 | Poetics and Politics of Relationality in Contemporary Australian Aboriginal Fiction Subjects: Humanities; Language & Literature; Social Sciences; Cultural Studies; Literature; Anthropology - Soc Sci; Literature by Geographic Area; Literature by Period; Regional Anthropology; This is the first sustained study of the formal particularities of works by Bruce Pascoe, Kim Scott, Tara June Winch, and Alexis Wright. Drawing on a rich theoretical framework that includes approaches to relationality by Aboriginal thinkers, Edouard Glissant, and Jean-Luc Nancy, and recent work in New Formalism and narrative theory, the book illustrates how they use a broad range of narrative techniques to mediate, negotiate, and temporarily create networks of relations that interlink all elements of the universe. Through this focus on relationality, Aboriginal writing gains both local and global significance. Locally, these narratives assert Indigenous sovereignty by staging an unbroken interrelatedness of people and their land. Globally, they intervene into current discourses about humanity's relationship with the natural environment, urging readers to acknowledge our interrelatedness with and dependence on the land that sustains us. Dorothee Klein is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of English Literatures and Cultures at the University of Stuttgart in Germany. She has published articles on Aboriginal life-writing, contemporary Aboriginal fiction and short story cycles, and (cognitive) narratology. |
