tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/literary-culture-11388/articlesLiterary culture – The Conversation2023-08-17T20:10:17Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2098642023-08-17T20:10:17Z2023-08-17T20:10:17ZFriday essay: what do publishers’ revisions and content warnings say about the moral purpose of literature?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542938/original/file-20230816-21-f4anvz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C11%2C4000%2C2982&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway and Agatha Christie.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This year, there has been some controversy about the rewriting of passages from authors such as <a href="https://time.com/6256980/roald-dahl-censorship-debate/">Roald Dahl</a>, <a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/enid-blyton-famous-five-rewritten-sensitivity-edit/b8c5073a-6ea4-4df8-9143-5089e9bbe1a3">Enid Blyton</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/feb/27/james-bond-novels-to-be-reissued-with-racial-references-removed">Ian Fleming</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/mar/26/agatha-christie-novels-reworked-to-remove-potentially-offensive-language">Agatha Christie</a> with the aim of removing potentially offensive material. Some publishers have also adopted the precautionary measure of adding content warnings and disclaimers to books by <a href="https://amp.theage.com.au/world/north-america/ernest-hemingway-masterpiece-given-trigger-warning-by-publisher-20230625-p5dj8h.html">Ernest Hemingway</a>, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/01/virginia-woolf-to-the-lighthouse-trigger-warning-vintage/">Virginia Woolf</a>, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/29/raymond-chandler-philip-marlowe-trigger-warning-vintage/">Raymond Chandler</a> and <a href="https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/jeeves-wooster-trigger-warning-edited-publisher-unacceptable-prose-pg-wodehouse/">P.G. Wodehouse</a>. </p>
<p>Critics of these bowdlerisations and disclaimers have come from across the political spectrum and seem to vastly outnumber those defending the practice. It is some time since I have noticed a literary topic come up as frequently as this one in conversation with those outside the literary culture. And while, as an academic, it is heartening to see people worked up about books and their value, it is disheartening to see books recruited as culture-war fodder. </p>
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<p>Conservative publications have tended to frame these developments as evidence of “wokeness” (a word, in this context, vacant of meaning). Others have offered more nuanced, less loaded critiques, arguing that such measures fail to account for our obligation to attend to and preserve history, rather than ignore or erase it. In the case of children’s books, the argument has been made for the role of adults as responsible literary guides.</p>
<p>Much has been said on the issue of rewriting writers that I don’t want to relitigate, but it is worth examining the nature of the debate itself and the fact of its prominence. In an era when literature sits on the cultural margins, why does a story like this break through to the mainstream? What are the stakes that have conjured so much talk? </p>
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<p>
<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/roald-dahl-rewrites-rather-than-bowdlerising-books-on-moral-grounds-we-should-help-children-to-navigate-history-200254">Roald Dahl rewrites: rather than bowdlerising books on moral grounds we should help children to navigate history</a>
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<h2>Moral questions</h2>
<p>A literary story is taken up by the media most enthusiastically, it seems, when it can be connected to moral concerns. Those who would clean up the classics, and their conservative opponents, are entangled in a moral battle which encourages the application of the same ethical criteria to books that might be apply to elected officials or ministers of religion. </p>
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<p>Skimming any contemporary writers’ festival program will demonstrate that we struggle to talk about books on any other terms. Yet if book-talk most easily rises to the level of public discussion when it involves a simple moral controversy, then we are inexorably incorporating literature into the sepia mass of monetised cultural gruel of which our society appears increasingly to comprise. </p>
<p>Two questions motivate this latest argument. The first entails uncertainty about what constitutes literary censorship. Is rewriting a sentence to expurgate an offensive term a form of vandalism, or is it no different from (or at least comparable to), say, translation? </p>
<p>The second is a much debated and oft-reformulated inquiry, familiar within and without literary studies: is there a necessary connection between a work’s literary value and its moral quality? When we read a book do we expect a degree of moral instruction, as to how we should or should not live? </p>
<p>These are worthwhile questions, but they are not the only ones. Literature is extraordinary, in part, because it cannot be reduced to such questions. </p>
<p>Moral debates arise easily because they tend to encourage definitive judgements, which are both gratifying and compatible with an increasingly commodified world. In particular, a moral judgement has the power to bestow a final endorsement or condemnation, meaning one can avoid what <a href="https://theconversation.com/john-keats-concept-of-negative-capability-or-sitting-in-uncertainty-is-needed-now-more-than-ever-153617">Keats described as negative capability</a>: “being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason”.</p>
