Weird scribblings on the beach: modernity and belatedness -- Critics, writers, intellectuals: Australia Literature and its criticism -- Drawing the line: Art in Australia and the contemporay modern -- 'Espirit de nation' and popular modernity: Aussie magazine 190-1931 -- 'Screamers in bedlam': vision 1923-1924 -- Paris, Moscow, Melbourne -- The mystery of the missing middlebrow -- 'Some means of learning of the best new books': all about books and the modern reader -- Realism, documentary, socialist realism: fiction and social crisis 1930-1960 -- 'Current history looks apocalyptic': Barnard Eldershaw, utopia and the literary intellectual -- Communism and carnival: Ralph De Boissiere's crown jewel and its Australian context -- O'Grady, John see'Culotta, Nino: popular authorship, duplicity and celebrity -- The wide brown land on the silver screen -- Good readers and good citizens: literature, media and the nation
Summary
Was Australian culture born modern or has it always been behind the game, never quite modern enough? Carter's essays examine the complete engagements of Australian writers, artists, editors and consumers with 20th-century modernity, social and political crisis, and the impact of modernisms
Analysis
Australian
Cultural studies (Australia)
Literary studies & criticism (Australia)
Social studies (Australia)
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (page 273-301) and index