is gradually taking shape - and that shape looks fairly good. Over 80 offers of papers have been received. Unfortunately there won't be room for all of them, which means that otherwise good papers whose connection with the conference topic appears tenuous have to be rejected. As could be expected, lots of offers came from Australia, but the European response has been encouraging too, and the balance should be pretty fair. The 'departures' theme has proved inspirational, and has been approached from a wide variety of angles, whether historical, sociological or literary. We can look forward to hearing presentations from such noteworthy academics as George Seddon, Peter Pierce, Dennis Haskell, Andrew Taylor, Sylvia Lawson, etc. Quite a number of Aussie writers have also expressed an interest in attending. They include Beverley Farmer, Rod Jones, Katherine Gallagher, Bernard Cohen, Desmond O'Grady, Beth Yahp, John Kinsella, Janette Turner Hospital, etc. They will read from their works on Wednesday night.
Guest of honour will be the distinguished Aboriginal lawyer and activist Noel Pearson, who will give one of the plenary lectures. Given the current debates about Aboriginal land rights, ATSIC and the reference to the Aborigines in the preamble to the new (hypothetical) Constitution, his talk should prove quite stimulating.
The cast of delegates will be a very cosmopolitan one: expect to meet colleagues from all over Europe and Australia (of course), plus the US, Japan, India, etc. It will be a great opportunity to see old friends again, and make new ones as well. The programme has not been entirely finalised yet (I'm still waiting to hear from potential sponsors, so I don't know exactly how much money I can spend to make your visit to Toulouse a truly memorable one) but we should have a reasonably exciting (pardon the oxymoron!) conference. If the weather is favourable (and at that time of the year the chances are pretty good), I could say with the Beatles that a splendid time is guaranteed for all. The conference dinner will take place on Thursday night in a restaurant that is both typical (a vaulted brick cellar which amounts to a Toulouse signature) and unusual (I'll let you find out in what sense...). The conference trip will take delegates to the city of Albi, known for its Toulouse-Lautrec museum and its superb cathedral, and then on to the medieval village of Cordes, perched high on a hill, and featuring many craftspeople's shops where you will be welcome to browse and perhaps buy some of the wares.
If by some fluke some of you have not received the conference info (registration form, list of hotels, etc.), please let me know as soon as possible. I look very much forward to welcoming you in Toulouse.
Cheers! Xavier Pons [email protected]
[by John Barnes] For many readers in the English-speaking world, Mudrooroo's writing has been their introduction to Aboriginality. Last year he received the Ruth Adeney Koori Award (established by art historian Bernard Smith for creative achievement by Aborigines). A few months after this prestigious award, however, Mudrooroo's family publicly denied that he is of Aboriginal descent.
What has been established - whether "beyond reasonable doubt", as the lawyers say, one cannot tell without seeing the documentation - is that Mudrooroo's mother was not Aboriginal, as generally thought, but was actually a descendant of the first white child born in the Swan River colony (now Western Australia). There is less certainty about the paternal line, but the strong probability is that his father (who died before his son was born) was of American negro descent. Since the family revelation (Victoria Laurie, 'Identity Crisis', Weekend Australian Magazine, 20-21 July 1996) Mudrooroo has tried unsuccessfully to trace his father's alleged American ancestry. Last year in an interview ('A Question of Race', Mudrooroo Interview with Terry O'Connor, Courier-Mail, 28 March 1998), he suggested that his half-sister, who was 16 at the time of his birth, may have been his blood mother, as the birth certificate lists her as reporting his birth. This drew an angry denial from his half-sister, who said that she had acted as midwife to her mother, and she challenged him to have a DNA test. Mudrooroo publicly agreed, but so far there has been no report of this having happened.
This painful family dispute, which has naturally attracted a great deal of attention because of Mudrooroo's prominence, should not - in my view- be confused with cases of imposture (Leon Carmen pretending to be part-Aboriginal woman Wanda Koolmatrie) or assumed "second identity" (Yugoslav-born Steten Bosic writing as B.Wongar). Rather, Mudrooroo's situation should be read in the context of the larger tragedy of dispossession and cultural deprivation experienced by the indigenous people in Australia.
