or the Time of your Life by Giulia Giuffrè
David Sornig	Prohibited Zone by Alistair Sarre
Ruth Starke	Gioconda by Lucille Turner
Ruth Starke	Here and There by A.A. Gill
Heather Taylor Johnson	Autumn Laing by Alex Miller
Heather Taylor Johnson	Love in the Years of Lunacy by Mandy Sayer
Heather Taylor Johnson	That Deadman Dance by Kim Scott
Humphrey Tranter	Bombs and Butterflies: A Child’s War by Etiennette Fennell
Graham Tulloch	Marcus Clarke by Cyril Hopkins, ed. Laurie Hergenhan, Ken Stewart, and Michael Wilding
Lesley Wyndram	Loose: A Wild History by Ouyang Yu
Debra Zott	End of the Night Girl by Amy T. Matthews
Debra Zott	Five Bells by Gail Jones
Debra Zott	Waltzing With Jack Dancer: a Slow Dance With Cancer by Geoff Goodfellow, Grace Goodfellow and Randy Larcombe

Reviews – History, Theory and Criticism:

Sue Anderson	Nharangga wargunni bugi-buggillu: A Journey through Narungga History by Skye Krichauff
Ingrid Birgden	Journeying and Journalling: Creative and Critical Meditations on Travel Writing edited by Giselle Bastin et al.
Susan Carson	Postcolonial Issues in Australian Literature edited by Nathanael O’Reilly
Gillian Dooley	A Future for Criticism by Catherine Belsey
Victoria Haskins	The Protectors by Stephen Gray
Heidi Ing	Germans: Travellers, Settlers and their Descendants edited by Peter Monteath
David Palmer	The Path of Infinite Sorrow: The Japanese on the Kokoda Track by Craig Collie and Hajime Marutani
Eleni Pavlides	Making Trouble by Robert Manne
Jorge Salavert	Australia and Galicia: Defeating the Tyranny of Distance / Australia e Galicia: vencendo a tiranía do afastamento, edited by María Jesús Lorenzo Modia and Roy C. Boland Osegueda
Umme Salma	Eighteenth-Century British Literature and Postcolonial Studies by Suvir Kaul
Michael X. Savvas	Detective Fiction in a Postcolonial and Transnational World edited by Nels Pearson and Marc Singer
Kathleen Steele	The King James Bible after 400 years: Literary Linguistic and Cultural Influences edited by Hannibal Hamlin and Norman W. Jones; Begat: The King James Bible and the English Language by David Crystal

Contributors

CALL FOR PAPERS: PATRICK WHITE’S CENTENARY

2011-11-04T16:59:00.000-07:00

Patrick White 1960
© All rights reserved. Louis Kahan 2008 Australia
pen and ink Special Collections, Baillieu Library, the University of Melbourne. Gift of the artist 1980 © Louis Kahan (estate)/Licensed by VISCOPY, Sydney 2008

CALL FOR PAPERS: PATRICK WHITE’S CENTENARY

Submissions for papers to be included in this issue are called for, especially, but not only, from non-Australia based scholars.

Proposals of book reviews on Patrick White scholarship are also solicited.

Call for papers: Violence Studies Conference 2012

2011-11-04T16:55:00.000-07:00

The Humanities Research Institute at the University of Newcastle invites academics from a wide a variety of disciplines — including anthropology, art, criminology, history, international relations, law, literature, psychology, philosophy, political science and sociology — to submit proposals for panels and individual papers at its conference, Histories of Violence, to be held in the city of Newcastle from 21-23 August 2012.

Plenary speakers:
Arjun Appadurai, New York University Rosemary Gartner, University of Toronto Gyanendra Pandey, Emory University

The program committee welcomes panels and paper proposals that deal with the history of violence in the broadest sense, in all parts of the world, from the fifteenth century to the present day. In order to complement the Humanities Research Institute’s continuing strengths in the history of violence, the Committee encourages proposals that involve histories of gender and race, cultural history, and religious history. The Committee also invites submissions from scholars working in war, murder, mass murder and atrocity.

We invite prospective participants to submit a presentation proposal for one of the following parallel session options: 30-minute panel presentations; a 90-minute workshop; or a jointly presented 90-minute round table session. For more information refer to Conference website: http://www.newcastle.edu.au/institute/humanities-research/historyofviolence/ViolenceStudiesConference2012.html

To defray travelling costs for postgraduate students, the Humanities Research Institute is offering competitive scholarships.
All submissions should be electronic and should be submitted before 1 May 2012. Participants will be notified by 1 June 2012. Please include the following information:

1. Panel title & short, one paragraph description.
2. Paper proposals for each paper (no more than half a page).
3. The CVs of all participants.
4. Email address of designated contact person.

All inquiries and submissions should be sent to: A/Prof Philip Dwyer, Philip.Dwyer@newcastle.edu.au Prof. Lyndall Ryan, Lyndall.Ryan@newcastle.edu.au

Conference: After Homosexual: The Legacies of Gay Liberation

2011-11-04T16:54:00.000-07:00

An International Conference Hosted and funded by the Gender, Sexuality and Diversity program
at La Trobe University in conjunction with the Australian Lesbian & Gay Archives, Midsumma and Victoria University.

Register now:

Please complete the online registration form if you wish to attend this event.

