An historical overview of postcolonial literary studies in Australia from 1970 to the present

This project will be the first major study to research and document the changes that have occurred to postcolonial literary studies in Australia from its beginnings in the late 1970s to the present, and to show what features have distinguished it from postcolonial literary studies in the UK. The project will investigate the earliest postcolonial approaches to postcolonial writing and criticism in Australia together with the key literary and literary critical works that in Australia set the tone for the most important debates in the field. It will examine the effects on Australian postcolonial literary studies of works by Australian Aboriginal Writers starting in the 1990s and continuing up to the present.

In addition to identifying the literary and critical works that have been most instrumental in effecting change to Australian Postcolonial Studies, the project will identify the journals that have most helped precipitate and consolidate transformation – a list that includes Australian Literary Studies, Postcolonial Studies and Settler Colonial Studies.

Finally, as part of its attempt to address the ongoing legacies of colonialism, including the growing gap between the Global North and South, the project will examine some of the collaborative links that have recently formed between Australian and UK scholars, many of which have been aimed at revitalising the field by engaging with non-western knowledge systems, eco-criticism, intersectional and other feminism, environmentalism, animal studies, and minority writing, together with a range of other disciplines.