My first Lit page in a while

Conference day was better than I expected to be honest, I thought we were just going to be listening to Year 12s and teachers as well but it was pretty fun. I’m mainly putting this together to prepare for the validation as well.

As always, enjoy

Brenda Matthews (The Last Daughter)

omg its Brenda Matthews from hit documentary film ‘The Last Daughter’

• Regression? Loss, abandonment, rejection; love, search for identity
• Brenda was ‘adopted’ by a white family, though eventually was returned to her original family
• One of the last people to be returned to their families
• 1905 - 1965: Stolen Generation, Matthews was taken from her family three years after the stolen generation and was not recognised as part of it
• 1973: “We’re here to take the children away”; forcible displacement from family
  • By this point, it was illegal to do this; though they went to court, eventually the case was lost
  • Alcoholism –> escapism, coping with issues
• 1977: Returned to family, however, disconnected from siblings, identity stolen
• After some time, she wished to see her family that she was fostered in, but her sister had already passed away
• Dressed up the same
• At age 6, she found out that she was of different ethnicity from her foster family
• Essentially stolen twice, from both her original family and foster family
  • Taken away as disconnected from her white family, then felt disconnected from original family when returned
• Learned of the connection to land and her origin
• Separation from family
• Belonging and connection

  Sense of identity

• Duality (J and H noooooo) of Australia’s identity
• As a child, she was used to
• Sought to heal herself after

  Forgiveness

• Her mother and grandmother had been taken away from their families
• Cannot change the past
• Cannot change the world without changing oneself

Q&A

• Enacting positive change
  • Acknowledging what has happened, identifying the truth and understanding complexity of the now and the future
• How Indigenous culture is shared and taught in schools
  • Most of the spirituality and Indigenous identity has been left behind, but is making its way through the education system
• Art and story telling to bring about reconciliation
  • Song and dance is usually used to express stories
  • Move past the hurtful stories of the Stolen Generation etc. and act on the healing stories of Indigenous culture
• Thoughts about Voice to Parliament
  • Screw you how dare you bring politics into this centrist for life
• Conflicts between identity shared between two different cultures
  • Could not find identity within any side due to conflict, but managed to reconcile with the past and find her ‘home’
• Attempts to reconcile are dull and lack depth
  • why bring contest and conflict into this sadge :(
  • Taking responsibility for own story, change will come about as long as it is recognised
  • No prior acknowledgment that she was part of the Stolen Generation
  • Truth will hurt, but recognising truth is the only way change will happen
• Impact on life from sharing her story
  • Wonderful impact, understanding of truth
  • Collective story, we can all be healed

Claire Jones - Unpacking Australian Historical Fiction

• AIATSIS Map of Indigenous Australia - attempt to map cultural groupings of Indigenous Australia
  • Shows the general locations of larger groupings of people which include clans, dialects, or individual languages in a group
• Australia: a European (and Spanish) construction Great South Land 1570 by Autilis
• Accurate placement of landforms were not possible, due to them not exploring the area prior
• Rather the large area ‘Terra australis nondum cognita’ was a figment of their imagination
• 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
• Limits?
  • “To be deemed historical (in our sense), a novel must have been written at least 50 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, n.d.)
  • Other styles (experimentation) of novel are also considered, e.g.:
    • alternate histories (Fatherland)
    • pseudo-histories (Island of the Day Before)
    • timeslip novels (Lady of Hay)
    • historical fantasies (King Arthur trilogy)
    • multiple-time novels (The Hours)
  • Is Historical Fiction a paradox?
    • 5 Common Elements of Historical Fiction
      • Setting - The g is the most important par of a historical fiction novel. It should take place during an authentic period in history and be set in a real historical place. For example, New York City during the Great Depression or Paris, France during WWII
      • Plot - The plot in a historical fiction novel is a combination of a real events and fictional events. You can invent characters, cities and events, but they still must make sense to the time period. For example, a novel set in London, Engalnd in 1666 would benefit from incorporating the Great Fire of London, a major turning point in the city’s history
      • Characters - The characters can be real, fictional or both, but they should all look, speak and act in ways that accurately reflect the era
      • Dialogue - register, vernacular, diction
      • Conflict
  • Are literature and history antagonists?
    • History is about facts and time, while literature is about fiction and language
    • In The Order of Things Foucault argues is that the relationship between literature and history might be more complicated than this binary suggests. He explains systems of understanding, including subjects or disciplines
    • The work of historian Hayden White follows this line of thinking. White points out that history is intimately involved in the re-presentation of prior events
    • History is always being made rather than something safely secured in what we might call and recall as the past. So, the practice of writing history relies on interpretation and representation, the very devices of fiction and fiction reading
    • White concluded, not uncontroversially, that “history is no less than a form of fiction than the novel is a form of historical representation”. The historical record is a discursive entity
• Mantel’s BBC lecture - 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 out of the archive” and essentially reanimate it
• A dialogue with the past - “Most historical fiction is, I like to think, in dialogue with the past”
• A story of Australia - William Dampier wrote in 1688 that the country was waterless and ‘the inhabitants […] the miserablest people in the world,’ and went on the complain at length about the files
• Colonial Australia (1788-1901)
  • Two different cultures
  • Indigenous/’traditional’ and European/Modern (try not to place them in opposition of each other)
  • Different world views, different epistemologies
  • Different perspectives on nature, family, wealth, country, etc.
  • One recorded history
• Self-definition: redefining identity and a new nation
  • Lucky country
  • Isolated country
  • Egalitarian
  • Brave
  • Brutal
• Some traditional/dominant Australian identities and literary archetypes
  • Drover/Stockman
  • ANZAC
  • Lost child
  • Bushranger
  • Underdog/Battler
  • Bush versus City
  • Indigenous mystic
• Emerging Themes
  • The complications of belonging
  • Importance and consequences of historical truth - dealing with cultural guilt
  • Facing the limitations of the traditional Australian National Identity
  • The connection and violence and masculinity
  • Connections between trauma of national experience
  • Achieving reconciliation and atonement
  • Indigenous self-determination
• “Genre texts essentially asks the audience “Do you still want to believe this?” Popularity is the audience answering, “Yes”. Change in genres occur when the audience says, “That’s too infantile a form of what we believe. Show us something more complicated.”” - Leo Brady, The World in a Frame
• Now the story is far more complex
• How do they change? What becomes the method of complication?
  • Experiment within a genre
  • Revise, ‘correct’ or deconstruct a genre or narrative
• Contextual Complexity
  • Are historical fictions about the past?
  • Or are they about the present
  • They are both!
  • Most importantly, they are a dialogue with the past.
• Australian Historical Fiction
  • A dialogue with people from specific moments
• No Sugar
• The Secret River
• That Deadman Dance

