This project will show how Australia's unique status as an island continent has shaped Australian literature. Key questions posed are: How was the colonial cartography of the Australian mainland and islands represented in literature? Why did Australia increasingly identify as an island rather than a continent from the 1940s? How did this shift in emphasis re-form Australian literature? How do these fluctuations position Australian literature at this second great era of globalisation?
This project will show how Australia's unique status as an island continent has shaped Australian literature. Key questions posed are: How was the colonial cartography of the Australian mainland and islands represented in literature? Why did Australia increasingly identify as an island rather than a continent from the 1940s? How did this shift in emphasis re-form Australian literature? How do these fluctuations position Australian literature at this second great era of globalisation? As the first major study of Australia's literary islands the project will provide new paradigms for reading Australian literature and for recognising its potential in the global context.