LFU:online

This course is meant as an introduction into Australian literature as well as postcolonial modes of reading and will familiarise participants with themes specific to the Australian literary discourse.

In this course we will be analysing recent novels by Australian writers and investigate what picture they help create of contemporary Australia, its history and its position in the world. We will try to reconstruct the social, cultural, political and historical frame(s) of reference within which the individual texts can be situated by examining both formal and thematic aspects that indicate either a clear compliance with specific (and possibly typically Australian) literary conventions or an attempt to change, if not revolutionise such conventions. This will entail looking at representations of the bush and bushfires, tales of adventures, accounts of exploration and settlement, depictions of racial and ethnic tensions, constructions of rural vs. urban, colonial vs. postcolonial Australia, imaginative projections of an Australian mentality or an Australian national character… Participants have to expect to do a considerable amount of reading of both primary and secondary literature.

presentation, online and class discussions

oral and written: seminar paper, presentations, participation in class, assignments

to be announced

Positive completion of first part of studies (1. Studienabschnitt).