Project Details
Projekt
Orientalism in Colonial Australia, 1770-1901: A Transimperial Perspective
Applicant
Professorin Dr. Patricia Plummer
Subject Area
European and American Literary and Cultural Studies
Term
since 2018
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 322729370
This project investigates dynamics of ambiguity and distinction in travel narratives on Australia, from the early colonial to the national period. Orientalism as a ’travelling concept’ is of key importance as it provides the conceptual framework for the identification and classification of peoples and places on the continent, and the ensuing dynamics that enable or prevent the (dis)ambiguation of identities. Rather than reconstruct a metanarrative, this project will focus on three distinct settings and three kinds of narratives: (1) Arrival and first contact from 1770-c1790: imperial voyages and British travel accounts from Cook to First Fleet; (2) The Orient in Australia, c. 1860-1880: travel accounts by and about the ’Afghan’ Cameleers, and other ’Orientalised’ groups, from Chinese migrants to Indigenous Muslims; (3) Orientalism and Modernism, c.1890-1901: the progressive agenda and Utopian visions of the Theosophical Society in Australia, and competing narratives of inclusion and exclusion between East and West: Theosophical Orientalism versus White Australia Policy. The focus throughout is on shifting dynamics and interferences between gender, race and religion from 1770 to 1901, which will be analysed from a transimperial perspective. This project includes a postdoc research project in which Syed Kazmi aims to reconstruct the transimperial dimension of the ’Afghan’ Cameleers, and recapture their stories by interviewing descendants in South Australia and Pakistan. The findings of this project will be published in various formats. While the PI will co-edit a collection of articles on ambiguity and gender, the postdoc researcher will edit a special issue of the German Australian Studies journal. In addition to this, both researchers will publish a co-authored book on Orientalism in Australia and the (dis)amiguation of identities in travel literature as well as a number of articles in international peer-reviewed, open access journals.
DFG Programme
Research Units
