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…
Tag: David Malouf
Australian Literature Mid-Winter Spring 2019- Week 1: The Mountain has its own Meaning.
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…
David Malouf- Fly Away Peter: Part 2
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…
Reading Australia: Best Summative Blog Posts for 2017
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.…
David Malouf on Campus at Strathfield and at Mission Australia Surry Hills
ACU students both on and off campus had the real privilege today of interacting with David Malouf about The Conversations at Curlow Creek (Strathfield) and Remembering Babylon (Surry Hills). David was wonderfully generous both with his time and his responses and students in both locations were equally wonderful in their thoughtful preparation and deep questioning. Here are…
David Malouf Conversations at Curlow Creek- 1
Today we explored the world of this amazing novel focussing on the nature and purpose of story telling. As David Malouf has so powerfully said in a lecture to Macquarie University students: Story telling is a kind of public dreaming. But before a story can be public- be published- it has to find a place…
David Malouf – Remembering Babylon- again!
Hello All, please find in this blog ALL the recordings from the last two weeks. Here also is the white board image from yesterday’s class: Here are your instructions for getting to the NSW Art Gallery for 2.30pm NEXT WEDNESDAY: https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/visit-us/plan-your-visit/getting-here/ See you there next week! Enjoy!
Heading in to David Malouf’s Remembering Babylon!
This week we are heading into this amazing literary work which is in prose, but is also profoundly poetical! Go to LEO to check out some more information on David Malouf. But here (in the image above) is your blog topic for this week. Notice in the image Gemmy standing on the fence! Remember this…
Remembering Babylon- David Malouf
Whether this is Jerusalem or Babylon we know not: William Blake The Four Zoas. With this epigraph from William Blake, David Malouf challenges us to consider whether the colonial Australian world that he evokes in this beautiful novel is a place in which harmony might evolve, or in which chaos and lamentation might descend. It is…
David Malouf- Fly Away Peter
This is such a wonderful novel to teach because it deals with such simple matters so deeply and movingly. The scene at the end of the novel where Imogen Harcourt is grieving over Jim Saddler would have to be one of the most amazing moments in Australian literature: It was that intense focus of his…
Twentieth Century Oz Lit Poetry and Prose Part 2
This week we finished our exploration of Patrick White’s amazing depiction of contemporary Australian society: its emptiness, but also its powerful potential for renewal in “Down at the Dump” and “Miss Slattery’s Demon Lover”- both in The Burnt Ones (1964). As a prelude to David Malouf‘s visit to us in a fortnight we explored “The Year of the Foxes”,…
David Malouf- Fly Away Peter
In today’s lecture we spent time exploring the last few pages of this amazing novel Fly Away Peter. Malouf’s creativity is so attuned to his characters’ inner experience that it is very hard not to be deeply moved by what his characters experience. This is the power of his creative skill, shaping sentences, phrases, images to draw…
David Malouf- Remembering Babylon.
HI All, Last Blog Topics for weeks 10 and 11. Creative Topics: 1/ Write a letter to Jock McIvor explaining to him how you yourself have been going through some deep personal self-questioning, trying to work out whether the company you keep is in the best interests of your own personal growth. 2/ Write a letter to…
Australian Literature Art Gallery Visit- 2015 (Week 4)
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 final assessment! I have attached the audio talkl tour here…
Bush Walking, Literature: An Introduction, Nineteenth, Shakespeare Plus, Visionary Blake, x Blogging
Grounding the Sacred: Don’t Miss This Event- Musicians, Artists, Novelists, Poets Engaging With the Sacred
Please Click to Register for this Amazing Conference Learn more at Grounding the Sacred through Literature and the Arts Conference.
An Event Not to be Missed: Grounding the Sacred in Literature and the Arts at ACU July 23-26th
In July this year (23-26) we are co-ordinating an international conference on the links between Literature, the Arts and the Sacred. We have an amazing line-up of participants including David Malouf, Genevieve Lacey, Kevin Hart, Vivien Johnson, Kathleen Deignan, David Jasper, Imam Afroz Ali, Maeve Heaney, Carmel Bird, Michael McGirr, Joelene Griffith and many more.…
The Visionary Imagination: Remembering Babylon
Photo Courtesy of Juno Gemes Today we discussed the way in which Janet McIvor’s experience of being overwhelmed by a swarm of bees is the encrustation that heralds her liberation into a life of dedication and purpose as a Nun. This extraordinary episode builds on the earlier episode in which the young Janet peels a…
David Malouf on Campus!
We had a wonderful lecture/ talk from David Malouf yesterday. His focus was on Fly Away Peter, but he also spent time sharing with us his sense of how we need to read his work, indeed any great literature, in order to connect with the experience that it is trying to engage us with. Literature, as…
20thC/ Visionary Imagination – Remembering Babylon- David Malouf- Auden’s “The Unknown Citizen”
David Malouf is arguably one of the finest authors writing in English today. His deep interest in the way imagination is a tool for understanding the world more completely than any scientific or psychological analysis might do. His vision- through story telling- of how early colonists might have responded to an outcast (Gemmy Fairley) shows…
Michael Griffith: Home Page- Literature and Life Summer 2023 
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