1st Edition
Celebrating the Nation A critical study of Australia's bicentenary
Celebrating the Nation offers the first major critical retrospective on Australia's Bicentenary. The editors have collected a series of essays focusing on the different ways in which 1988 was celebrated. From the soccer Gold Cup to literary commissions, from Expo 88 to the Travelling Exhibition and the Stockman's Hall of Fame, it examines the cultural and ideological frameworks which shaped the discourses and rhetoric of those celebrations.
The contributors also put the Australian Bicentenary of 1988 in historical and international perspective, comparing the celebrations of 1988 with earlier Australian anniversary celebrations, and with recent national celebrations in France, Canada and the United States.
Drawing on the findings of a major research project organised by the Institute for Cultural Policy Studies at Griffith University, Celebrating the Nation provides a provocative and insightful analysis of the cultural and political processes through which modern nations organise and symbolise their histories and identities.
Acronyms
Notes on Contributors
Introduction: National Times - Tony Bennett
Part I A Time and a Place
1 State Festivals, Foundation Myths and Cultural Politics in Immigrant Nations - John Hutchinson
2 Regular Imaginings: the Newspaper and the Nation - Colin Mercer
3 Past History, Present Concerns: the Bicentenary of the French Revolution - Jane Crisp
Part II Representations and Lineages
4 Canons, Culture and Consensus: Australian Literature and the Bicentenary - Pat Buckridge
5 Manning Clark's Hat: Public and National Intellectuals - David Carter
6 The Unmarking of Soccer: Making a Brand New Subject - Toby Miller
Part III Exhibitions
7 The Shaping of Things to Come: Expo 88 - Tony Bennett
8 Expo 88: Fashions of Sight and Politics of Site - Jennifer Craik
9 Pioneering the Past: a Study of the Stockman's Hall of Fame - Robin Trotter
Biography
Tony Bennett is presently Dean of the Division of Humanities at Griffith University.
Pat Buckridge teaches in the School of Australian and Comparative Studies at Griffith University.
David Carter teaches in the School of Australian and Comparative Studies at Griffith University.
Colin Mercer teaches in the School of Cultural and Historical Studies at Griffith University. He is the Director of the Institute for Cultural Policy Studies.