Mudrooroo was born Colin Johnson, and it was under that name that his first books were published. When Wild Cat Falling appeared in 1965, to be hailed as the "first Aboriginal novel", he had long lost contact with his family. Patsy Miller (daughter of Mary Durack, who acted as his literary mentor) has quoted what Colin Johnson, then in his late twenties, wrote when asked for family background to be used by her mother in a foreword to the novel: "Date and place of birth, Narrogin, 21st August 1938. Lived in Beverley until nine. Orphanage until 16 years of age (neglected child). My mother, I think, came from Narrogin, and is, I think, still alive in Perth. My father is a blank - a cipher." ('Identity Parade', Bulletin, 27 August 1996) His sisters and brother had been sent to an orphanage before he was born, and he did not meet them for forty years. He was alone, a non-white child who associated with Aborigines, who drifted into petty crime in Perth, and who was befriended by Mary Durack at the request of the Fremantle prison authorities. She accepted him as Aboriginal - though, as she said, "You wouldn't know, unless you knew" - and, aiming to keep him from "bad influences" in Perth, arranged for him to go to Melbourne and the Aboriginal Advancement League. There he discovered existentialism, found himself "oriented to the Aboriginal people" and "for the first time definitely committed to a race", and became an author.
That was the beginning of his career. His reaction to the success of Wild Cat Falling shows how far he was from ever being "a career Aborigine". On the strength of his royalties he travelled overseas, to Asia and Europe. He had been attracted to Buddhism while still in Fremantle gaol, and spent about three years in India training to be a monk. The influence of these years on his attitude towards selfhood and his response to the current controversy is something that literary critics will doubtless ponder in the future.
Although he was not one of the "Stolen Generation", he shared their experience of broken family links and institutionalisation. However the bureaucracy may have classified him, he was assumed to be Aboriginal in a white society where coloured people were regarded as inferior, and Aborigines the most inferior of all. Like the children of the Stolen Generation he had to learn Aboriginal culture. The dropping of his English name in 1988 - following the example of Kath Walker - was a sign of how completely he had made himself an Aborigine in the 30 years after he came out of Fremantle gaol.
Even the most cursory knowledge of his writing must impress upon the reader his intellectual depth and originality. Highly inventive, he has been exploring new possibilities with each work of fiction. His move into what he calls "maban reality", brilliantly exemplified in his Master of the Ghost Dreaming , represents an exciting new development in Australian fiction, which is likely to have a significant impact upon the next generation of Aboriginal writers. Ruby Langford Ginibi, hailing him as her "spiritual brother", has paid him the ultimate compliment in saying that "he couldn't write the way he does if he is not Aboriginal".
For family members, and perhaps for many others, the issue is simply one of genetic facts. An accomplished theorist, resisting the notion of "fixed identity", Mudrooroo has recently written: "Whatever my identity is, it rests on my history of over fifty years and that is that". I think he is right.
(John Barnes has recently retired from the Department of English at La Trobe University and is now writing his memoirs, as well as supporting Australian Studies at Barcelona University, where he currently lives.)
On November 5th, 1999 a plebiscite will be held in the state Australia on whether or not Australia should sever its historic constitutional links with the British Crown and become a Republic. To sharpen your awareness of this historic process we invite you to test your knowledge of the history, and some of the gossip too, of Australia's development towards a Republic.
Maybe we should add that this quiz isn't to be taken dead serious ...
ANSWERS:
The complex relationship between various 'homes' is of crucial importance in the contemporary experience of migration. It requires a series of negotiations that depend on a highly specific, yet flexible sense of identity and place.
This interdisciplinary conference aims to question and further the discussion of these issues, through what James Clifford has termed 'travelling cultures,' within the Australian context.
Papers may address these issues through interrogations and analyses of ideas of 'home':
The conference is being held in the Main Quadrangle of the University of Sydney.
Twenty minute papers are sought from academics, postgraduate students, writers and other members of the community.
Leave all phone/fax messages for:
Mail:
The INFOG99 steering group invite you to submit proposals for papers or presentations to be considered for inclusion in the 1999 conference program.
