Un-Australian Fictions: Nation, Multiculture(Alism) and Globalisation 1988-2008
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Un-Australian Fictions: Nation, Multiculture(alism) and Globalisation 1988-2008 by Eleni Pavlides B.A. (Hons) Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Western Australia School of Social and Cultural Studies 2011 THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA DECLARATION FOR THESES CONTAINING PUBLISHED WORK AND/OR WORK PREPARED FOR PUBLICATION The examination of the thesis is an examination of the work of the student. The work must have been substantially conducted by the student during enrolment in the degree. Where the thesis includes work to which others have contributed, the thesis must include a statement that makes the student's contribution clear to the examiners. This may be in the form of a description of the precise contribution of the student to the work presented for examination and/or a statement of the percentage of the work that was done by the student In addition, in the case of co-authored publications included in the thesis, each author must give their signed permission for the work to be included. If signatures from all the authors cannot be obtained, the statement detailing the student's contribution to the work must be signed by the coordinating supervisor. Please sign one of the statements below 1. This thesis does not contain work that I have published, nor work under review for publication. Student Signature .............................................................................................................................................. 2. This thesis contains only sole-authored work, some of which has been published and/or prepared for publication under sole authorship. The bibliographical details of the work and where it appears in the thesis are outlined below. a. "Do People Make History?" Oxford E-Book: Representation, Expression and Identity: Interdisciplinary Perspectives from the 2nd Global Conference on Multiculturalism, Conflict and Belonging. Web. <http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/ publishing/id-press/ebooks/representation-expression-and-identity/>. This publication is a compilation of work from my thesis Introduction and Chapter 2. b. "The Un-Australian condition" Transnational Literatures. Web. <http://fhrc.flinders.edu.au/transnational/vol2_issue1.html>. This publication is a compilation of work drawn from the Preface and the Introduction to this thesis. c. "Edith and Helen: Reading Nation In The 90s" The Journal of Australian Writers & Writing. Web. <http://www.australianliterarycompendium.com/journal/journal.html>. This publication is work drawn from Chapter 3 of this thesis. d. "Back to the Future in Dead Europe" Social Alternatives: Special Issue Dystopias and Utopias 28.3 (2009): 39-41. Print. This publication is work drawn from Chapter 5 of this thesis. Student Signature 3. This thesis contains published work and/or work prepared for publication, some of which has been co-authored. The bibliographical details of the work and where it appears in the thesis are outlined below. The student must attach to this declaration a statement for each publication that clarifies the contribution of the student to the work. This may be in the form of a description of the precise contributions of the student to the published work and/or a statement of percent contribution by the student. This statement must be signed by all authors. If signatures from all the authors cannot be obtained, the statement detailing the student's contribution to the published work must be signed by the coordinating supervisor. Student Signature ................................................................................................................................................ Coordinating Supervisor Signature ....................................................................................................................... i Abstract This thesis sets out to analyse a subset of contemporary Australian literary fictions published between 1988-2008: a period which is referred to as a ―coming of age‖ for Australia. During these twenty years the country moved on from the bicentennial celebrations of British settlement and into a new millennium. Such progress occurred during sober and unsettling times, when a new transnational era meant that the relationships of territory to borders, as well as the association between space and capital were being realigned. Already accorded the status of national obsession, issues of national identity, were vigorously contested. Concepts such as nation, multiculturalism and globalisation became topics for heated discussion in the public sphere. These words were appropriated by interest groups throughout this period to put forward their claims as to