|
|
|
Virtually on the Beach.
Chris Prentice, Department of English, University of Otago
| [ Go to this paper in the timetable ] |
chris.prentice@stonebow.otago.ac.nz
In Louis Nowra's teleplay, Displaced Persons, a group of European WWII refugee-immigrants are held on a quarantine island in Sydney Harbour while the source of a mysterious and lethal illness devastating the group is isolated and prevented from entering the mainland. In Ian Wedde's novel, Symmes Hole, the narrator is holed up crouching in the space between the ceiling and the roof of his home, listening to the pounding of Surf from the laundry below, and reflecting on radio's 'Today in History' slot. This paper launches from these examples of the familiar (post-) colonial chronotope of 'the beach' to trace shifting notions of exotic-domestic encounter, translation and hybridity in the island nation imaginary. It draws on a selection of media texts and debates to argue the problematics of these terms with the disappearance of the 'space between', where now the electronic media function as a 'virtual beach' of simulated encounters, in-forming rather than shoring up 'national culture'."