Date and Location

Public Event: Thursday, 2 February - Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Flinders Street Melbourne
Conference: Friday and Saturday, 3-4 February - Victoria University, 300 Flinders Street.
Access and mobility map

Keynote Speakers

- Professor Jeffrey Weeks, London Southbank University

- Professor Alice Echols, University of Southern California

About the conference

Forty years ago, a young Australian expat living in the USA synthesised the politics of the emerging gay liberation movement in a provocative book called Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation. Described by the New York Times then as ‘the one to read’ and consistently ranked as one of the most influential books about homosexuality in the English language, Homosexual marked a significant milestone in the development of gay and lesbian politics and served a key role in the personal development of many people. It has been reprinted multiple times and translated into several languages. The book’s author, Dennis Altman, went on to have a career as one of Australia’s leading public intellectuals, an important writer on US politics, Australia/US relations, the politics of HIV/AIDS, and studies of sexuality, particularly in Asia and the Pacific.

In recognition of the fortieth anniversary of the publication of Homosexual and to mark Professor Altman's retirement, this international conference will bring together leading and emerging scholars to reflect on the impact of Homosexual and the legacy of gay liberation. Speakers from North and South America, Asia, Europe and Oceania will present over 80 papers on topics including:

Homosexual's publication and reception
the political philosophy of gay liberation
the relationship between queer theory and gay and lesbian studies
literature of oppression and liberation
gender and sexual politics
gay liberation's connections to other social movements (such as feminism, socialism, anti-racism and the counterculture)
transgender movements and gay liberation
the relationship between academia and activism
the politics of identity, then and now
contemporary gender and sexuality movements
other topics related to Homosexual or the legacy of gay liberation

The conference organisers plan to publish selected conference papers in a special issue of a leading academic journal.

Further information

For further details or to submit abstracts, please contact Mark Pendleton at m.pendleton@latrobe.edu.au

After Homosexual Conference Committee
(Dr Carolyn D'Cruz, Dr Graham Willett, Mark Pendleton, Dr Michael Connors, Dr Caroline Symons)

Who’s afraid of Christos Tsiolkas? (Trouble Magazine)

2011-11-02T18:07:00.000-07:00

Chers lecteurs,

Je suis ravi de vous faire savoir que le magazine Trouble édité à Melbourne à 20.000 exemplaires m'a confié sa nouvelle rubrique littéraire...On se retrouvera donc chaque mois dans les pages de Trouble pour évoquer en anglais d'autres aspects de la culture littéraire australienne que ceux abordés dans Panorama du roman australien des origines à nos jours (Hermann, 2009). En extrait, voici le début de l'article de ce mois:

"By living up to his reputation of being the enfant terrible of Australian fiction, Christos Tsiolkas’ books are definitely not for the fainthearted. I remember when I first read Loaded (1995), how provocative Tsiolkas was in expanding the bounds of grunge fiction into new territory with a subtle combination of graphic gay sex and ethnicity. This rather slim debut novel tells the story of a dissatisfied, nineteen-year-old gay Greek suburbanite filling the vacuity and spleen of his existence with music, drugs, sexual delight, and intoxication. Loaded has now achieved iconic status within gay culture, especially as it was further popularized by Head On (1998), Ana Kokkinos’ compelling film adaptation. The Jesus Man (1999), like many second works in the wake of an outstanding debut, fell into obscurity. Neither the freshness and sprightliness of Loaded nor the complexity and ambitiousness of Dead Europe (2005) will paper over the taboo-breaking cracks that fill the pages of these novels, especially Dead Europe which reads like a Grimm/grim fairytale with Gothic-laden aesthetics. No wonder Tsiolkas’ dark thoughts and themes (like vampirism, coprophilia, zoophilia, hustler sex, teenage prostitution, paedophilia, incestuous sex, racism and anti-Semitism) have a knack of casting a gloom over readers to the point of sometimes spoiling their appreciation of his novels."

Check the link and get into Trouble!

http://www.introuble.com.au/www2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=344&Itemid=65

Adding to the weird glamour of our cover image this month by Ilona Nelson, at Big West Festival, we have a massive feature on the Outpost Project at Cockatoo Island this month, featuring works by ROA, Buff Diss and Ethos. The 3rd Australian Stencil Art Prize will announce the winner of their $2000 cash prize this Saturday at 2pm at Cockatoo Island, where 46 finalist artworks will be competing for the prize. Finalists are online now here.

Coranderrk, We Will Show The Country is a meticulously considered piece of theatre starring among others Jack Charles, Syd Brisbane, and La Mama Director Liz Jones, that dramatises an event towards the end of the 1800s, when a highly functioning, thriving aboriginal reserve near Healesville was forcibly dismantled. The Coranderrk community rebelled and the ensuing fight for justice and self-determination culminated in a unique Government Enquiry. “The minutes of this particular enquiry contained the voices of the indigenous inhabitants of the station,” says writer Giordano Nanni . “In this document they were free to express local grievances and requests for self-determination."

Liza Dezfouli interviews Giordano Nanni in November Trouble - here.

Also this issue we are introducing 3 new regular features. Jean-François Vernay kicks off his premiere Stralian Books column with a review of the career of Christos Tsiolkas, while Lifehouse Design's Robyn Gibson takes the reins for Greenwish#1. Plus, adding depth to the wafflings of Sydneon and Courtney's considerable Melburnin', we now have Taswild, this month talking about PJ Harvey and MONA FOMA.

Finally, Ben Laycock sends Greetings from Lorne where he checks out Lorne Sculpture 2011.

Our latest issue pageflip - works great with iPads and iPhones.

