Category: Australian Literature

19thCLit, 21st Century Lit, 4 Quartets, American Literature, Australian Literature, Exploring Literature (Clemente), Extra-Mural Teaching, Francis Webb, Literature in Time and Space ENGL111, Literature: An Introduction, Literature: An Introduction 2020, New York, Nineteenth, Nineteenth Century Literature Test, NSW Art Gallery, Oz Lit, Poetry of Grace @ Aquinas, Poetry Workshops, Reading Australia, Research and Writing, Rilke, Shakespeare Plus, The Sacred in Literature and the Arts, Twentieth Century Literature ENGL202, Visionary Blake, Visionary Imagination, William Blake, Wisdom, x Blogging

Greetings and farewell from A/Prof Michael Griffith (Literature: Strathfield)

by michaelgriffith1 • June 30, 2022 • 0 Comments

I am retiring after 45 years at ACU. While it certainly sounds a long time, I remember vividly my first days on Castle Hill Campus in 1977 and then the flow of new literature students, through Castle Hill, then Mount Saint Mary and occasionally MacKillop. Every year a wonderful crop of new faces, new enthusiasms!…

Australian Literature, Oz Lit, Reading Australia, x Blogging

Best Blogs out of Australian Literature (ENGL231) 2021

by michaelgriffith1 • November 8, 2021 • 0 Comments

Best Blogs ENGL231 Thank you Anaïs Woods for your beautiful summary of the relevance of the indigenous content of this unit and of the power of blogging as a way of creating community: https://anaiswoods.wordpress.com/summative-entry/ Thank you Emily for your understanding of the way that literature can provide a means of deepening our understanding of what…

Australian Literature, Reading Australia, x Blogging

Blog 4 ENGL231 – due 25 October

by michaelgriffith1 • October 15, 2021 • 0 Comments

1/ Write a brief appraisal of Judith Beveridge’s visit to our class. What did you learn from her about poetry? Its practice and its purpose? 2/ Chose the first line of any one of Judith Beveridge’s poems and write your own poem on a related subject. 3/ Chose any one of Judith Beveridge’s poems and…

Australian Literature, Oz Lit, x Blogging

Australian Literature – Second Trawl through BLOGS 2021- Main topic – Students coping with Lockdown…

by michaelgriffith1 • October 3, 2021 • 0 Comments

image courtesy of Francis Saad’s blog (see below) Best blog on the impact of lockdown is Anaïs Woods’ reflections on the appearance of the cherry blossom in spring: https://anaiswoods.wordpress.com/2021/09/01/just-look-up-week-6-blog/ Zahra Salami’s take on the dramas she has had to face during lockdown. Thank you for your open and honest writing Zahra: Sarah Vella’s powerful description…

Australian Literature, Oz Lit, Reading Australia, x Blogging

Blog Topics 3 for Australian Literature 2021

by michaelgriffith1 • September 20, 2021 • 0 Comments

We have traversed quite some terrain in the last weeks. Chose one of these topics for your blog this week: 1/ Capture the seasonal quality of the Australia bush (in Spring) in a short poem that utilizes some of the techniques of Charles Harpur’s “A Midsummer Noon in the Australian Forest”. Maybe begin your poem…

Australian Literature, Oz Lit, x Blogging

Second Blog 2 Topics for Australian Literature 2021 (Due Friday 3rd September)

by michaelgriffith1 • August 28, 2021 • 0 Comments

List of Topics for your second blog: Write a first person account of what it is like studying Australian literature during a global pandemic. Give details of how the pandemic has impacted your work (positively and negatively) and how it has impacted the people who you live with. You can of course fictionalise your characters…

Australian Literature, Oz Lit, x Blogging

Australian Literature: First Crop of Outstanding Blogs Spring 2021

by michaelgriffith1 • August 26, 2021 • 0 Comments

Read Loulay’s amazing experience of visiting her grandfather in Lebanon and how this memory was triggered by Lisa Bellear’s “Urbanised Reebocks Loulay- https://loulayslovelyliterature.wordpress.com/2021/08/13/my-grandfathers-imprisonment-by-the-frenchlanguage/ Read Anaïs’ passionate response to the racism of the taxi drive in Lisa Bellear’s taxi poem Anaïs Woods: https://anaiswoods.wordpress.com/2021/08/13/facing-the-denial-and-acts-of-racism-taxi-by-lisa-bellear-week-3-blog/ Read Chloe’s powerful entry on Romaine’s Genocide poem with a real understanding of…

