Seminar Series

Series 2, 2010: Text and Texture

Dates: Monday 9 August - Monday 22 November, 2010

Timetable, abstracts and audiovisual recordings of the seminars are available.

This series looks at the role of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander writers and researchers as a counter to mainstream Australian literature with particular focus on voicing the self in the context of hegemonic society. The series will explore the more emotionally tactile features of the author/reader/text relationship. Writers and researchers will explore the various layers of the writing process for Indigenous texts such as: the different layers of experience that come to the forefront; the various layers of misrepresentation of Indigenous people by non-Indigenous writers; the layers of fabrication of Australia’s past, and the layers of ‘convenient truth’ that have silenced Indigenous experience and need to be excavated through Indigenous writing. Questions seeking answers are: Who is reading Indigenous literature? Where do authors themselves want to see Indigenous literature in the future and how would they like their texts to be read? How can an Indigenous sense of voice be maintained through the process of non-Indigenous editing? and, how do authors work within the confines of Western genres and literary devices to tell an Indigenous story and centre an Indigenous standpoint?

Series co-ordinator: Jeanine Leane.

Venue: Mabo Room, AIATSIS Building, Acton Peninsula, Canberra

Time: Monday lunchtimes 12.30-2pm

Enquiries: Jeanine Leane (Jeanine.Leane@aiatsis.gov.au or 02 6261 4227)

If you are unable to attend the seminars in person, you can download audio recordings which are made available shortly after each seminar.

Past Series are available here.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by speakers during the AIATSIS Seminar Series do not necessarily reflect those of AIATSIS, and the Institute accepts no responsibility for them.