Public Lecture: 'In the aftermath of Empire: performances of indigenous re-empowerment in Aotearoa New Zealand'

2011-10-27T17:40:00.000-07:00

Professor Jonathan Mane-Wheoki, The University of Auckland
6.00-7.00pm, 17 November 2011
Elisabeth Murdoch Theatre
University of Melbourne

Empires rise, empires fall. In their aftermath, all over the world, indigenous survivors of European imperialism – if there are survivors – are left to count the cost, to regroup in order to recover the integrity and ensure the continuity of their societies and cultures, following periods of intense subjugation. In the Treaty of Waitangi (1840) the British Crown guaranteed New Zealand’s indigenous people ownership of their properties and accorded them ‘all the rights and privileges of British subjects.’ What followed, however, was a long and sordid history of sequestration and disempowerment until the Treaty of Waitangi Act of 1975 provided the legal instrument by which the dispossessed could seek redress, politicised Māori and ignited a resurgence of Māori nationalism and culture. Progressive re-empowerment has been expressed in epic socio-political cultural performances such as the Hikoi or Land March of 1975, the Foreshore and Seabed Hikoi of 2004, fierce Ngāi Tuhoe resistance, and the ‘repatriation’ of the impressive carved ancestral meeting house, Mataatua, to its people by way of Sydney, Melbourne, London and Dunedin, and acquiring a carved representation of Phar Lap on the way. There are lessons to be drawn from such post-imperial events for colonised indigenous people around the world.

Symposium: 'Conflict and Conciliation Across Empires: Objects and Performances in Historical Perspective'

2011-10-27T17:38:00.000-07:00

17-18 November 2011
Elisabeth Murdoch Theatre
University of Melbourne

This symposium seeks to explore how the legacies of colonial negotiations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples have contributed to nation building and the popular historical imagination in Australia and other locations in the Asia-Pacific, from the era of European colonization to the present.

This conference features contributions from academics, curators and artists in the examination of imperial histories of contact and conciliation, and of diplomacy ‘on the ground’ in these varied locations. Speakers will consider how objects, images and political performances – both non-Indigenous and Indigenous – frequently work together to both inscribe and consolidate and resist or subvert dominant narratives of colonial settlement. Comparative and transnational perspectives across and within European empires in the region are included.

This symposium has been convened by Penny Edmonds, Kate Darian-Smith and Julie Evans, as part of the ARC funded Linkage project ‘Conciliation Narratives and the Historical Imagination in British Pacific Rim Settler Societies’. The Industry partners for this project are the National Museum of Australia, Museum Victoria, and Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. For further information see: http://australian-centre.unimelb.edu.au/conciliation-narratives.

This symposium is free, however RSVPs are requested for catering purposes. Please contact Sharon Harrison: sharonmh@unimelb.edu.au.

Australian Women's and Gender Studies Association PhD award

2011-10-27T17:37:00.000-07:00

The Australian Women's and Gender Studies Association (AWGSA) administers an award for the most outstanding doctoral thesis completed at an Australian university that clearly and extensively engages with feminist paradigms.

The nominations for next year's award close on 16 January 2012, for a graduate whose dissertation was passed between November 2009 and November 2011.

Nomination forms are on the AWGSA website at http://www.awgsa.org.au.

EXCELLENCE AWARD 2012 : CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

2011-10-26T17:52:00.000-07:00

REMISE DES TRAVAUX/ SUBMISSION OF THESES :

Potential participants wishing to take part in the 2012 Excellence Award competition can already get in touch with Philippe Palombo, General Manager of the Albert Bousquet Psychiatric Hospital (Nouville, New-Caledonia), for further particulars.

Email: P.PALOMBO@chs.nc

The Australalsia-South Pacific Prize will be of interest particularly to Australianists, may they be French or English-speaking.

Les candidats putatifs souhaitant remettre leurs travaux pour 2012 peuvent d’ores et déjà prendre contact avec Philippe Palombo (bureau 24.36.31/ P.PALOMBO@chs.nc), Directeur Général du centre hospitalier Albert Bousquet (Nouville) afin de se renseigner sur les modalités du concours. Le Prix Australalsie-Pacifique Sud s’adresse notamment aux australianistes, qu’ils soient francophones ou anglophones.

Toute information complémentaire peut être demandée à M. Alain Funel, téléphone : 79 55 83.

XXIIIe CONCOURS THESE-PAC

2011-10-26T17:45:00.000-07:00

Le jury du XXIIIe concours Thèse-Pac s’est réuni le mercredi 26 octobre 2011 à Nouville. Parmi les 43 travaux proposés, aucun travail sur l’Australie n’a été soumis cette année. Les études menées vont du mémoire de fin d’études d’infirmier d’Etat au master, voire à la thèse de doctorat.

L’objet de Thèse-Pac est de favoriser leur diffusion, grâce au service territorial des archives, à la bibliothèque Bernheim, CDP, à l’université de la Nouvelle-Calédonie et aux organismes qui en souhaitent des copies.

Thèse-Pac remercie ici les différents partenaires qui rendent possible ce concours.

- Le parrainage des deux premiers prix est assuré par la division VI du Kiwani’s club de Nouvelle-Calédonie qui est à l’origine du financement de ce concours pour le premier prix « Nouvelle-Calédonie » et le Lions club de Nouméa doyen pour le premier prix « Australasie-Pacifique-Sud » (prix Jean-Pierre Piérard).

- Une subvention de la Mairie de Nouméa nous permet de doter tous les deuxièmes et troisièmes prix.

