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Blurring representation : the writings of Thomas King and Mudrooroo
No full textThis thesis explores the issues of representation and identity through an examination of the writings of Thomas King and Mudrooroo. The particular focus of the dissertation is on the similar yet distinctive ways these authors explore past and present possibilities for representing Indigenous peoples in fiction. This discussion has a largely Canadian-Australian cross-cultural comparison because of the national milieux in which each author writes. The research question, then, addresses the authors' common approaches to Indigenous, colonial and postcolonial themes and the similar textual attitudes to the act of representation of identity in writing. In order to explore these ideas the chapters in the thesis do not each focus on a particular author or even on a specific text. Each chapter examines the writings of both authors comparatively, and reads the novels of both Thomas King and Mudrooroo thematically. The themes unifying each chapter occur in four major movements. Firstly, the Preface and Chapter One are primarily concerned with the methodology of the thesis. This methodology can be summarised as a combination of general postcolonial assumptions about the impact of colonial texts on representations of Indigenous peoples; ideas of reading practice coming from North American and Australian Indigenous writing communities and cultural studies theories on race. A movement in argument then occurs in Chapters Two and Three, which focus upon how the authors interact with colonising narratives from the past. Chapter Four shifts from this focus on past images and explores how the authors commonly re-imagine the present. In Chapters Five and Six the dissertation progresses from charting the authors' common responses to colonising narratives -- past and present -- and engages in the writings in terms of the authors' explications of Indigenous themes and their celebrations of Indigenous presence. These chapters analyse the ways in which King and Mudrooroo similarly re-envisage narrative process, time and space. Overall, the thesis is not interested in authorisations of Thomas King and Mudrooroo as 'Indigenous writers'. Rather, it argues that these authors on either side of the world use very similar techniques to reject previous representations of Indigenous people, and, importantly, attempt to change the meaning of and approach to representation. In so doing this thesis finds that the novels of both authors respond to colonising semiotic fields, as well as reducing the importance of such fields by incorporating them within a larger framework of repeated and multiple evocations of Indigenous identity. The writings of both Thomas King and Mudrooroo share a selfconscious textuality. The same tales and emblems are repeated within each author's entire oeuvre in order to reinforce their thematic trope of re-presentation as a constantly evolving process. Finally, the thesis concludes that a significant common effect of this similar approach to re-presentation is an emphasis on the community over the individual, and a community that can be best described as pan-Indigenous rather than specific
Translating Genres: Mudrooroo and the Historical Novel
No full texta reading of the conventions of the historical novel genre as used by postcolonial author Mudrooroo to re-tell colonial histor
The Empire Bites Back: Mudrooroo's Vampire Trilogy
No full textreservedIl presente lavoro di tesi si propone di analizzare i romanzi gotici dello scrittore australiano Colin Johnson (noto anche con il nome di Mudrooroo), The Undying (1998), Underground (1999) e The Promised Land (2000), comunemente conosciuti come Vampire Trilogy. Ambientata in Tasmania nel periodo della sua colonizzazione da parte dell’impero britannico e del conseguente sradicamento della popolazione indigena dalla propria terra, questa trilogia si distingue per l'uso della strategia del writing back attraverso la quale Mudrooroo si appropria e riscrive opere del canone europeo, come Dracula (1897), Vanity Fair (1848) e Moby Dick (1851), oltre a personaggi della mitologia greca e figure storiche che hanno profondamente influenzato l'immaginario australiano. La parte iniziale di questa tesi prende in esame l’evoluzione della letteratura indigena australiana a partire dalla sua tradizione orale fino ad arrivare alle sue espressioni contemporanee che, grazie alla propria natura politica e al suddetto writing back, danno voce alle tragiche esperienze di una popolazione storicamente emarginata dall’egemonia coloniale. Inoltre, questa tesi prende in esame le controversie riguardanti l’identità aborigena di Mudrooroo e mette in evidenza come la messa in discussione delle sue radici abbia influenzato sia la sua vita che le sue opere letterarie, le quali, tuttavia, rivelano un’identità poliedrica che rispecchia complessità del concetto di identità nel contesto australiano postcoloniale. Successivamente, l’elaborato si sofferma sul gotico del diciottesimo e diciannovesimo secolo e come quest’ultimo venga utilizzato dallo stesso Mudrooroo, attraverso la creazione della vampira Amelia, per sovvertire le sue tendenze eurocentriche e imperialiste, recuperando così un’identità aborigena a lungo oppressa. Infine, la tesi propone un’analisi approfondita della modalità con cui Mudrooroo si appropri dei romanzi di Bram Stoker, William Makepeace Thackeray e Herman Melville, nonché