Seeking the Centre: The Australian Desert in Literature, Art and FilmCambridge University Press, 1998 - 347 pages The desert has a hypnotic presence in Australian culture, simultaneously alluring and repellent. The 'Centre' is distant and unknown to most Australians, yet has become a symbol of the country. This exciting book, highly illustrated in full colour, reveals the singular impact that the desert, both geographical and metaphorical, has had on Australian culture. At the heart of the book is the profound relationship that Aboriginal Australians have with the desert, and the complex ways in which they have been seen by white people in this context. |
Contents
Acknowledgments | |
Introduction 1 | |
1 | |
European myths of the desert 23 | |
imperatives for discovery 36 | |
or what the explorers wrote into the landscape 58 | |
5 | |
dead explorers and national identity 111 | |
tales of travel and reefs of gold 143 | |
from topography to imagery 161 | |
psychodrama in fiction and film 184 | |
11 | |
retelling the exploration stories 226 | |
evolution and ecology of the desert 249 | |
The art of cultural encounter 281 | 30 |
Common terms and phrases
Aboriginal art Adelaide Alice Springs artists Australia Twice Traversed Australian desert Australian landscape birds Birdsville Track Burke Burke's Bush camels canvas Central Australia centre century Chapter civilisation colonial colours continent Cooper's Creek dead death depicted desert landscape Dreaming drought Drysdale earth Ernest Giles European expedition experience figures film Flinders Ranges geographical gold Gothic Hans Heysen heroes heroic heroism Heysen Hill ibid illustration following images immensity indigenous inland explorers inland sea interior John Wolseley Journal journey Kata Tjuta Lake Eyre Lake Torrens land Leichhardt Ludwig Becker Melbourne mirage myth Narrative nature nineteenth-century novel outback paintings party poem quotations that follow quoted race River rock Russell Drysdale sand scene sense settlers Sidney Nolan Simpson Desert South Australia spiritual story Sturt suggests Sydney symbolic terrain tion tracks traditional travellers trees Uluru vast Victoria visual Voss watercolour Western white Australians wilderness writers