- L’institut Pasteur de Nouméa, le CHT « Gaston Bourret » et l’association « AIRAIN » soutiennent les travaux concernant le secteur de la santé par quatre prix spécifiques.

- Koniambo Nickel SAS pour un prix relatif à la promotion de l’environnement.

Tout cela dénote de la part de nos partenaires institutionnels la ferme volonté d’aider à une meilleure connaissance du Pacifique et à une reconnaissance des travaux réalisés sur la Nouvelle-Calédonie malgré leurs difficultés budgétaires.

Thèse-Pac n’oublie pas pour autant l’aide financière ponctuelle que nous accorde la province Sud pour notamment, la réalisation du bulletin Thèse-Pac ou l’achat de thèses anciennes. Il serait trop long de citer toutes les personnes et tous les services qui veulent bien nous aider dans nos recherches.

Il est à noter que quelque 1000 travaux universitaires ont été recueillis par Thèse-Pac et entreposés au service des archives territoriales, qui par convention, gère notre fonds afin de mieux le faire connaître des chercheurs.

Enfin, il est rappelé qu’à l’issue dudit concours le 24^e concours annuel Thèse-Pac est ouvert. Tous les intéressés peuvent y participer jusqu’au 30 juillet 2012. Il suffit pour cela d’envoyer une copie de son travail accompagné d’une lettre.

Parmi les travaux proposés par les universités australiennes, il y avait celui de Monsieur Léuli Eshraghi: Nous sommes possibles, très possibles. Vers des espaces de possibilité dans l’écriture océanienne de langue française, mémoire de maîtrise (Honours), School of Languages and Linguistics, University of Melbourne, décembre 2009, 56pp.

Cet opuscule de 56 pages comprend 51 pages de texte, une bibliographie flanquée d’appendices et d’une table des matières. Même si ce travail témoigne des maladresses d’un jeune chercheur, il se remarque par la clarté – sinon l’élégance – du style, la simplicité du propos, la correction de la langue (car les coquilles sont plutôt rares), la très bonne maîtrise du français comme de l’anglais et l’érudition de la culture océanienne postcoloniale. L’auteur, Léuli Eshraghi, propose une analyse spatiale de la littérature océanienne francophone et anglophone qu’il cantonne malheureusement à l’analyse de trois auteurs du Pacifique : Epeli Hau’ofa pour l’anthologie : We are the Ocean : Selected Works (2008), Nicolas Kurthovitch pour son roman français intitulé Good Night Friend (2006) et Marcel Melthéororong pour son récit Tôghàn (2007), trois œuvres résolument contemporaines.

Malgré les origines diverses des 3 auteurs (un Fidjien, un Caldoche et un Ni-Vanuatais), Monsieur Eshraghi parvient à trouver des correspondances entre chaque récit qui permettent de faire la lumière sur leur dimension socioculturelle. Le traitement de l’espace (urbain, rural incarné par la brousse et la vallée, insulaire et celui des institutions totalitaires) fait figure de fil d’Ariane même si l’ambition de Monsieur Eshraghi se voulait plus grande en recouvrant la dimension spatiotemporelle. Malgré le fait que cet adjectif revient comme un leitmotiv dans ses écrits, il n’en demeure pas moins que le temps n’est jamais traité de manière évidente, et ne fait l’objet d’aucune partie à part entière.

Tout bien pesé, le présent opuscule fait œuvre utile puisqu’il a le mérite de promouvoir des littératures d’émergence qui ne demandent qu’à trouver leur place au sein de la communauté que constituent les ardents défenseurs des lettres du Pacifique.

Ce travail n'est pas passé loin d'être primé par le jury THESE-PAC.

La date de la remise des prix aura lieu le 20 décembre 2011 aux Archives territoriales

LAUREATS 2011

I – JURY SANTE-SOCIAL –

-Prix Gaston Bourret

25 000 F : Foret, Janie, L’accompagnement d’un patient agité. Contention : abus ou nécessité ?, travail de fin d’études, diplôme d’Etat d’infirmier, institut de formation des professions sanitaire et sociale Valentine-Buaillon, promotion 2008-2011, 20 p. et annexes.

25 000 F : Souenon, Sandra, Rester professionnelle face à sa famille, travail de fin d’études, diplôme d’Etat d’infirmier, institut de formation des professions sanitaire et sociale Valentine-Buaillon, promotion 2008-2011, 22 p.

-Prix AIRAIN (25 000 F)

Boutin, ép. Cassez, Béatrix, La main de Sophie, entendre le cri pour qu’il devienne parole, travail de fin d’études, diplôme d’Etat d’infirmier, institut de formation des professions sanitaire et sociale Valentine-Buaillon, promotion 2008-2011, 23 p. et annexes.

-Prix Institut Pasteur Nouvelle-Calédonie (25 000 F)

Pivert, Cécile, Intoxications aux cardénolides par apocynacée (Cerbera Manghas) via la consommation de crabe de cocotier (Birgus Latro) en Nouvelle-Calédonie, thèse de doctorat en médecine, université de Rennes 1, faculté de médecine, 2010, 115 p.

II – GRAND JURY –

- Prix Nouvelle-Calédonie

Division VI du Kiwani’s club Nouvelle-Calédonie (100 000 F)

Mokaddem, Hamid, Anthropologie politique de la Nouvelle-Calédonie contemporaine, constitution et médiation des espaces publics insulaires, thèse de doctorat d’anthropologie sociale et d’ethnologie, école des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris, 2010, 693 p.