what constituted ―real‖ national belonging. Therefore, from 1988 onwards to name who someone was, as well as what he/she represented as being Australian became a mounting problem of definition. Australia‘s literary communities were not immune or isolated from the ongoing discussions in the wider public sphere. All the texts read in this thesis have already been recognised for their literary merit. Consequently, this thesis sought to read for literary value whilst also recognising the textual politics of race, class, gender and colonisation—that are inherent in the unique literary worlds created by these various contemporary Australian authors. To that end, a subset of ―un-Australian fictions‖ was created. This subset represents the challenges and breachings which these texts, in their own unique way, bought to Australian myths of nation: traditions such as masculism; a bush ethos; the pre- eminence of white colonial settlement; connectedness to an imaginative European geography; as well as an unbreakable tie to Britain. As un-Australian fictions, these texts reflect the destabilisation of what were once certain, spatial and psychic borders and orders of Australianness. They affect as well as reflect, the wider conversation that continues today about what being Australian means in a new millennium. In discussing these un-Australian fictions, I seek to interweave two disparate discourses: the nation‘s political and social discourse i.e. the public realm and the subjective, private and fictionalized discourse in the world of the author. Both nationally and internationally, during a time of escalating fear and conservatism, Australian literature through its un- ii Australian fictions reclaimed and legitimated many and diverse ways of being Australian. This thesis has been written with the hope of acknowledging this fact. iii Contents Preface The Un-Australian Condition 2 Chapter One Introduction 9 PART 1: Post-war Migrations and Negotiations Chapter Two Multicultural Texts in the 1990s: The Sound of One Hand Clapping and Romulus, My Father 39 Chapter Three Reading Nation in the 1990s: Edith Campbell Berry and Helen Demidenko 66 PART 2: Queer and European Journeys Chapter Four The Queer and European Journey of Robert Dessaix and Night Letters 83 Chapter Five The Queer and European Journey of Christos Tsiolkas and Dead Europe 110 PART 3: Unsettled Histories and Unstable Geographies Chapter Six Burdened by History: Alexis Wright 134 Chapter Seven Re-siting the Yellow Lady: Simone Lazaroo and Hsu-Ming Teo 166 Conclusion 193 Endnotes 197 Works Cited 205 iv Illustrations Figure 1. Eleni—my paternal grandmother 1 Figure 2. ―Flagheads‖ —from boatpeople.org.au 7 Figure 3. Pauline Hanson poster 8 Figure 4. Photograph of the ―real‖ Romulus 37 Figure 5. Dust jacket for Nick Drake‘s screenplay Romulus, My Father 38 Figure 6. Helen Darville/Demidenko/Dale 64 Figure 7. Darville/Demidenko (not yet Dale) as pictured for the front cover of Andrew Riemer‘s book The Demidenko Debate 65 Figure 8. Robert Dessaix 81 Figure 9. Robert Dessaix 82 Figure 10. Dust Jacket for Dead Europe 108 Figure 11. Christos Tsiolkas 109 Figures 12-18. Stills from the film Der Ewige Jude 119-120 Figure 19. Alexis Wright 133 Figure 20. Simone Lazaroo 164 Figure 21. Hsu-Ming Teo 165 v Acknowledgements First of all I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor Philip Mead. I am very grateful for his intellectual mentorship. He has gently guided this research project and my scholarship in a process of steady growth and evolving intellectual maturity. He has always encouraged me to think independently whilst alerting me to the rigour of scholarly demands. It has been my great privilege and pleasure to work with him. I would like to thank my supervisor Professor Tanya Dalziell, who although she came late to this project, energetically committed to the work. I would also like to thank my previous supervisor Dr Jenna Mead, who has maintained an encouraging interest in my progress from undergraduate to PhD candidate. Dr Mead is an exceptional teacher. Without her demanding and inspiring teaching, I doubt that I would have attained the skills I needed to bring to this endeavour. I am also very grateful for the mentoring, support and friendship that has been extended to me by Dr Lucy Tatman and Professor Wayne Hudson, both from the Philosophy Department of UTAS. I thank Professor Peter Frapell, Dean of Graduate Studies UTAS for assisting and smoothing the way for my candidature. I also thank Doug McGinn and Vanessa Folvig for their advice and goodwill and Dr Jessica Raschke for the generous sharing of her research. During this research project, I have received encouragement, friendship and support from post graduates and staff, both general and academic at UTAS and UWA. Too many to name individually, I thank everyone concerned