Teaching Australian and New Zealand Literature

by Nicholas Birns (Editor), Nicole Moore (Editor), Sarah Shieff (Editor)

Overview

Australia and New Zealand, united geographically by their location in the South Pacific and linguistically by their English-speaking inhabitants, share the strong bond of hope for cultural diversity and social equality--one often challenged by history, starting with the appropriation of land from their Indigenous peoples. This volume explores significant themes and topics in Australian and New Zealand literature. In their introduction, the editors address both the commonalities and differences between the two nations' literatures by considering literary and historical contexts and by making nuanced connections between the global and the local. Contributors share their experiences teaching literature on the iconic landscape and ecological fragility; stories and perspectives of convicts, migrants, and refugees; and Maori and Aboriginal texts, which add much to the transnational turn.

This volume presents a wide array of writers--such as Patrick White, Janet Frame, Katherine Mansfield, Frank Sargeson, Witi Ihimaera, Christina Stead, Allen Curnow, David Malouf, Les Murray, Nam Le, Miles Franklin, Kim Scott, and Sally Morgan--and offers pedagogical tools for teachers to consider issues that include colonial and racial violence, performance traditions, and the role of language and translation. Concluding with a list of resources, this volume serves to support new and experienced instructors alike.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781603292894
Publisher:	Modern Language Association
Publication date:	05/01/2017
Series:	Options for Teaching , #40
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	329
File size:	651 KB

About the Author

Nicholas Birns is the author of Contemporary Australian Literature: A World Not Yet Dead (2015), Theory after Theory (2010), and Barbarian Memory (2013); the editor of Willa Cather: Critical Insights (2011); and the coeditor of A Companion to Australian Literature since 1990 (2007). He edits Antipodes: A Global Journal of Australian / NZ Literature.

Nicole Moore is Australian Research Council Future Fellow and professor in English at the University of New South Wales, Canberra. She is the author of The Censor's Library (2012), a coeditor of the Norton anthology The Literature of Australia (2009), and editor of the collection Censorship and the Limits of the Literary: A Global View (2015).

Sarah Shieff is associate professor of English at the University of Waikato. Her main teaching and research interests are New Zealand literature and cultural history, gothic fiction, the literature of trauma, and food writing. She edited Letters of Frank Sargeson (2012) and the Journal of New Zealand Literature, 2005-15. She is currently preparing an edition of the letters of Denis Glover.

Table of Contents

Introduction Nicholas Birns Nicole Moore Sarah Shieff 1

Part I Histories and Contexts

Relocating Literary Sensibility: Colonial Australian Print Culture in the Digital Age Nicholas Birns Nicole Moore 15

The Making and Unmaking of New Zealand Anna Boswell 29

Bush Legends and Pastoral Landscapes David Carter 42

Teaching International Postcolonialism: Witi Ihimaera and the Familiarity of Family Melissa Kennedy 55

"Terror Nullius": Contemporary Australian Frontier Fictions in the Classroom Russell West-Pavlov 67

Teaching Australian Multicultural Literature Wenche Ommundsen 77

Part II Frequently Taught Authors

Katherine Mansfield Is the Problem Lydia Wevers 89

Frank Sargeson and "The Right Colonial Tradition" Sarah Shieff 101

Christina Stead: Portraits of the Author as a Young Woman Susan Sheridan 111

Blood and Water: Teaching Allen Curnow Alex Calder 122

Identity, Perversity, and Literary Subjectivity: Teaching Patrick White's The Twyborn Affair Elizabeth McMahon 133

An Australian Hybridity of Dialect and Didactics in Les Murray's Subhuman Redneck Poems Rod McRae 145

Relearning Whiteness: David Malouf's Remembering Babylon Tanya Dalziell 155

Troubling Language: Storytelling and Sovereignty in Kim Scott's Benang Hilary Emmett 165

Part III Global Connections

Indigenous Juxtapositions: Teaching Maori and Aboriginal Texts in Global Contexts Chadwick Allen 179

Literature, Literary Ethics, and the Global Contexts of Australian Literature: Teaching Nam Le's The Boat Brigitta Olubas 190

Teaching Kate Grenville's The Secret River in the United States: A Study Maggie Nolan Rebecca Weaver-Hightower 199

Sally Morgan's My Place: From the National to the Transnational Rosanne Kennedy 210

Liberating Australian Literature: Teaching from the Postnational Space Claire Jones 223

Part IV Course Models

Aboriginal Literature in the Classroom Jeanine Leane 237

Carrying the Voice 247

Bridget Orr

Reading Gender: Teaching Miles Franklin's My Brilliant Career Julieanne Lamond 259

Teaching Janet Frame's An Angel at My Table in a Life-Writing Course Claire Bazin 270

Threshold Moments: Teaching the New Zealand Adolescent Novel Claudia Marquis 281

Criminal Pursuits: Teaching Crime Fiction from New Zealand and Australia Roger Nicholson 291

Part V Resources

Databases and Electronic Resources 305

Blogs 307

Bibliographies and Dictionaries 308

Literary Journals 308

Anthologies 310

General Studies and Histories 312

Film and Multimedia 317

Notes on Contributors 319

Index 323

Editorial Reviews

"This volume provides resources and contexts for teaching Australian and New Zealand literatures for those increasingly worlded literature classrooms outside Australia and New Zealand." —Philip Mead, University of Western Australia

From the Publisher