Australian Literature, Oz Lit, Reading Australia

Welcome to Blogging in Australian Literature 2021 (Unit ENGL231 at ACU)

by michaelgriffith1 • August 9, 2021 • 0 Comments

Hi All, Chose any of the topics listed below, or create a topic of your own – as long as it is in some way connected to the themes of our unit so far. Remember you are permitted to include personal reflections alongside your literary reflections or creations. But you must try to write as…

Australian Literature, Oz Lit, Reading Australia, x Blogging

Cream of the Crop for Australian Literature 2019!

by michaelgriffith1 • November 18, 2019 • 0 Comments

Thank you all for some fabulous blogging this semester. It has been a real feast to trawl through your many rich and creative insights into the literature of Australia. So many of you were able to express yourselves freely and openly, giving voice to what concerned you the most and finding ways of expressing your…

Australian Literature, Oz Lit, x Blogging

Francis Webb and David Malouf

by michaelgriffith1 • October 20, 2019 • 0 Comments

This week we are exploring the work of two writers who in their own ways are committed to the sacred dimension of life and who are also environmentalists. Please look through the following slides to get an idea of the ground that will be covered in lectures and tutorials this week. FrancisWebb & Malouf 2019…

Australian Literature, x Blogging

Week 10 Australian Literature- ePortfolio Advice

by michaelgriffith1 • October 14, 2019 • 0 Comments

🙂

American Literature, Australian Literature, Oz Lit, Visionary Blake, Visionary Imagination, William Blake, x Blogging

Sacred Silence in Literature and the Arts

by michaelgriffith1 • October 1, 2019 • 2 Comments

ACU students are welcome to attend this event for free on presentation of their student ID on the day. Come and be enlightened as never before and enjoy the company and the good food. You can find the full program details right here: Sacred Literature Conference Program Final

Australian Literature, x Blogging

Patrick White 2019

by michaelgriffith1 • September 10, 2019 • 0 Comments

Patrick White- Australia’s only Literature Nobel Laureate. “In all directions stretched the Great Australia Emptiness, in which the mind is the least of possessions, in which the rich man is the important man… in which beautiful youths and girls stare at life through blind blue eyes… the buttocks of cars grow hourly glassier, food means cake…

Australian Literature, NSW Art Gallery, Oz Lit, x Blogging

Australian Literature- Art Gallery Visit 2019

by michaelgriffith1 • August 27, 2019 • 0 Comments

What a great turn-out for this visit! Thank you all for your keen participation. We covered a wealth of material in the allocated hour from early 19th Century through to contemporary and Indigenous Art. Hoping that this will provide lots of useful insight for your blogs and your quiz! I have attached the audio talk…

Australian Literature, NSW Art Gallery, Oz Lit, x Blogging

Later Colonial Australian Literature – around the 1890s!

by michaelgriffith1 • August 18, 2019 • 0 Comments

Tom Roberts Bailed Up: https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/833/ Hi All, Building on last week’s excursion into the literature of the first half of the 19th Century in Australia, here is a quick survey of some of the material I will be exploring with you this week: Colonial Literature 1890s 2019 This is the period when the Australian idiom in both…

Australian Literature, Oz Lit, x Blogging

Early Colonial Australian Literature (2019)

by michaelgriffith1 • August 9, 2019 • 1 Comment

Hi All, this week we begin our exploration of Nineteenth Century Literature in Colonial Australia. It begins with the voices of convicts, aboriginals, the first “native” born colonial poets (such as Charles Harpur and Henry Kendall) and some of the first women writers in the colony: Louisa Anne Meredith and Catherine Helen Spence. Browse through…

Australian Literature, Oz Lit, x Blogging

Writing By and About Indigenous Australians.

by michaelgriffith1 • August 1, 2019 • 0 Comments

Hi All, this is the territory we will be travelling through next week. Please look through this file but be sure also to bring “The Mountain’s Own Meaning” with you next week to tutorials too…. The Mountain Has its Own Meaning INDIGENOUS WRITERS WEEK 2 Judith Wright’s Two Dreamtimes: N Two Dreamtimes 1Two Dreamtimes 2Two…

Australian Literature, Oz Lit, x Blogging

Australian Literature Mid-Winter Spring 2019- Week 1: The Mountain has its own Meaning.