  Cloudstreet and Realism

• Will you look at us by the river! The whole restless mob of us on spread blankets in the dreamy briny sunshine skylarking and shiacking about for one day, one clear, clean , sweet day in a good world in the midst of our living. Yachts run before an unfelt gust with bagnecked pelicans riding above them, the city their twitching backdrop, all blocks and points of mirror light down the water’s edge.
• Parts of the text are not real and often have grammatical errors, but attempt to emulate Australian register
• Using historical fiction to talk about the issue with Australia’s past

Marksman Lloyd - The Rapper

omg its Marksman Lloyd hit protege of Tony Nguyen fr ong

• Slam poetry fr ong
• Rap fr ong
• Real emotions within the music fr ong
• don’t do TAFE fr ong
• compositional artists fr ong?
• Different way of expressing ones self from a literature perspective fr ong (what do you mean this is from ed(i don’t know what you’re talking about (ok maybe i did(but like(i had nothing else)))))
• Eshays can’t take jokes fr ong
• He has memory of elephant fr ong
• He make some noise fr ong
• He’ll get looked at like he’s insane if he tries to pronounce the middle name fr ong
• Holding up bleach, trying to preach fr ong
• He don’t know obnoxiousness fr ong
• Holding up like a “resala” (wrestler) fr ong
• He get paid for these shows fr ong
• They want his autograph fr ong
• Gemmy spitting bars fr ong
• He’s feeling it fr ong
• At Perth Modern rn fr ong
• Perth Modern not very cool fr ong
• Not a super model fr ong
• Please have sentence structure fr ong
• What to say when you are faced with a blank page fr ong
• He got the drive fr ong
• Performed in front of 12 people but regardless who’s in the room he’s gonna perform fr ong
• Going in arts can be disheartening fr ong
• On the stage is the freest felt, where true self could be represented
• One’s identity can be found through resilience
• Strength and power in finding oneself
• Woman - “You look a little chubby in national television” (this was literally a person that he had a relationship with)
• Insatiable (the book)
• Be (Have) your own lens fr ong
• Tiktok is cringe fr ong
• He so fr ong

Ruby-Jean Hindley - Indigenous Perspective across Literature

• In the vastness of Indigneous Australian History, colonisation is merely a speck among (aMONGUS?) the vast ocean
• Before colonisation became an influence on Indigenous experience, what other thematic concerns were there?
• The diversity in the Indigenous experience (not solely formed by trauma)

  The presenter today…

• Aranmore Catholic College teacher

• Member of the South West Aboriginal Land Sea Council

• An Elder is allowed to permit an outsider into a part of land
• AIATSIS Map of Indifenous Langauge Groups

