Settler Romances and the Australian Girl

Tanya Dalziell

Settler Romances and the Australian Girl argues that prevailing understandings of British colonialism need to be radically rethought. The book takes as its starting point anxieties about concepts of whiteness and femininity in settler Australia, and sets out highly original readings of turn-of-the-century adventure fictions and ethnographies.

In so doing, Settler Romances and the Australian Girl provides compelling insights into ideologies of race, class and gender in colonial and contemporary Australia, and demonstrates that current post-colonial theories are inadequate in their treatment of so-called settler or second world cultures.

Texts discussed include Miles Franklin’s My Brilliant Career, Catherine Martin’s An Australian Girl, adventure novels by J. D. Hennessey and Rosa Campbell Praed, and ethnographic works by Katharine Langloh Parker.

Awards

Won – 2005 Walter McRae Russell Award for the Best Work of Literary Scholarship

Praise for Settler Romances and the Australian Girl:

Settler Romances advances scholarship in the Australian and post-colonial fields in ways that push our thinking beyond the consensus of current disciplinary positions on questions of gender, race and mimicry. Although the book will most immediately interest post-colonial critics and theorists, colonial discourse analysts, students of Australian literature and culture, and feminists working with colonial and post-colonial materials, it should also prove helpful for scholars working with the New Woman, with Victorian literature, and popular culture.

PROFESSOR DIANA BRYDON, UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO

Book details

PUBLICATION DATE: 2004
FORMAT: Paperback
EXTENT: 178 pages
SIZE: 207 x 139 mm
ISBN: 9781920694203
RIGHTS: World
CATEGORY: Tanya Dalziell, UWAP Scholarly,