by michaelgriffith1 • July 29, 2019 • 0 Comments

In Australian Literature today we explored the themes that arise from the line from Judith Wright’s poem “Rockface” in which she declares “the remnant of a mountain has its own meaning”. This image from Russel Drysdale’s Desert Landscape captures similar resonances to Judith Wright’s poem: https://m.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/OA15.1959/ Drysdale, like Judith Wright seems to honour the dignity of…

American Literature, Australian Literature, Bush Walking, Oz Lit, Visionary Imagination, William Blake, x Blogging

A Pome- from a recently discovered Manuscript of a play by W. Shakespeare

by michaelgriffith1 • July 28, 2019 • 5 Comments

Spring is come The grass is riz Oi wonder where the flowers iz But Shakespeare was wrong this time: the flowers are blooming, exploding around Sydney now in the dead of winter!!. This is the amazing aspect of living on the 33rd parallel: the seasons cannot make up their minds: is it winter? is it…

Australian Literature, Oz Lit, x Blogging

Australian Literature Blogs 2018

by michaelgriffith1 • November 4, 2018 • 0 Comments

There have been some wonderful blogs by students studying Australian Literature at ACU this semester. We began the unit with Kim Scott’s That Deadman Dance and then travelled through a number of Indigenous authors before beginning the “White” literary staircase from early colonial times right up to contemporary times with Francis Webb, Lisa Bellear and then…

Australian Literature, Oz Lit, x Blogging

David Malouf- Fly Away Peter: Part 2

by michaelgriffith1 • October 23, 2018 • 0 Comments

We had a great time exploring the powerful poetry and symbolism of David Malouf’s wonderful short novel Fly Away Peter today. Here is the audio lecture on this topic followed by the audio tutorial. Enjoy! Below this is the White-Board brain storm from Tutorial 3 and the PowerPoint for tutorials 1 and 2. week 12…

Australian Literature, Oz Lit, x Blogging

Francis Webb’s Eyre All Alone & David Malouf’s Fly Away Peter

by michaelgriffith1 • October 16, 2018 • 0 Comments

Today’s lecture began with some further comments on the poetry of Francis Webb. In particular I looked at “End of the Picnic”, “Black Cockatoos”, “Banksia” (from the Eyre All Alone sequence and “Harry” (from the Ward Two sequence. The first part of today’s audio lecture covers these poems. Enjoy listening! We then moved on to David Malouf’s…

Australian Literature, Oz Lit, x Blogging

20th Century Poets, Francis Webb and Judith Beveridge

by michaelgriffith1 • October 9, 2018 • 0 Comments

Today we began by exploring the life and language of Francis Webb, especially his poem “Five Days Old” which gives such a deep insight into the way he uses language to transform his experience into such a momentous event. We then had the privilege of having as our guest the poet Judith Beveridge who spoke…

Australian Literature, Oz Lit, x Blogging

Patrick White- Australia’s only Literature Nobel Laureate.

by michaelgriffith1 • October 2, 2018 • 0 Comments

Please see the end of this Blog for audios “In all directions stretched the Great Australia Emptiness, in which the mind is the least of possessions, in which the rich man is the important man… in which beautiful youths and girls stare at life through blind blue eyes… the buttocks of cars grow hourly glassier,…

Australian Literature, Oz Lit, x Blogging

Australian Literature in the Early 20th Century!

by michaelgriffith1 • September 18, 2018 • 0 Comments

We began today with a glance at Henry Lawson’s “Drifted Back”, a short story which encapsulated aspects of his own life story, but which also reflected back on Lawson’s impressions of what was being lost as Australia moved into the new century: Community, Mateship, The Old Bush School, the destruction of the environment with the…

Australian Literature, Oz Lit, x Blogging

Australian Colonialism from 1880 on: Republicanism, Feminism, Federation, and beyond…

by michaelgriffith1 • September 11, 2018 • 0 Comments

Firstly let me share some more Outstanding Blogs. These are all inspirational! Thank you for your creative work on these. And thank you all for such a great Blog Crop! If these are anything to go by I am really looking forward to seeing your final ePortfolios! Nicola on Copacabana Beach Angelina on Letter to…

Australian Literature, Oz Lit, x Blogging

Best OZ Lit Blogs- First Run!

by michaelgriffith1 • September 10, 2018 • 0 Comments

Students completing Australian Literature as a first year subject at ACU have the opportunity to write a weekly blog in either a creative or critical mode. They chose from a range of topics that reflects the reading for the week and that interfaces with their own experience. The work produced in this genre is outstanding…