MORE ABOUT INFOG99: INFOG99 (Information Gathering 1999) is an initiative of Australian Film Institute Research & Information Centre presented in association with Cinemedia (Victoria), ANSPAG at Monash University and RMIT University Department of Communication Studies.
Main Themes for INFOG99:
International guests at INFOG99 will include: Members of the research team of the Glasgow University Performing Arts Data Service (PADS) project, and, Dr Steven Ricci, Head of Research and Study at the UCLA Film and Television Archive.
The PADS project, based in the Faculty of Arts at Glasgow University, collects and promotes the use of digital data resources to support research and teaching in the performing arts, including film and the broadcast arts: www.pads.ahds.ac.uk
Dr Steven Ricci directs the UCLA Archive's education, publications and new media initiatives and is responsible for developing computer applications to facilitate access to the huge UCLA collection of archival film and television, which includes the very large Hearst newsreels collection: www.cinema.ucla.edu/archive.html. He is also a specialist in Italian film history.
A selection of the proceedings from our last conference, INFOG97, can be viewed on the AFI website at: www.cinemedia.net/AFI/infog97/infog4.htm
Conference focusing on theatre, film, and literature by Asian-Australians.
Thirty years after the official demise of the White Australia Policy, there has been increasing engagement with cultural diversity in the national imaginary. The convergence of recent political and economic unrest in the Asia-Pacific region and the so-called domestic 'backlash' against multiculturalism pose particular challenges to emerging discourses of Asian-Australian cultural politics.
This conference will explore both critical and creative responses to the problematic of the Asian-Australian diasporic experience. We invite expressions of interest for presentations addressing topics such as:
Confirmed KEYNOTES & Other Participants: Ien Ang, Merlinda Bobis, Alison Broinowski, Citymoon Theatre (Ta Duy Binh & Bruce Keller), John Docker, Yasmine Gooneratne, Ghassan Hage, Suvendrini Perera, Meme Thorne, Cheryle Yin-Lo.
The conference will include academic papers as well as readings, performances, exhibitions and film screenings. We invite submissions of proposals for papers and presentations by April 30, 1999. Please note that academic papers should not exceed 20 minutes; formats and time-limits for other types of presentations can be negotiated.
Conference Convenors:
Send abstracts (approximately 200 words) and enquiries to:
Sponsored by:
Tseen Khoo (Policy & Projects Officer)
Contact:
E-mail: ../../plimb-library.uwa.edu.au
Tel: +61-08-9380-2348
Fax: +61-08-9380-1012
Webpage: www.arts.uwa.edu.Australian/ASCWA/conference99/
The conference is organized jointly by the Universitat de Barcelona and La Trobe University.
The year 2000 offers a unique moment in history from which to look both back in a reassessment of the nature of change in all aspects of Australian life and studies and forward to an assessment of the country's future in the 21st century.
The use of the word GEOGRAPHIES may be taken in its most literal sense, thus allowing for papers in the area of geography, Geology and Environmental studies, but may also be understood in the widest metaphorical sense to include a broad spectrum of papers within the Humanities and Social Sciences.
ABSTRACTS of 250 words max should be e-mailed or sent on disk (Word or WP for IBM) to the organisers together with two hard copies. The deadline for abstracts is 1st July but can be extended to 28th July. All the necessary information can be found on our website at www.ub.es/dpfilsa/conference.htm
This includes accommodation which can be booked through the web site direct, guidelines for abstracts and general content guidelines for the conference which will be wide ranging. It also includes information on our plenary speakers and writers to date.