di personaggi mitologici come Persefone, Medea ed Eracle, e di figure storiche come Eliza Fraser e Ivan Fredericks, al fine di riscrivere una parte della storia che è rimasta a lungo inascoltata.This dissertation examines Australian author Colin Johnson’s (also known as Mudrooroo) Gothic novels – referred to as the Vampire Trilogy – The Undying (1998), Underground (1999), The Promised Land (2000) – which are set in the context of the British colonization of Tasmania and the subsequent displacement of its Indigenous peoples. In his novels, Mudrooroo appropriates traditional European Gothic tropes and ‘writes back’ to canonical European novels such as Dracula (1897), Vanity Fair (1848), and Moby Dick (1851), while also including references to Greek mythology and historical figures whose stories have become central to the Australian national narrative. The first part of this dissertation examines the evolution of Indigenous Australian literature from its oral tradition to its contemporary engagement with political activism, as a means of voicing the experiences of a marginalized community that has been silenced by colonial oppression. It also explores how Aboriginal writers, such as Mudrooroo, utilize ‘writing back’ strategies to challenge dominant imperialist narratives and to reclaim their cultural identity. Moreover, this thesis addresses the controversy over Mudrooroo’s Aboriginal identity and discusses how this personal crisis affected both his life and his writings, which reveal a fluid, multifaceted identity that echoes the complex nature of racial and cultural belonging in postcolonial Australia. Subsequently, this dissertation focuses on the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Gothic mode and Mudrooroo’s use of the latter to subvert Eurocentric, imperialist discourses and recover an Aboriginal consciousness. In particular, the author rewrites European Gothic tropes to represent the detrimental, deracializing and dehumanizing effects of British imperialism – personified by the European vampire Amelia – while incorporating ‘maban reality’, an Aboriginal worldview that challenges the colonial imposition of scientific rationality. Lastly, the thesis provides a rigorous analysis of the ways in which Mudrooroo appropriates the novels of Bram Stoker, William Makepeace Thackeray, and Herman Melville, as well as mythological characters such as Persephone, Medea, and Heracles, alongside historical figures as Eliza Fraser and Ivan Fredericks, in order to rewrite a part of history that has long been ignored
Mudrooroo's Testament: or Portrait of the Artist as a Sick Old Villain
No full textThis is an autobiographical essay by Australian writer Mudrooroo Nyoongah
Spectres of Mudrooroo: a suspended corpo-reality that \u27matters\u27
No full textThe racial trouble that affected the well-known ‘Aboriginal’ author and academic Mudrooroo politicised the Australian identity debate at the close of the 1990s. The questioning of the ‘authenticity’ of the Indigenous ancestry of some public figures was part of the backlash against the Aboriginal minority under conservative rule, and Mudrooroo was undoubtedly its most emblematic target. Unable to substantiate his claim to Indigenous descent, he was forced to relinquish his frontline position as an Aboriginal representative in the debate on Australianness, and to move to, and eventually beyond, the margins of Australia\u27s cultural and geographical space. Yet, his fin-de-siècle vampire trilogy represents the author\u27s return to the discursive space of Australianness from a haunted and haunting identitarian non-location. This paper analyses how the Mudrooroo Affair came about, how it was inscribed in determinist notions of race as well as gender and class, and how Mudrooroo\u27s latest fiction has responded to the issue of identity formation through the employment of the Gothic figure of the vampire, engaging with questions of identity politics in ways which resonate with Derrida\u27s work on spectrality
Family tries
No full textFocuses on the novel 'Family Tries,' by Mudrooroo Nyoongah and Janine Little. Description on the family life of Rose; Relationship with brother Kevin, member of the Rugby League club team; Reactions on married life
Caught in-between: Mudrooroo\u27s vexed deconstruction of Australianness
No full textThe issue of Aboriginal ‘authenticity’ that the well-known Australian author and academic Mudrooroo became entrapped in politicised the Australian identity debate tremendously at the close of the nineteen-nineties. The questioning of some public figures’ Indigenous ancestry was part and parcel of the backlash against the Aboriginal minority under conservative Federal tenure, and Mudrooroo was undoubtedly its most emblematic target. Unable to substantiate his claim to Indigenous descent, he was forced to relinquish his position as an Aboriginal referent in the identity debate, and to move to and beyond the margins of Australia’s cultural and geographical space. Yet, his fin-de-siècle vampire trilogy represents the author’s return to the discursive space of the debate on Australianness from a haunted and haunting identitarian non-location. This paper analyses how the Mudrooroo Affair came about, how it was inscribed in determinist notions of race as well as gender, and how Mudrooroo’s latest fiction formulates his vexed response through the employment of the vampire Gothic as Derridian spectrality
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