Archipelagic space and the uncertain future of national literatures.

Authors

  • Elizabeth McMahon UNSW

Keywords:

carpentaria, disciplinary futures, Wonders of a Godless World

Abstract

This essay joins in the discussion about the future of national literatures in the shifting formations of globalisation. Specifically, I want to interrogate what we mean by the future when we speak of literature and, specifically, of Australian or New Zealand literature. The essay proposes a literary cartography that overlays the alienation of this ‘no world’ with the ‘no-place’ of island utopias as they are mobilised in archipelagic chains or threads. This alternative model of spatial relationality and dynamism differs from conventional global traffic. It is a cartography derived from islands: from their history, fictions, and their theorists. This project is at least partly utopian in a strictly generic sense; that is, in its implication in the reading practices and politics of utopian texts.

Author Biography

  • Elizabeth McMahon, UNSW
    UNSW Associate professor

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Published

2013-11-10

Issue

Section

Dorothy Green Memorial Lecture