Mairie de Nouméa (25 000 F)

Bencivengo, Yann, La société le Nickel. Une entreprise au cœur de la naissance de l’industrie du nickel (1880-1914), thèse de doctorat, université Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne, 2010, trois volumes, 2016 p.

Mairie de Nouméa (15 000 F)

Fizin, Magulue, Paul, Lifou 1793-1923 : histoire des contacts entre kanak et Européens, mémoire de master d’histoire contemporaine, université de Bordeaux III « Michel de Montaigne », 2007-2008, 212 p.

- Prix Pacifique Sud

1. Prix Jean-Pierre Piérard (Lions club doyen de Nouméa, 100 000 F)

Pommès-Tissandier, Marianne, Une approche de la conservation-restauration du patrimoine kanak, mémoire de master d’art en conservation des matériaux culturels, université de Melbourne, faculté des arts, 2005, 132 p.

2. Mairie de Nouméa (25 000 F)

Dotte-Sarout, Emilie, « Le bois ancêtre ». Arbres, forêts et occupation kanak précoloniale sur la grande terre de Nouvelle-Calédonie : étude de cas et approche anthracologique dans la vallée de la Tiwaka (Nord-Est), thèse en anthropologie, ethnologie et préhistoire, université de Paris I-Sorbonne (UFR histoire de l’art)-Australian National University, 2010, 3 volumes, 447 p et annexes.

3. Mairie de Nouméa (15 000 F)

Goarant, Cyrille, Bactéries pathogènes, hôtes et environnement : une approche multifactorielle pour l’étude de la leptospirose en Nouvelle-Calédonie, mémoire pour l’obtention du diplôme d’HDR, laboratoire de recherche en bactériologie, institut Pasteur de Nouvelle-Calédonie, 2010, 81 p.

- Prix Koniambo Nickel SAS (30 000 F)

Lepauvre, Nicolas, Choix des sites pour les quais d’apports volontaires à Nouméa : une réflexion d’aménagement, mémoire de Master I aménagement et développement territorial, université de la Nouvelle-Calédonie, 2010, 62 p.

BREAKING NEWS: A new literary page for those looking for Trouble

2011-10-23T16:52:00.001-07:00

How exciting! I am delighted to announce that a new literary page has been created for those looking for TROUBLE. The November issue will reveal the intriguing profile of Christos Tsiolkas, Australia's most provocative novelist. And their is more in the forthcoming December/ January double issue. So stay in literary tune, and start looking for TROUBLE.

TROUBLE MAGAZINE is an independent monthly magazine edited by Steve Proposch (a.ka. Troublemaker) and devoted to the promotion of arts and culture. They distribute 20,000 (circulation audited) FREE copies nationally each month. TROUBLE MAGAZINE is a very popular and extremely gorgeous A6 format which is usually around 72pp.

Their latest issue can be seen in pageflip version (good for iPhones and iPads, etc.) here:

http://www.introuble.com.au/www2/PageFlip/pageflip.html

Their front page is: http://www.introuble.com.au/www2/index.php

For articles check this link: http://www.introuble.com.au/www2/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=21&Itemid=65

Call for Papers: Australian Writing of the 1960s

2011-10-19T15:11:00.000-07:00

Papers are sought for an anticipated special issue of Antipodes devoted to Australian writing from 1960 to 1973. The collection will focus on the tension between continuity and change during that period. Some possible topics include: reception of Alan Seymour’s play The One Day of the Year; the emergence of published Indigenous writing, such as Oodgeroo Noonuccal’s We Are Going; the early work of Mudrooroo; novels leading up to Patrick White’s 1973 Nobel Prize, including Riders in the Chariot, The Solid Mandala and The Vivisector; Xavier Hebert; Hal Porter; Miles Franklin Prize-winners of the 1960s such as Elizabeth O’Connor, Randolph Stow, Thea Astley, George Turner, Sumner Locke Elliott, Peter Mathers, George Johnston and Dal Stivens; the poetry of Rosemary Dobson, David Campbell, Judith Wright, Gwen Harwood, James McAuley, A. D. Hope, Peter Porter and others; early Thomas Keneally works; migrant writers such as Dimitris Tsaloumas and Manfred Jurgensen; Barry Humphries; children’s writing from Ruth Park and Colin Thiele; the impact and influence of Williamson’s Don’s Party; Michael Dransfield; and the early work of Wilding and Moorhouse. Memoirs of the 1960s, such as Richard Neville’s Hippie Hippie Shake and Sally Morgan’s My Place are also appropriate topics for discussion. The growth of Australian literature as an academic discipline during the 1960s may also be explored, as well as the rise of literary periodicals such as Quadrant and Australian Literary Studies. All Antipodes articles are refereed by multiple readers and the final submission of the article should be in MLA style. Please submit abstracts to Mark Klemens at mklemens2@gmail.com by April 15.

Book Launch: Lentil as Anything: Food, Culture, Community

2011-10-19T15:10:00.001-07:00

Ilura Press and Lentil as Anything are proud to invite you to the launch of

Lentil as Anything: Food, Culture, Community

Lentil as Anything has helped shape our cultural identity for over a decade. Now, with support from the National Australia Bank and the Australia Council for the Arts, a culturally significant publication has been created. Lentil as Anything: Food, Culture, Community provides a snapshot of the lives, struggles, and triumphs of many wonderful people, capturing the essence of community in a fascinating cultural and culinary work. It was two years in the making, and we hope you will agree that it is an exquisite production and an important social document. All profit from sales of the book will assist Lentil as Anything and its many community projects.

