The Reluctant Cosmopolis: Poetics and the Parochial in Australia
Author(s)
Duggan, Laurence
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2005
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' Australia ' has, almost since the European invasion, been an essentially cosmopolitan project though a persistent nationalist discourse seeks to deny this. The populist anti-intellectualism expressed in newspapers &c is, I would claim, really an anti-cosmopolitanism where the arts (when they cannot serve either as 'exports' or as tourist attractions) are relegated to a marginal status and where any overt influence from 'elsewhere' is perceived as an evil. In this paper I will investigate the antagonisms between cosmopolitanism and parochialism in Australian culture with reference to my own experience as a writer.' Australia ' has, almost since the European invasion, been an essentially cosmopolitan project though a persistent nationalist discourse seeks to deny this. The populist anti-intellectualism expressed in newspapers &c is, I would claim, really an anti-cosmopolitanism where the arts (when they cannot serve either as 'exports' or as tourist attractions) are relegated to a marginal status and where any overt influence from 'elsewhere' is perceived as an evil. In this paper I will investigate the antagonisms between cosmopolitanism and parochialism in Australian culture with reference to my own experience as a writer.
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Sites of Cosmopolitanism conference
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© The Author(s) 2005 Griffith University. It is posted here with permission of the copyright owner for your personal use only. No further distributions permitted.