Reading the Country: 30 Years On Philip Morrissey and Chris Healy (eds) CSR Books Reading the Country: 30 Years On CSR Books CSR Books is a book series initiated by the journal Cultural Studies Review, and published as an e-book by UTS e-Press with print-on-demand paperbacks also available. The series has two aims: to bring new work in the broadly conceived field of cultural studies to both current readers and new audiences, and to revisit themes or concerns that have preoccupied Cultural Studies Review since its inception. The general editors of CSR Books are Chris Healy, Katrina Schlunke and Lee Wallace, guided and advised by CSR’s distinguished editorial board. We hope CSR Books will be an enduring adventure that will demonstrate the energy and creativity of cultural research and analysis, and the utility of what ‘the book’ is becoming. Keep in touch with both the journal and the books: <http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/ journals> or on twitter @CSReview1995. Cultural Studies Review and CSR Books are supported by School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne and Faculty of Law, University of Technology, Sydney. CSR Books, no. 3 CSR Books is an imprint of Cultural Studies Review General Editors: Chris Healy, Katrina Schlunke and Lee Wallace Managing Editor: Ann Standish Series design: Brad Haylock (RMIT University) Reading the Country: 30 Years On Philip Morrissey and Chris Healy (eds) UTS ePRESS University of Technology Sydney Broadway NSW 2007 AUSTRALIA epress.lib.uts.edu.au Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this publication contains images or names of deceased persons. Copyright Information This book is copyright. The work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- Non Commercial-Non Derivatives License CC BY-NC-ND http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 First Published 2018 © 2018 the authors of each work in this collection. 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Contents Figures 8 Acknowledgements 9 Introduction 11 Philip Morrissey I: Revisiting the Text and its Production 1 How Many Countries? 21 Stephen Muecke 2 Re-reading Reading the Country 41 John Frow 3 A Ute, Not a Land Cruiser: Publishing 44 Reading the Country Ray Coffey 4 Unsettled Objects: Books, Cultural Politics, and 58 the Case of Reading the Country Mark Davis 5 Poems 68 Stuart Cooke Lurujarri: a poem by foot Extracts from George Dyuŋgayan’s Bulu Line: A West Kimberley Song Cycle II: Reading the Country and Education 6 In Praise of Experimental Institutions: 91 After May 1968 Meaghan Morris 5 7 The Muecke/Roe Relationship as a Model for 102 Australian Indigenous Studies Philip Morrissey 8 Re-writing the University with ‘Reading the Country’ 113 Katrina Schlunke 9 A Casual Reading of the Corporate University 127 Terrence Twomey 10 On Education Unbound from its Knowledge 134 A.J. Bartlett 11 A Letter from Copernicus the Cat to Chris Marker 148 Lauren Bliss 12 Poems 153 Bonny Cassidy The Day After Reading that Book Destiny Inland III: Reading the Country as a Model for Reading 13 Reading the Country after Travelling Television 159 Chris Healy 14 Thirty Years On: Reading the Country and 170 Indigenous Homeliness Ken Gelder 15 Nomadology, the Nomad, the Concept 184 Jon Roffe 16 Spatial Reading, Territorial Signs, 193 and the Clamour of Occupation Timothy Laurie and Peter Nyhuis Torres 6 17 Reading Transhistorical Performances: 209 No Sugar (1984), Holy Day (2001) and Ngurrumilmarrmiriyu [Wrong Skin] (2012) Denise Varney 18 Poems 220 Michael Farrell C.O.U.N.T.R.Y Some Problems with the Page as Terra Nullius What the Land IV: Rewriting Country 19 Nyikina Collaborative Filmmaking in the Kimberley: 229 ‘Learning to Listen with Your Eyes, and See with Your Ears’ Magali McDuffie and Anne Poelina 20 Re-reading Country: A Settler Genealogy of Place 239 Kate Leah Rendell 21 Reading Resistant Landscapes in Ngarrindjeri 254 Country: The Photographic Legacy of Aunty Charlotte Richards Karen Hughes V Epilogue 22 Colours 275 Tony Birch Contributors 281 7 Figures Figure 1.1: Mick Taussig, 2013 Figure 1.2: Teresa Roe with Stephen Muecke, 2013 Figure 19.1: Chronology of a dialogue —stage 1 Figure 19.2: Chronology of a dialogue —stage 2 Figure 19.3: The filmmaking process Figure 19.4: Chronology of a dialogue —stage 3 Figure 19.5: The Nyikina film process Figure 21.1: Joseph Trevorrow holding his son Tom Trevorrow with Joe Trevorrow Jnr, 1954 Figure 21.2: Irene and Charlotte Richards, 1940s Figure 21.3: Rear: Isabel Koolmatrie (Auntie Belle) and Irene Richards; seated: Joe Walker