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Conference Notes

Last updated Aug 6, 2023 Edit Source

# Brenda Matthews

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-27/last-daughter-film-brenda-matthews-story-stolen-generation/102267702

1973 - age 2, 6 siblings taken from parents, taken into foster system without cause

child welfare $\implies$ separated her from her now white family, with her new Indigeous Australian parents

on a journey to mend the wounds

asked mother

$\implies$ before separation, ordinary indigenous australian family, i.e. small family unit, father was a pastor

22nd February 1973 $\implies$ neglected parents neglected children

$\implies$ facadical nature of the dolls - coping with loss

# important things

# qna summary

# claire james aussie lit and maps

This map attempts to represent the language, social or nation groups of Aboriginal Australia. it shows only the general locations of larger groupings of people which may include clans, dialects or indivdual langauges in a group. It used published resources from the eighteenths century - 1994 and is not intended to be exact, nor the boundaries fixed.

From 1570.

Ideas of European exploration prevalent at the time.

We place ourselves on top of history $\implies$ history is our bedrock

# aussie historical fiction

# What is historical fiction?

Historical fiction is a literary genre where the story takes place in the past. Historical novels capture the details of the time period as accurately as possible for authenticity, including social norms, manners, customs, and traditions. Many novels in this genre tell fictional stories that involve actual historical figures or events.

Makes an attempt at being historical accurate, despite the narrative being shaped, formed, partially imaginary. $\implies$ still want to be authentic but uses imagination

# Limits of the genre

“To be deemed historical (in our sense), a novel must have been written at least fifty years after the events described ,or have been written by someone who was not alive at the time of those events (who therefore approaches them only by research)”- Historical novel society

“We also consider the following styles of novel to be historical fiction for our purposes”:

# Historical Fiction: is it a paradox?

5 Common Elements of Historical Fiction (taken from masterclass.com)

For a successful historical fiction, all these things should be accurate to the period! $\implies$ we want to put ourselves in the perspective of the characters we are trying to convey - how do they see conflict for example

# Are literature and history as antagonists?

# Mantel’s BBC Reith Lectures 2017: Lecture 4 “Can These Bones Live”

“In the Old Testament, God asked the prophet Ezekiel, ‘Can these bones live?’ He answered yes: and so do I. The task of historical fiction is to take the past outof the archive and relocate it in a body.”

# A dialogue with the past

Most historical fiction is, I like to think, in dialogue with the past.

# A story of Australia

# Colonial Australia

1788-1901

# Self-definition: redifining identity and a new nation

# Some traditional/dominant Australian identities and literary archetypes

At this time, no black vs white binary

Are there stories missing?

# Emerging Themes

# Untitled powerpoint slide

Genre texts essentialy ask the audience, “Do you still want to believe this?” Popularity is the audience answering, “Yes”. Change in genres occurs when theaudience says, “That’s too infantile a form of what we believe. Show us something more complicated.” Leo Braudy, The World in a Frame, 1977

# How do they change? What becomes the method of complication?

# Contextual Complexity

# Australian Historical Fiction

# Cloudstreet and Realism

insert Tim Winton, p.1

“Back in time”(35-36)

# Examples of magic realism in aus lit

# The rapper (Marksman Lloyd)

Different way of expressing ones self from a literature perspective

Subverting social/family expectations - back then, rapping was cringe (still is today)

My g got jumped

Eshays cant take a joke

# Ruby-Jean Hindley

Indigenous perspectives across literature.

# Presentation Thesis

What I would like you all to consider:

What I would like you all to gain from this presentation:

# Your presenter today

# Acknowledgements of Country

  1. Why do we have acknowledgements of country?
  2. What is the difference between a welcome to country and an acknowledgement of country?
    • Welcome to country can only be done by an elder.
  3. Why is it important to have a welcome to country?
    • Accept and acknowledge elders $\implies$ give them the right to welcome to country
    • i.e. you wouldn’t like your neighbours inviting someone random to your house.