Contact:
[Compiled by: David Callahan ([email protected])
The annual conference of ASANA (Australian Studies Association of North America) was held in Austin (Texas), 26-28 February. It gathered some fifty delegates who included, on the Australian side, Kay Ferres, David Headon, Helen Irving, David Carter, etc., and, on the American side, Robert Ross, John Higley, Robert Zeller, etc. There were also delegates from Canada and Mexico (not to mention a lone Frenchman...). In addition to listening to some very stimulating papers (I noted the use of a 'discussant' for each session, a concept I had not encountered before and which I had to assimilate pretty quickly as I was asked to perform that very role), delegates reflected on the problems facing Australian Studies in North America, and what could be done to solve them. One such problem is the split, among American Australianists, between literary academics, who have their own association (the American Association of Australian Literary Studies, and its journal 'Antipodes'), and the others. While closer co-operation between the two bodies was recommended, fusion is not a realistic prospect, given the fact that AAALS is well established and unlikely to want to renounce its separate status. The conference also envisaged future events. Patrick Keyzer, who teaches law at Sydney's University of Technology, suggested a joint conference at his institution in the year 2000, while there was talk of taking advantage of an international sociology conference in the same year (to be held in Queensland, I think) to graft a significant Australian element on the main event. These two conferences will no doubt be the focus of American Australianists in months to come (although their relevance for literary scholars is not what one could have wished for). May I mention in passing that Austin boasts some excellent music venues and some fine restaurants (though Tex-Mex fare day in day out can be a little taxing)? And it would be churlish of me to conclude without thanking my hosts in Austin (especially John Higley, and Frances and Bob Cushing) for their warm and generous hospitality.
Xavier Pons
The 14th Annual Conference of the American Association of Australian Literary Studies borrowed and pluralized Patrick White's words from Voss for its theme: /'Countries of the Mind'. Australian Literature as Interior Landscape./ Equally spectacular was the physical landscape surrounding Park City, Utah, a fashionable ski resort in the Wasatch Mountains that was the venue for the gathering, 15-18 April. The AAALS president, Carolyn Bliss, served as Conference Chair and fulfilled her duties with aplomb.
As well as exploring the countryside and the restored mining town, and enjoying an opening reception, luncheons, and on the last evening an elegant dinner at Stag Lodge in Deer Valley (situated on higher elevation so even more chic), the conferees tended to business. They heard writers read and discuss their work, listened to papers that explored "Countries of the Mind" in varied ways, and withstood two high-tech presentations.
The featured guests included Australian novelist Kate Grenville, New Zealand Poet Laureate Bill Manhire, and dramatist Clern Gorman, who read from their writing and answered questions about it. Representatives from Park City's "Dollys Bookstore" were on hand to sell the writers' books and other Australian-New Zealand work. The writers also made several appearances in Salt Like City under the auspices of the Utah Humanities Council, which assisted in supporting the Conference along with the Literature fund of the Australia Council, the Australian Education Office in Washington, D.C. City Art of Salt Lake City, and the University of Utah.
Lively discussions followed the challenging paper sessions, which focused on "Connecting Interior and Exterior Landscapes," "Myths And Meanings," "Historical and Professional Exigencies," and "Autobiography and its Close Relations."
For the first time, the AAALS Conference profited from technological advances. Marie-Louise Ayres, Australian Defence Force Academy, made full use of intercontinental computer technology in her presentation, "An Interactive Demonstration of the AUSTLIT Database/ Not to be outdone, Vince Toller, State University of New York at Brockport, demonstrated an experiment in "Interactive Educational Television," which included a tape of a live and lively classroom discussion between his Now York students and ADFA students.
In keeping with the AAALS tradition of varied landscapes, the 2000 Conference will be held in New York City at the New School for Social Research in the heart of Manhattan. The ISO' Annual Conference is set for April; the exact date will be announced in June.
Those interested in learning more about AAALS activities or in membership should contact the AAALS secretary:
Robert Ross
I know I know - this newslater is horribly late. Apologies. Those of you who received my Mail in early March will remember that there was a reason.
I join Xavier in wishing to see as many of you as possible at our conference in Toulouse. Our Prez has worked hard to get the event on its feet and the provisional programme looks very exciting indeed. The conference site is a historic one and located in a rather desirable region of Southern France. Some of you may plan to stitch a bit of a vacation on; I certainly intend to.
Let me welcome the following new members: Manfred Brusten (Wuppertal), Cecilia Pietropoli (Bologna), Emily Purser (Potsdam), Alessia Meacci (Udine), Jitka Vlckova (Brno, CZ), Julie Skogs (Falun, Sweden), Stuart Ward (Odense), Yonka Krasteva (Veliko Turnovo, Bulgaria).
Adi Wimmer, May 1999, Klagenfurt