Australian Literature, Oz Lit, x Blogging

Early Colonial Australian Literature

by michaelgriffith1 • September 4, 2018 • 0 Comments

Today we covered a host of impressive literary and artistic figures that included the Anonymous poet of the Swan River who really “had a go” at those politically motivated tyrants who wanted to say that the taking of Western Australia from the indigenous peoples was a good thing! Frank the poet got a look-in with…

Australian Literature, NSW Art Gallery, Oz Lit, x Blogging

Art Gallery Visit for Australian Literature Students 2018

by michaelgriffith1 • August 29, 2018 • 0 Comments

Thank you all for your keen participation and all your answers to questions as we were going around the Australian sections of the NSW Art Gallery. I hope you all got a sense of how important it is to get a sweeping picture of the development of Australian painting from its Aboriginal origins through to…

Australian Literature, x Blogging

Bobby Wabalanginy’s challenge to Xenophobic Australia

by michaelgriffith1 • August 21, 2018 • 0 Comments

From Lin Onus’s “Hills Hoist” – NSW Art Gallery. Kim Scott’s Bobby Wabalanginy is a character who dares to confront the hardened utilitarianism of the European invaders with dance, humour and song. The closing scenes of the novel in which Bobby does a hambone (striptease) -bar his bright red underpants- in front of a kangaroo…

Australian Literature, x Blogging

Peer Review 2: Jaimie Bonsall

by michaelgriffith1 • August 20, 2018 • 0 Comments

This is a peer review of Jaimie Bonsall’s first blog: https://jaimiebonsall.home.blog/ This is a fabulous entry Jaimie! Well done. You capture well that feeling of loss for the innocent joy of childhood that we all feel. You write beautifully with a good sense of how to bring your descriptions to life. The editing that I…

Australian Literature, x Blogging

Kim Scott That Deadman Dance 1

by michaelgriffith1 • August 14, 2018 • 0 Comments

Kim Scott standing under the “skirt” of a Black Boy/ Grass Tree (Xanthorea Australis)- Courtesy of Australian Book Review. Thank you all for your participation in today’s lecture and the tutorials. It was good to see such an engagement and an interest in the plight of our Indigenous cousins. And clearly it is powerful for us…

Australian Literature, x Blogging

Peer Review No 1

by michaelgriffith1 • August 14, 2018 • 0 Comments

Alexandra’s Blog is at https://s00240376.wordpress.com/2018/07/24/the-journey-begins/ You have set this up very well Alexandra. The blog looks good and is correctly categorised as Australian Literature. The writing is also imaginative and draws the reader into the experience. However you could simplify your language and speak more directly from experience. At times you seem to be pushing for…

Australian Literature, x Blogging

Writing by and about Indigenous Australians

by michaelgriffith1 • August 7, 2018 • 0 Comments

This week we have entered into the wonderful world of indigenous writing as a context for our study of Kim Scott’s That Dead Man Dance. And for us we are blessed that this study falls in the context of the Garma Festival [click on the link]which is taking place in Arnhem Land as we speak. This festival is…

Australian Literature, Oz Lit, x Blogging

Week 1: The Mountain Has Its Own Meaning

by michaelgriffith1 • July 31, 2018 • 0 Comments

Today we explored the meaning of this wonderfully suggestive line from Judith Wright’s poem “Rockface”. Judith Wright’s line picks up a core theme in Australian Literature from the earliest days of colonization through to our own times: what is our attitude to the Australian landscape? Is it utilitarian and appropriative? Or is it open to…

Australian Literature, Oz Lit, Visionary Blake, Visionary Imagination, x Blogging

Literature in Spring 2018

by michaelgriffith1 • July 30, 2018 • 0 Comments

Hi All, this semester I am teaching Australian Literature to first years (with long-time colleague Elaine Lindsay): You can listen to Elaine in an interview she had on ABC radio recently with novelist Tom Keneally: http://www.abc.net.au/sundaynights/stories/s4432426.htm I am also teaching Twentieth Century Literature to second years and The Visionary Imagination (William Blake, Patrick White and Brett…