We say Indigenous language groups (not tribes etc.)

# The coloniser’s perspective

# The Indigenous Perspective

The Stolen Generation (approx. 1890-1970)

“I have no identity, really.” - Cynthia Sariago (daughter of a stolen women)

“We never heard the words ‘I love you’, so we never learned to say them to our family… or feel them. We became empty vessels, out of touch with our feelings.” - Sharyn Egan

“My mother did not bond with her mother and I did not bond with mine.” - Barbara Cummings

“I was hurting and had found no way of safely healing the pain… I couldn’t see any hope in the future.” - Joy Makepeace, taken aged less than 1 yr old.

# The first indication of civilisation?

Dr. Margaret Mead (1901-1978), Cultural Anthropologist

When asked about the first sign of Human civilisation she answered: “A 15,000 year old healed femur.”

A healed femur bone showed:

The assumption made is that the first sign of civilisation was compassion/selflessness, considering your own survival as a secondary priority.

# The first indication of humanity

Lake Mungo remains

This showed:

# Song lines (indigenous cultural element)

What are song lines?

“The Song lines shouldn’t be just an anthropological footnote, but a part of Australian history as it is taught in schools. To tell the real story of this continent, you’ve got to have both histories. They are held in different ways, told in different ways, but are essentially complementary. To really belong to this place, you ….. (too fast)”

Question: why?

Why is one more important, when they are essentially the same story? Why don’t we lift Indigenous stories to the same level?

# Another song line

# No Sugar

Set during the Great Depression, post-colonial Northam, WA, Moore River Native Settlement and Perth.

Follows the story of the Millimurra (an Aborigial Australian family) and their struggle for survival.

Act 2, Scene 6: The Corroboree Scene

Question: How jarring is it for a white audience to watch a Corroboree? To listen to a foreign language?

No sugar extract

# Samuel Wagan Watson - Poetry

# Hotel Bone

“Iraqi, Indonesian, Sri Lankan and one crazy Aboriginal … who lives with a typewriter but not with the brevity of a visa on my head; no, my longevity was guaranteed before I was born in the 1967 referendum the freedom to practice the voodoo of semantics”

“a haven from Saddam, Suharto, the Tamil Tigers and One Nation”

# A One Ended Boomerang

“… I am a pencil that cannot sharpen, ink that slides off paper, outside of our time,

I am lost, a one ended boomerang.”

# Jekyll and Hyde

# Hedda Gabler

# Ellis’ PC talk

(i love personal computer theory fr)

Postcolonialism deals with effects of colonisation on cultures and societies.

Definition: Similar to cultural studies and assumes unique view on politics. Literature produced by colonial powers, and by those who were colonised. Looks at issues of power, econs, pols, religion, and culture and how these elements work in relation to colonial hegemony.

How to use:

Introduction: briefly introduce some theoretical framework.

OR Start of first body paragraph…succinct, abridged explanation, postcolonialism characteristics and use to signpost ideas & rest of response.

Ideology: Set of beliefs/characteristics of a group of individuals -> broken down into values/attitudes/beliefs.

Discourse: Describe communication, conversation and how language used in terminology used in particular field of study.

Traits become naturalised…continual reinforcement.

# Postcolonial Reading

Colonial policies: Assimilation policy, undermined Indigenous identity and culture, justified dispossession of Indigenous people & removal of Indigenous children.

Assimilation policies embedded in misplaced settler notion of Australia as Terra nullius” a blank page, unpeopled, un-cultured wasteland…self-legitimising fiction.

Maintaining peaceful and friendly relations with the native inhabitants – Indigenous Australians defined to be British subjects & subject to British law.

Since 1788, colonial attitudes; punitive reprisals, expeditions, martial law – massacres and genocides, convictions and executions under British law (Tasmania), various government protection policies of assimilation & segregation, legislative controls and enforced regulation the “assimilation policy” disregard of Indigenous rights and interests, deaths in police custody.

Conventional subject-matter/themes

Samuel Wagan Watson