Handbook : Unit informationEdith Cowan University

Faculty of Education and Arts

School: Communications and Arts

This unit information may be updated and amended immediately prior to semester. To ensure you have the correct outline, please check it again at the beginning of semester.

• Unit Title

  Australian Fiction

• Unit Code

  ENG3165

• Year

  2015

• Enrolment Period

  1

• Version

  1

• Credit Points

  15

• Full Year Unit

  N

• Mode of Delivery

  On Campus
  Online

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Description

The exploration and settlement of new lands inspire exciting and moving narratives that develop into a national literature, cross-culturally spanning indigenous and settler writing. Students interrogate and research the concept of and generation of ideas in Australian fiction and the striking elements that define it, both from the perspective of the settlers and from the indigenous people. A range of long and short fiction is examined from the nineteenth-century writers who were predominantly Anglo-Celtic through increasing numbers of writers from Europe and indigenous cultures in the twentieth century to twenty-first century writers from a multitude of lands, including the African and Indian continents as well as the Asian region. Students test a range of critical and theoretical approaches in their own cross-cultural and international analyses of Australian fiction, since our students, too, bring to both the reading and writing of Australian fiction the fresh eyes of new generations of indigenes, settlers and migrants.

Equivalent Rule

Unit was previously coded ENG3052

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this unit students should be able to:

1. Analyse the notion of a changing national identity as represented in Australian fiction.
2. Articulate dominant themes in Australian fiction.
3. Discuss the changing life experiences, ideas and challenges described and communicated by Australian writers, cross-culturally and internationally, from the nineteenth century through to the twenty-first century.
4. Identify the features that define Australian fiction as a distinctive national literature.

Unit Content

1. Concepts of, and the generation of ideas in, a changing national identity.
2. Literary and cross-cultural features of Australian fiction.
3. Notion itself of a national literature.
4. Short and long Australian fiction, including indigenous and cross-cultural, from the nineteenth century through to the twenty-first century.

Additional Learning Experience Information

Seminars, individual research.

Assessment

GS1 GRADING SCHEMA 1 Used for standard coursework units

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant Board of Examiners.

Text References

• ^ Carey, P. (1997). Jack Maggs. St Lucia, QLD: Queensland University Press.
• ^ Pilkingdon, D. (1996). Follow the rabbit proof fence. St Lucia, QLD: University of Queensland Press.
• ^ Franklin, M. (1901). My brilliant career. London, UK: Virago.
• ^ Malouf, D. (1994). Remembering Babylon. NSW, Australia: Chatto & Windus.
• ^ Lazaroo, S. (2006). The travel writer. Sydney, NSW: Pan Macmillan.
• ^ Lawson, J. (2000). Selected stories. Sydney, NSW: A&R Classics.
• ^ Scott, K. (2011). The deadman dance, Sydney: Picador.
• ^ White, P. (1957). Voss. London, UK: Eyre and Spottiswoode.
• ^ Whaten, J. (1952). Alien son. Chippendale, NSW; Pan Macmillan.
• ^ Facey, A. (1981). A fortunate life. Fremantle, WA: Fremantle Arts Centre Press.
• ^ Johnson, C. (Mudrooroo Narogin). (1975). Wild cat falling. South Yarra, VIC: Hyland House.
• ^ Khan, A. (2005). Homecoming. Sydney, NSW: Harper Collins.
• Armellino, P., & Melikoglu, K. (2009). Ob-scene spaces in Australian narrative. An account of the socio-topographic construction of space in Australian literature. Germany: ibidem-verlag, Jessica Huaunshild u Christian Schon.
• Bennett, B. (2002). Australian short fiction: A history. St Lucia, QLD: University of Queensland Press.
• Birns, N., & McNeer, R. (2007). A companion to Australian literature since 1900. Rochestor, NY: Camden House.
• Gelder, K. (2009). After the celebration: Australian fiction 1989-2007. Melbourne, VIC: Melbourne University Publishing.
• Gelder, K.and Weaver, R. (2014). The Colonial Journals and the Emergence of Australian Literary Culture. Perth: University of Western Australia Press.
• Huggan, G. (2007). Australian literature: Poscolonialism, racism, transnationalism. Oxford, UK: Oxford Univeristy Press.
• Johnston, J. with Anderson, M. (2005). Australia Imagined: Views from the British Periodical Press 1800-1900. Perth: University of Western Australia Press.
• Kossew, S. (2003). Writing women, writing place: Contemporary Australian and South African fiction. London, UK: Routledge.
• Lauer, G. (2010). Darkness subverted: aboriginal Gothic in black Australian literature and Film. Gottingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
• McCredden, L. and O’Reilly, N. Eds. (2014). Tim Winton: Critical Essays. Perth: University of Western Australia Press.
• Miller, E.M. (1975). Australian literature, from its beginnings to 1935: A descriptive and bibliographical survey of books by Australian authors in poetry, drama, fiction, criticism and anthology, with subsidiary entries to 1938. Sydney, Australia: Sydney University Press:
• Ouvang, Y. (2008). Chinese in Australian fiction: 1888-1988. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press.
• Pierce, P. (2009). The Cambridge history of Australian literature. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Weaver, R., Palumbo, D.E., & Sullivan, C.W. (2011). Apocalypse in Australian fiction and film: A critical study. Jefferson, North CA: McFarlane and Co Inc.

Journal References

• Westerly
• Southerly
• Quadrant
• Meanjin Quarterly
• Kunapipi
• Australian Literary Studies
• Australian Book Review

Website References

• http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/sgunew/MININT.HTM
• http://home.vicnet.net.au/~ozlit/
• www.nla.gov.au/apps/eresources
• http://www.middlemiss.org/lit/lit.html
• http://www.currency.com.au

^ Mandatory reference

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