American Literature, Australian Literature, New York, x Blogging

Best American Literature Blogs 2017

by michaelgriffith1 • November 25, 2017 • 1 Comment

American Literature was a new unit for me to teach this semester at Australian Catholic University, but it dovetails beautifully into the short intensive unit I teach in January The Literature and Drama of New York which is being taught in January in the snow and ice of that amazing city. So this semester-long unit American Literature…

American Literature, Australian Literature, Reading Australia, x Blogging

Best Australian Literature Blogs 2017

by michaelgriffith1 • November 25, 2017 • 0 Comments

Russell Drysdale “The Mountain Has Its Own Meaning” Judith Wright An occasion for celebration: Australian Literature – a first year unit at Australian Catholic University- has again produced an extraordinary group of bloggers. Their work reveals how blogging has enabled them to connect with Aust. Lit. in a way that expands beyond the rigours of…

American Literature, Australian Literature, Reading Australia, x Blogging

Reading Australia: Best Summative Blog Posts for 2017

by michaelgriffith1 • November 17, 2017 • 0 Comments

There have been some truly fabulous Summative Blog Posts from the group of students who have just finished the third year unit Reading Australia. Such wonderful reflections that bring into focus students’ ethnicity, their appreciation of what Australian culture has to offer, but also their deep sadness at the continuing injustices, especially to indigenous people.…

Australian Literature, x Blogging

Patrick White’s Vision of Australian Society

by michaelgriffith1 • October 3, 2017 • 0 Comments

“In all directions stretched the Great Australia Emptiness, in which the mind is the least of possessions, in which the rich man is the important man… in which beautiful youths and girls stare at life through blind blue eyes… the buttocks of cars grow hourly glassier, food means cake and steak… and the march of…

Australian Literature, x Blogging

Early 20th Century Australian Poetry and Prose

by michaelgriffith1 • September 19, 2017 • 0 Comments

Today we explored the worlds of John Shaw Neilson, Miles Franklin, Frederic Manning and M.Barnard Eldershaw. This clutch or writers embrace a huge range of literary and intellectual interests. Neilson is the poet who shows how the language of poetry is closest to music and art through his use of colour and sound to paint…

Australian Literature, x Blogging

Australian Colonialism Part 2: Republicanism, Feminism, Federation and beyond…

by michaelgriffith1 • September 12, 2017 • 0 Comments

Today we looked at Ada Cambridge, Barbara Baynton, Dame Mary Gilmore, Henry Lawson, Banjo Paterson and on and on…. what an extraordinary cast of voices from this period that celebrated Australian independence from England both thematically and linguistically… the opening sentences of “The Drover’s Wife” show beautifully how Lawson has transitioned the language and themes…

Australian Literature, x Blogging

Early Australian Colonialism

by michaelgriffith1 • September 5, 2017 • 0 Comments

Australian Literature, x Blogging

That Dead Man Dance Week 2

by michaelgriffith1 • August 23, 2017 • 0 Comments

Thank you Jess for that original slant on That Dead Man Dance. Connecting Bobby with the Cleverman series was a really good way of bringing Kim Scott’s approach into our contemporary discourse. Here are a bunch of Jess’s blog questions that you can add to what you had last week: 1/ Write a passage in of your…

Australian Literature, x Blogging

That Dead Man Dance

by michaelgriffith1 • August 19, 2017 • 0 Comments

Hi All, I trust you are making good headway with That Dead Man Dance! This is a wonderfully relevant novel to Australia today with its still unresolved relationship to its indigenous inhabitants. I was struck especially by an article that was written yesterday about the statue of Captain Cook by Stan Grant: I passed by Hyde…

Australian Literature, Reading Australia, x Blogging

Awakening the Sacred in Australian Literature and Art- Keynote Address 8th July 2017

by michaelgriffith1 • August 18, 2017 • 0 Comments

Please find in this blog the audio recording of the keynote address given by Michael Griffith at the Awakening the Sacred conference held at ACU on July 7/8 2017. You can find details about the conference here: http://www.acu.edu.au/staff/our_university/newsroom/staff_news_item/awakening_the_sacred_in_literature_and_the_arts Here is the audio of the keynote: And here are the images that accompanied the talk: Awakening the…

Australian Literature, x Blogging

Australian Literature an Introduction: Blog Topics

by michaelgriffith1 • August 8, 2017 • 0 Comments

Thank you all for your enthusiastic start to the semester. It is always good to be talking about the literature and experience of our own country. A few decades ago you couldn’t study Australian Literature at University- it was not seen academically respectable! How times have changed. So far we have looked at the broad…