Jnr (Uncle Poonthie), taken at the Meningie One Mile Fringe Camp, late 1940s Figure 21.4: Walter (Nulla) and Ruby Richards, Joe Walker jnr (Uncle Poonthie) talking to an Aboriginal man from Victoria, late 1940s Figure 21.5: Group of Ngarrindjeri men, including Joseph Trevorrow, far right and Robert Day, second from left with double exposed car at the Meningie One Mile Camp, 1950s Figure 21.6: Car belonging to Charlotte Richards, in which she travelled with her partner and animals in trail, and in which her photographs were meticulously stored Figure 21.7: Joyce Kerswell, early 1950s Figure 21.8: Thora Lampard, taken at Victor Harbour in the 1950s Figure 21.9: Aunty Charlotte Richards and Uncle Jim Davis with extended family members; photographer and location unknown 8 Acknowledgements Thanks to all those involved in making the festival happen and in making this book possible: in particular, to Stephen Muecke and all participants and contributors; to Kate Leah Rendell, Peter Nyhuis Torres, Maddee Clark and Marion Campbell for their work on the festival. Krim Benterakk was unable to participate directly in this project, but we are grateful for his support and for his art. Ann Standish and Michelle Allan managed the editorial processes with great professionalism. We would like to acknowledge the Wurundjeri and Boonwurung peoples of the Kulin nation as the traditional owners of the land on which the festival took place and the book was prepared, and pay respects to their Elders past and present; and I especially thank all Indigenous participants in the festival and the book, with profound thanks to Mr Lance Briggs. We also acknowledge and pay respects to the Goolarabaloo and Nyikina peoples of the Kimberley, whose country and its Custodians have inspired our work. Tony Birch’s story ‘Colours’ originally appeared in Common People, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 2017. Bonny Cassidy’s poems ‘Inland’ and ‘Destiny’ appear in Bonny Cassidy, Chatelaine, Giramondo Publishing, Sydney, 2017. Stuart Cooke’s George Dyuŋgayan’s Bulu Line: A West Kimberley Song Cycle was published by Puncher and Wattmann, Sydney, 2014 and ‘Lurujarri: a poem by foot’ appears in Stuart Cook, Opera, Five Islands Press, Melbourne, 2016 Michael Farrell’s poems, ‘C.O.U.N.T.R.Y’, ‘Some Problems with the Page as Terra Nullius’ and ‘What the Land’ are appear in Michael Farrell, I Love Poetry, Giramondo Publishing, Sydney, 2017. Ken Gelder’s essay ‘Thirty Years On: Reading the Country and Indigenous Homeliness’ was previously published in Australian Humanities Review, no. 58, May 2015. We would like to thank the publishers for their kind permission to reprint these works here. 9 10 Introduction Philip Morrissey In October 2014 a three-day festival was held at the University of Melbourne to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of Reading the Country: An Introduction to Nomadology. The Benterrak, Muecke and Roe text, published in 1984, remains a high point in Australian publishing and intellectual life: the festival aimed to revisit and recapture the intellectual radicalism and political energy of that time. For three days we established a Temporary Autonomous Zone, turning time into space—a space to think—replacing deceit, pomposity and policies with respect for traditional owners, elders and the learned, with intergenerational concern, autonomy, community and joy. Festival participants came from diverse fields such as philosophy, anthropology, publishing, English, theatre and cultural studies, and included both established and emerging scholars. We offered hospitality to undergraduate students and members of the general community, whose participation was facilitated by not charging any conference fees. The event featured a range of forms—academic papers, discussion forums, film, performance, poetry, music—and actively encouraged the engagement of all participants, not just the formal presenters. Together we discussed the multi-faceted experimental aspects of Reading the Country, and reread it in light of changes in Australian society and universities, and contemporary developments in critical theory and reading methods. Elements of play, music, theatre and food were self- consciously used to disrupt conventional conference proce- dures and create the spirit of the sensorium. This was both a reflection of the intellectual and aesthetic openness of the original project and an implicit critique of the careerism, lack 11 READING THE COUNTRY: 30 YEARS ON of imagination and petty competitiveness often associated with western academic conferences.