When: Saturday, 12 November 2011, 2-4pm
Where: Community & Linen Rooms, Abbotsford Convent
1 Saint Helier Street, Abbotsford

Hosted by Andrew Gill (MC Extraordinaire)
Launched by Debbie Mortimer SC (Chair Human Rights Committee)
Special guest speaker: Arnold Zable (renowned storyteller and author)

To print your official invitation, please click here.

RSVP by 31 October to media@ilurapress.com

If you can't make it to the launch, you can still support Lentil as Anything by purchasing a copy of the book at our online bookshop.

Special issue of JASAL: call for papers from this year's ASAL conference

2011-10-13T19:05:00.000-07:00

The organisers of the 2011 ASAL conference are calling for papers from the conference, for a special issue of the online journal JASAL, to be published in July 2012. We would like the contents of this special issue to reflect the major themes of the conference: syllabus, teaching and the classroom; print culture; literature and emotion; literary resources; colonial and other historical frameworks.

If you intend to write your presentation up as a paper for publication, please submit it via the JASAL website and we will consider it for the JASAL conference issue. JASAL is a fully refereed journal. The JASAL homepage is: http://www.nla.gov.au/openpublish/index.php/jasal. Author guidelines are available at at: http://www.nla.gov.au/openpublish/index.php/jasal/about.

Postgraduate students – please consider submitting your work for consideration for the AD Hope prize.

The deadline for submissions is 30 November 2011.

Sue Martin, Ken Gelder and Larissa McLean Davies

Book launch: memoirs of Marjorie Quinn

2011-10-13T19:03:00.000-07:00

The memoirs of Marjorie Quinn are to be launched by Professor Robert Dixon at the State Library of NSW, Mitchell Wing, in the Dixson Room on 10 December 2011, from 2 to 5 pm. The memoirs detail the lives of Marjorie, her father, P. E. Quinn, and her uncle, Roderic Quinn, all prominent writers in the early days of Sydney (see http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/quinn-roderic-joseph-8145).

RSVPs are requested by 2 December 2011. For more information or to RSVP please email kathberr@bigpond.net.au.

Call for papers: ASAL 2012 Conference: 'The Colonies’

2011-10-13T19:01:00.000-07:00

'The Colonies’
3-6 July 2012
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

Before there was Australia and New Zealand there were the colonies – NSW, Victoria, Van Diemen’s Land, Queensland, South Australia, New Zealand. Now there are competing nationalisms (including internal ones), but countless filiations continue to span the Tasman – people, language, politics, sentiment, ecology, history, art, sport and literature. Can we revisit the literary history of our two nations and uncover the ways in which the ‘Tasman World’, as James Belich terms it, continues into the twenty-first century?

The theme for the 2012 ASAL conference is inspired by Grace Karsken’s history of early Sydney, The Colony, praised for its outstanding sense of place. Is it possible to disaggregate contemporary national binaries in ways that allow us to see the many continuities as well as the divergences with which we generate our sense of place? As critical writing shifts focus and gear – to eco-criticism, transnationalism, ‘field’, curriculum and emotion – do the old postcolonial verities and paradigms become less important?

Papers are invited on any aspect of the broad theme above, including:

Colonial literature
Eco-criticism
Spatial theory
Indigenous theory and methodology
The indigenous nation
Literary history
Maoriland
Transnationalisms
City literatures
Readerships
Print cultures
Pasifika and Asian connections
Cultural cringe
Literary nationalisms
Regions and their voices
Literary economies

Abstracts of up to 150 words are welcomed. Please send to Lydia.Wevers@vuw.ac.nz by 2 March 2012.

Call for papers: Digital Humanities Australasia 2012

2011-10-13T19:00:00.000-07:00

The Australasian Association for Digital Humanities is pleased to announce its inaugural conference, to be held at the Australian National University, Canberra, 28-30 March, 2012. The conference will feature papers, panels, posters and associated workshops. We invite proposals on all aspects of digital humanities in Australia, New Zealand and internationally, and especially encourage papers showcasing new research and developments in the field and/or responding to the conference theme of ‘Building, Mapping, Connecting’.

Proposals may focus on, but need not be limited to:

- Institutionalisation, interdisciplinarity and collaboration
- Measuring and valuing digital research
- Publication and dissemination
- Research applications and interfaces for digital collections
- Designing and curating online resources
- Digital textuality and literacy
- Curriculum and pedagogy
- Culture, creativity, arts, music, performance
- Electronic critical editions
- Digitisation, text encoding and analysis
- Communities and crowdsourcing
- Infrastructure, virtual research environments, workflows
- Information mining, modelling, GIS and visualisation
- Critical reflections on digital humanities futures

Proposals are requested by 11 November 2011. Please see the conference website for more details: http://aa-dh.org/conference.

Anthem Australian Humanities Research Series

2011-10-13T18:59:00.000-07:00

Anthem Press in London have initiated a new books series, the Australian Humanities Research Series, which we hope will become an important new outlet for book publications in the field of Australian literature. The URL for the series is:

http://www.anthempress.com/index.php/subject-areas/browse-by-series/academic-and-professional-publishing/anthem-australian-humanities-research-series.html

Please visit the site and see advice on manuscript submissions.

Robert Dixon

Opinion: Read in Peace (RIP)

2011-10-08T16:59:00.000-07:00

Dedication: To Fiona.

