Thread by @msmisrule

Well, this is exciting. I am going to be presenting a paper as part of the academic stream of the Historical Novel Society of Australasia Conference. My paper will be on my research to date on the Australian children’s time slip fantasy. #ahnsa #phdchat

The conference theme is History Repeats, which is perfect for the aspect of my thesis that looks at how Australian time slip set outside of cities is primarily interested in how time on Country is iterative rather than chronological.

Many of these books are either overtly or more implicitly interested in how Settler Colonial Australians can forge a relationship with Country. Some of them explicitly address the cost to Aboriginal people of our lives on their Country. Some of them are apologists for that cost.

The sense of time being iterative is I believe inherent in the very nature of Country and even the most rigid Cartesian thinkers have to eventually come to terms with this. It’s kind of the ironic opposite of what Dark meant when she wrote about “The Timeless Land”.

These adventure on Country and across time are by the nature of child protagonists being thrown into “history” also explorations of national identity: what does it mean to be (White/Settler Colonial) Australian and live on this land?

I put history in scare quotes because the very iterative nature of time in these books challenges western concepts of History. Just as Aboriginal Knowledge and stories drawn from Aboriginal Country also challenge our accepted definitions of fantasy.

ie, if the stories draw on, or are based on, and yes, appropriated from, a living culture and its Knowledge, can we really call them fantasy?

In urban time slip, the genre is used more commonly to explore political and social movements of the past. I haven’t started work on that yet, so it won’t form part of my paper for October.

Not all Australian children’s fantasy is time slip, but it’s fascinating to discover how many of them that are recognisably set in Australia and dealing explicitly with Aus themes and characters are time slip. I guess it’s the most obvious way of addressing SC life here.

Especially as many of the books in the first decades post-WWII tend to treat Aboriginal people aa artefacts of the past. And some more recent ones do too, alas.

Also, my basic argument (not particularly relevant to the conference, but while I’m here...) is that it was Nan Chauncy who invented Aus children’s fantasy, not Patricia Wrightson. Have at me.

Anyway, this is me being dead chuffed about being accepted and having yet another driving reason to GET THE BLOODY THING WRITTEN. #phdlife #amtweetingwhenIshouldbewriting

Unroll please @threadreaderapp