MONASH UNIVERSITY FACULTY HANDBOOKS

Arts Graduate Handbook 1996

Authorised by Academic Registrar, April 1996

ENM4820/5820

Twentieth-century Australian drama

Proposed to be offered next in 1997

Peter Fitzpatrick

Synopsis The subject deals with a wide range of the work of Australian playwrights of the last one hundred years. While the seminar program will focus on critical approaches to the prescribed plays, it will also be concerned with a number of issues beyond the individual texts: the patterns of preoccupation which the plays reflect and the ideologies and conventions to which they are related; the theatrical models, both local and international, to which the plays may refer; the empowering and disabling influences of a consciousness of tradition, and the cultural assumptions on which they are based; and the ways in which the playwrights have shaped or adapted images of Australian identity. The subject aims to provide a comprehensive introduction to the history of Australian theatre in the period and to the work of a number of its most prominent writers, but that properly involves attention to their audiences, and to processes of textual transmission in the theatre which are not culture-specific at all.

Assessment (8 points) Assignment/s (2500 words): 40% + Essay (3500 words): 60%

Assessment (12 points) Long essay/research project (5000 words): 50% + Short essay (2000 words): 25% + Seminar paper: 25%

Prescribed texts

• Bailey B On Our Selection Currency
• Beynon R The Shifting Heart Angus and Robertson
• Buzo A Norm and Ahmed Currency
• Crawford J Rocket Range (distributed by department)
• Cusack D Morning Sacrifice Currency
• Darrell G The Sunny South Currency
• Davis J Kullark, The Dreamers Currency
• De Groen A The Rivers of China Currency
• Esson L Dead Timber, The Drovers (distributed by department)
• Hewett D The Man from Munkinupin Currency
• Hewett D The Chapel Perilous Currency
• Hibberd J A Stretch of the Imagination Currency
• Lawler R The Summer of the Seventeenth Doll Currency
• Nowra L Inside the Island Currency
• Rayson H Hotel Sorrento Currency
• Roland B The Touch of Silk Currency
• Romeril J The Floating World Currency
• Sewell S Hate, Dreams in an Empty City Currency
• Seymour A The One Day of the Year Penguin
• White P The Ham Funeral Currency
• White P The Season at Sarsaparilla Currency
• Williamson D Don's Party Currency
• Williamson D The Removalists Currency
• Williamson D Beautiful Lies Currency