Bilbliography: http://jean-francoisvernay.blogspot.com/

Read in Peace - reflections on writers and readers by Jean-François Vernay

In April 2011, I had the great pleasure to launch the Australian updated version of my book, The Great Australian Novel – A Panorama. I say ‘great pleasure’ because, after years of time-consuming research and intensive reading of books that I borrowed from various Australian libraries and purchased, my non fiction book has officially been acknowledged on this very special occasion. And no matter how formal it might look, a book launch is a somewhat nonchalant social event where your family, friends and supporters turn up to show their appreciation of the book and/or your personality.

For the full article, get into TROUBLE:

http://www.introuble.com.au/www2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=335&Itemid=65

A good friend of mine, Michael, responded to my article with the following hilarious and informing comment which I cannot resist sharing with you:

"All very true. I may have talked about this before but here are my thoughts about the success of an academic book held in a university library:

No star: copy in mint condition, never borrowed.

One star: borrowed once in the last five years. According to the rules of the current “cull” in the University of Sydney library, it will remain on the shelves (till the next cull).

Two stars: placed on reading list occasionally for essay, short term loan only.

Three stars: key passages underlined (and presumably copied for essays, possibly even with acknowledgment of source).

Four stars: extensive underlining, passages highlighted in colour, some pages torn out, illustrations defaced, hostile comments written against text (“wrong!” “Disagree!” “This is stupid!”).

Five stars: as with four stars, but missing pages replaced by library with photocopies from another copy.

Six stars: All copies stolen from library."

The Melbourne Salon and other events

2011-10-06T18:38:00.001-07:00

Event 1

Simon Leys/Pierre Ryckmans will be speaking at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne on Tuesday 11 October at 6.15 pm. It is a free event and bookings can be made by phoning the Wheeler Centre or online. The Wheeler Centre, http://wheelercentre.com/calendar/venue/the-wheeler-centre/, 176 Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne. Telephone enquiries: (03) 9094 7800. www.wheelercentre.com.

Simon Leys writes in French and English; one of his French novels The Death of Napoleon was translated by ISFAR committee member Patricia Clancy. Black Inc has just published his book ‘The Hall of Uselessness: Collected Essays’.

The Hall of Uselessness: Collected Essays

AUTHOR: SIMON LEYS

THE ESSENTIAL WORK OF AN EMINENT CRITIC. Simon Leys' cultural and political commentary has long been legendary for its profundity and acerbic wit. In *The Hall of Uselessness* his most significant essays are finally gathered together, on subjects ranging from China to Orwell, from Quixotism to the sea. Leys feuds with Christopher Hitchens, ponders the popularity of Victor Hugo and analyses whether Nabokov's unfinished novel should ever have been published. He dissects Mao's Cultural Revolution and the Khmer Rouge, and discusses Waugh, Simenon and Confucius. He considers Chinese art, culture and politics, the joys and difficulties of literary translation and the fate of the university.   *The Hall of Uselessness* is an illuminating compendium from a brilliant and highly acclaimed writer – a long-time resident of Australia who is truly a global citizen.

Event 2

ISFAR annual dinner and launch of Issue 50 of 'Explorations', journal of the Institute for French Australian Relations, Tuesday 25th October, Paris Grill Restaurant, Beach Street, Port Melbourne, 6.30pm. Invitations and booking information to follow soon.

Event 3

The Melbourne Salon Tuesday 8th November 7-9pm with free writing workshop from 5-7pm. See http://www.afmelbourne.asn.au/events.html#TMS . More details and booking informtaion to follow soon.

We look forward to seeing you at one or more of these events.

Curiosity is the lust of the mind (Thomas Hobbes Philosopher 1679)

The Melbourne Salon is brought to you by RMIT University, ISFAR (Institute for the Study of French-Australian Relations) and the Alliance Française de Melbourne.

The Melbourne Salon is a place where curious and open-minded people can engage in French-Australian cross-cultural dialogues. Talks are in English; subsequent discussions in French or English.

The Melbourne Salon meets 3 times a year at the Alliance Française de Melbourne, 51 Grey St., St Kilda.

Australiana

Meilleurs voeux / Best Wishes!

Le projet Patrick WHITE pour CERCLES

Voss, du roman de Patrick White au livret de David Malouf : simple adaptation ou transformation de l’imaginaire national ?

Abstract

Call for papers: Southerly 2012

Call for Papers: The Taboo Conference

Conference: Border Crossings

Call for papers: Australia’s Mediterranean Isolario:

Book Launch: Lentil as Anything: Food, Culture, Community

Vernay gets into TROUBLE once again

Call for Papers: Creative Practice as Research

Exhibition: Contempo Group Show at the Libby Edwards Galleries

Literature and Censorship: Australasian Association for Literature Conference

Literary tour: 'Such is Life: In Search of Tom Collins'

Popular Culture Association of America Conference

CREATIVE WRITING: Visions of Martin (Vaughn-) James by Richard-Warren Strong

Création: "chutes" par Richard-Warren Strong

Anne Judell wins 2011 Dobell Prize for Drawing

Entretien accordé à SBS, publié le 29/11/2011

CALL FOR PAPERS: Special issue of Asiatic

Call for Papers: special issue of the Journal of Australian Studies

Reminder: launch of the memoirs of Marjorie Quinn

Release: Latest issue of Australian Humanities Review

Exhibition: A Love Magic Coo-ee Christmas

Conference: Researching the Other, Transfers of Self. Ego-Histoire, Europe and Indigenous Australia

December 8th, 2011, Institut Galilée, amphi D

December 9th, 2011, Institut Galilée, amphi Euler

Submissions for Prosopisia

Release: A Frog in the Billabong by Marie-Paule LEROUX

Article: Projections and Utopianism in Contemporary Australian Fiction

Works Cited

Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. Vol I: Inferno, Victoria: Penguin, 1984.