The Coloniser’s Perspective

• ”[T]hey have to be protected against themselves whether they like it or not. They cannot remain as they are. The sore spot requires the application of the surgeon’s knife for the good of the patient, and probably against the patient’s will” - A. O. Neville, Moseley Royal Commission, 1934 the so calledAborigines’ friend, the Chief Protector of the Aborigines
• All of the Indigenous children (practically in the whole of Australia) was under his protection (reign rather)

The Indigenous Perspective

• “I have no identity, really.”
• “We never heard the words ‘I love you’, so we neve learned to say them to our family… or feel them, We became empty vessels, out of touch with our feelings”
• “My mother did not bond with her mother and I did not bond with mine.”
• “I was hurting and had found no way of safely healing the pain.. I couldn’tsee any hope in the future”
• If there is no sense of self, or it is hollow or fragmented, we cannot express ourselves

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”
  • This indicated that the injured person was cared for, that someone did their hunting and gathering, that the civilisation was compassionate
• In the first indication of humanity, the mungo lady and the mungo man (40 - 42 thousand years old)
  • The ritual burial indicated that someone cared enough for the deceased to ensure a proper process was followed, and the belief in a higher power

    Song lines

• Geographical, astronomically aligned, logistical, spiritual, narrative maps
• Part of “Lore” (LORE) training and education as well as initiation of elders
• According to Noel PEarson they are Australia’s “Book of Genesis”
• “The Song lines shouldn’t be just an anthropological footnote, but a part of Australian history as it is taught in schools. To tel the real story of this continent, you’ve got to have both histories. They are held in different ways”
• The Seven Sisters is a song line, based on an acutal constellation, that are taking care of a man whilst being pursued by another, and eventually ‘ascend’ to the heavens and the man joins in the Orion belt as another star
• This, interestingly was in Greek mythology as well, which is strikingly similar
• To lose ones stories is to lose oneself

Samuel Wagan Watson - Poetry

• Hotel Bone:
  • Unity in the ‘not white’ or ‘other category’
  • Unity in the ‘subordinate’ other!
  • Issue of citizenship/personhood in the context of the 1967 referendum
  • Themes persecution, solidarity and camaraderie
• A One Ended Boomerang
  • Themes of ascension, going beyond ‘earthly’ restrictions
  • Issue of timing and direction and therefore opportunites (loss of identity)
  • Personification, extended metaphor

JEKYLL AND HYDE???

• Early(ish) example Gothic Literature
• Dual Personalities
• Freedom to act out hidden inhibitions (from alternatre personlities)
• Public vs Private Personas
• Internal conflict - good and bad

Hedda Gabler!!!!

• Identity - Father’s daughter rather than husband’s wife
• Lack of fulfilment
• Unlikeable neurotic protagonist

• Clear themes of mental instability

• Please be respectful of Indigenous people and their heritage

Poo… (context: name on the role)

Tanya dar Zeel - Literature ATAR

Q&A

• Originality or not?
  • Each paper is approached respectfully
  • Rather than a mechanism-like answer, sincere Literary analysis will definitely be helpful
  • Understanding the text ‘complex’ly
  • Maybe a discursive-like answer with genuineness
  • A close reading and essay both aim to construct an argument of some kind, but when marking, the interest is vested in ideas (since there isn’t a distinct question in close reading)
• Introducing other ideas or possibly contexts?
  • Marxist is marxist not lit :(
  • Theory is decontextualised, then placed on a text in order to represent it
  • Be engaged with the theory and know how it is linked to the text
  • Psychoanalytical reading of E.E. Cummins (NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO)
  • There is no need to use a wide range of vocabulary for no reason, rather have your attention vested in the question/reading itself
• Using quotes
  • Not a memory test! Use words that really only have an impact, even in the seamless embedding, aim to omit words that do not really reflect your point and use you own, while only using the ones useful to you
  • Use you knowledge rather than your quotes
  • “Quotes are secondary” ~ Tanya dar Zeel, 2023
• Conclusion in Close Readings
  • I think its based off signposting?? If you need your idea out there more then it helps
  • Having coherency and join the dots in your close readings
• Does Literature change the world or does the world change Literature (wow Emmanuel such a great question ahahah very funny)
  • Attempt to bring order in the chaos in literature and in life
  • We are in post-Postmodernism
  • Theory is dead and we killed it 😎
• Stepping stones for a close reading
  • Find meaning… find meaning…. it just says find meaning but what is the meaning in that
  • MEANING
• Literature and university - connection to the contemporary
  • michel foucault….
• Impact of studying literature on life
  • A heightened sense of empathy
• Handwriting increase marks?
  • No but…
  • No, but…
  • Really no, but…
• Common/bad errors in Literature
  • “rrgfy” ~ Nibesh, 2023
  • Read the text before your exam lol