In the Wake of First Contact
The Eliza Fraser Stories

In this book, colonialism, race, and gender are explored through the cultural representations of an episode of Australian history.

Kay Schaffer (Author)

9780521499200, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 1 January 1995

340 pages, 19 b/w illus. 21 maps
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.5 kg

' … the very model of post-modernist writing … Indeed, it could be set as a textbook for students to explore post-modernism.' Aboriginal History

Eliza Fraser was an English woman shipwrecked on the Australian coast in 1836, where she lived with an Aboriginal community until her rescue. The story of a 'civilised' white female being taken captive by 'savage' black men was both fascinating and repulsive. Images and narratives surrounding this notorious episode have proliferated from the 1830s to the present. Kay Schaffer looks at the various literary and artistic manifestations of Eliza Fraser as a fictional presence in Australian culture. Schaffer looks at the contemporary narratives, and at more recent representations of Mrs Fraser in film, in the art of Sidney Nolan, and the writing of Patrick White. The book uses these texts to examine historical discourses of colonialism, race, gender, and nation. This accessible and stimulating book promises to make an impressive contribution to women's studies, cultural studies, and Australian history.

List of illustrations
Preface
1. Her story/history: the many fates of Eliza Fraser
2. Eliza Fraser's story: texts and contexts
3. John Curtis and the politics of empire: The Shipwreck of the Stirling Castle
4. Policing the borders of civilisation: colonial man and his others
5. Cannibals: Western imaginings of the Aboriginal other
6. Modern reconstructions: Michael Alexander's history and Sidney Nolan's paintings
7. Patrick White's novel A Fringe of Leaves
8. A universal postcolonial myth?: representations beyond Australia - Gabriel Josipovici, Michael Ondaatje and Andre Brink
9. And now for the movie: popular accounts
10. Oppositional voices: contemporary politics and the Eliza Fraser story.

Subject Areas: Biography: historical, political & military [BGH]