Albinski, Nan Bowman. “A Survey of Australian Utopian and Dystopian Fiction,” Australian Literary Studies 13.1, 1987, 15-28.

-------------------------------. “Visions of the Nineties,” Journal of Australian Studies 20, 1987, 12-22.

Carey, Peter. The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith, St Lucia: UQP, 1994.

Cioran, Emile. Histoire et utopie, Paris: Gallimard, 1960.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan, New York: Vintage Books, 1995.

Freud, Sigmund. The Problem of Anxiety, trans. Henry Alden Bunker, New York: The Psychoanalytic Quarterly Press / Norton & Company, 1936.

Frye, Northrop. “Varieties of Literary Utopias,” Utopia and Utopian Thought, ed. Frank E. Manuel, Boston: Beacon Press, 1965: 25-49.

Hall, Rodney. The Last Love Story, Sydney: Picador, 2004.

Healy, John. “The Lemurian Nineties,” Australian Literary Studies 8.3, 1978, 307-16.

Ikin, Van. “Dreams, Visions, Utopias,” Australian Literary Studies 13.4, 1988, 253-66.

Jameson, Fredric. “Politics of Utopia,” New Left Review 25, Jan. / Feb. 2005, 35-54.

Koch, Christopher. Out of Ireland, Sydney: Random House, 1999.

Malouf, David. A Spirit of Play: The Making of Australian Consciousness, Sydney: ABC Books, 1998.

Manuel, Frank. “Introduction,” Utopia and Utopian Thought, ed. Frank E. Manuel. Boston: Beacon Press, 1965: vii-xxiv.

--------------------. “Toward a Psychological History of Utopias,” Utopia and Utopian Thought, ed. Frank E. Manuel. Boston: Beacon Press, 1965: 69-98.

Marouby, Christian, Utopie et primitivisme. Essai sur l'imaginaire anthropologique à l'âge classique. Paris: Seuil, 1990.

More, Thomas. Utopia, New York / London: WW Norton & Company, 1992.

Murnane, Gerald. The Plains, Michigan: New Issues Press, 2003.

Nuzzo, Enrico. “Le double statut de l'insularité: l'île entre imaginaire et réalité dans la littérature de l'utopie anglaise du XVIIème siècle,” L'insularité. Thématique et représentations, eds. Jean-Claude Marimoutou & Jean-Marie Racault, Paris: L'Harmattan, 1995: 127-34.

Pordzik, Ralph. The Quest for Postcolonial Utopia: A Comparative Introduction to the Utopian Novel in the New English Literatures. New York: Peter Lang, 2001.

Tillich, Paul. “Critique and Justification of Utopia,” Utopia and Utopian Thought, ed. Frank E. Manuel, Boston: Beacon Press, 1965: 296-309.

Vernay, Jean-François. Water From the Moon: Illusion and Reality in the Works of Australian Novelist Christopher Koch, New York: Cambria Press, 2007.

Walton, Robyn. “Utopian and Dystopian Impulses in Australia,” Overland 173, 2003, 5-20.

Whitlock, Gillian. “From Eutopia to Dystopia,” The Time to Write: Australian Women Writers 1890-1930, ed. Kay Ferres, Ringwood: Penguin, 1993, 162-82.

[2] See also Sigmund Freud. The Schreber Case. Trans. Colin McCabe, Ringwood: Penguin Books, 2003. Freud’s view of paranoia as a defence against homosexual drives following his analysis of Schreber’s case has fallen into disrepute with the Neo-Freudians. We will thus disregard this lead.

[3] The omnipotence fallacy mainly accrues from the possibility of re-shaping things thanks to the potential expressed through fiction writing. In other narratives, it might take the form of an attempt to give History a new course.

Literary Project Update

Introducing the Art of Nora Wompi

Release: Transnational Literature 4:1

Volume 4, Issue 1 November 2011

CALL FOR PAPERS: PATRICK WHITE’S CENTENARY

Call for papers: Violence Studies Conference 2012

Conference: After Homosexual: The Legacies of Gay Liberation

An International Conference Hosted and funded by the Gender, Sexuality and Diversity programat La Trobe University in conjunction with the Australian Lesbian & Gay Archives, Midsumma and Victoria University.

Register now:

Date and Location

Keynote Speakers

About the conference

Further information

Who’s afraid of Christos Tsiolkas? (Trouble Magazine)

Public Lecture: 'In the aftermath of Empire: performances of indigenous re-empowerment in Aotearoa New Zealand'

Symposium: 'Conflict and Conciliation Across Empires: Objects and Performances in Historical Perspective'

Australian Women's and Gender Studies Association PhD award

EXCELLENCE AWARD 2012 : CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

XXIIIe CONCOURS THESE-PAC

I – JURY SANTE-SOCIAL –

BREAKING NEWS: A new literary page for those looking for Trouble

Volume 4, Issue 1
November 2011

An International Conference Hosted and funded by the Gender, Sexuality and Diversity program
at La Trobe University in conjunction with the Australian Lesbian & Gay Archives, Midsumma and Victoria University.