The university is closed for open day : themes and scenes from 21st century Australia / Stephen Knight.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Knight, Stephen, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

National characteristics, Australian.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 228 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Carlton, Victoria : Melbourne University Press, [2019]

Summary:

Where is analysis in this age of banal tweets and narcissistic comments? Stephen Knight turns his modernly analytical and historically aware mind to current attitudes and actions in need of serious examination.What is the impact of the bush myth on the national consciousness of Australian fiction? What of the modern shift in writing about Indigenous issues, from white writers to First Peoples? What has suddenly happened to Australian crime fiction?Other essays look at unravelling travelling, the tiny machines that obsess us, then those bizarrely flourishing modern identity-enhancers & tattoos and personalised number plates; and of course, the state of the contemporary university.Here is 21st century national complexity, its origins and its international connections, explored in a socially referential and almost always serious way.

Contents:

Intro

Title

Dedication

Copyright

Contents

Preface

Part I Presenting the Past

1 Did Matilda Want to Waltz?

2 White Australia or Fair Australia?

Part II Habits and Identities

3 Unravelling Travelling and Its Environments

4 Marksism Today

5 I'm Driving Myself

6 Modern Machines and Machinations

Part III Modernity and Traditions

7 The Clues Were There All the Time

8 The University Is Closed for Open Day.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780522874686

0522874681