<p>A capacity to cope with the unpleasantness of irresolution could be taken as a mark of maturity. The desire for certainty, for a world of unambiguously demarcated ethical boundaries of the kind found in much young adult fiction, could be described as a reassuring childish fantasy.</p>
<p>There might be good reasons for removing offensive language from a text, but we should be suspicious of the impulse to polish literature for modern sensibilities, to make writing newly palatable and inoffensive. To treat books as objects that can be modified to suit the mood of the times is to risk ushering them into the category of pure commodity, optimised according to market desires.</p>
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<span class="caption">Ernest and Pauline Hemingway in Paris, 1927.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>The urge to keep Dahl agreeable, for example, is a consequence of a corporation desiring to profit from Roald Dahl the brand. Children’s author Philip Pullman suggested that, rather than revising Dahl, it would be preferable to let him go out of print. This is inconceivable. Dahl’s estate is simply worth too much. </p>
<p>It is in the interest of the Roald Dahl Story Company, purchased by Netflix in 2021, to make Dahl as widely acceptable as possible. Thus the effort to sand off his edges. Brands must be slick, inoffensive, inhuman. </p>
<p>No sensible person would defend Dahl’s character. He was a professed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jul/19/roald-dahl-museum-acknowledges-authors-antisemitism">antisemite</a>. In the 1970s, he was forced by the advocacy of the civil rights organisation NAACP to change Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’s Oompa Loompas, who were originally depicted as pygmies brought from Africa to work in the chocolate factory unpaid. </p>
<p>These facts may repulse you to such an extent you can never read Dahl again – or perhaps you might prefer to evaluate his books on their own terms, detaching them from the author’s beliefs. Either response is possible and understandable. But the texts cannot be entirely revalued or made morally sound by meddling with a few sentences or replacing them with clunky alternatives. </p>
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<span class="caption">Roald Dahl in 1982.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hans van Dijk/Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>Literature has always been influenced by the marketplace. Historically, it has evolved through systems of patronage and copyright, gatekeeping publishers and nepotistic periodicals. But to reduce an author to a brand is to obliterate what makes literature a meaningful category. Art distinguishes itself from commerce by pushing back against these capitalist formations and, consequently, being incompatible with reductive moralism. </p>
<p>This is obvious when we consider how we treat books differently to other purchasable items. If you buy a vacuum cleaner that fails to suck dust from your carpet, you should be able to return it. This is because vacuum cleaners are meant to perform a clearly identifiable, unambiguous function. </p>
<p>If you purchase a book that does not work as expected, it would be perverse to attempt to return it to the bookshop and say: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I found the prose too dense; the characters were meaner than I wanted them to be; I thought I was reading a detective story, but halfway through it became a revenge tragedy.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The nourishment offered by reading depends, in fact, on our not knowing how the experience of a book will unfold until we are reading it. The value is revealed in the act of reading. Even when rereading, we find pleasure in noticing patterns or aspects of a work that did not come into view during the previous encounter. We never quite know what we are in for.</p>
<p>The best literature can be spiky, ambiguous, difficult, cruel, strange, unpredictable, hectoring and unpleasant. It is not the job of a book to ease the life of its reader. Reading a good book might mean having a terrible day, a day in which you are scared, sad, distressed. </p>
<p>It is rare (if not unheard of) that we pay to undergo unpleasant experiences that teach us nothing. But literature does not have an obligation to be useful; we do not have to learn anything from it. It need not produce anything except a readerly response. The alternative is that we are paying to be numbed.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/proceed-with-caution-the-trouble-with-trigger-warnings-192598">Proceed with caution: the trouble with trigger warnings</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<hr>
<h2>A reasonable reaction?</h2>
<p>What, then, is a reasonable reaction to a book that offends? And by what mechanisms are thresholds of offence and moral transgression established? </p>
<p>There are social norms arrived at more or less by consensus which few would dispute. There are certainly examples of books that necessitate judicious editing if they are to continue being published. To return to the original title of Agatha Christie’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Then_There_Were_None">And Then There Were None</a>, for example, would make the book unsellable. (Conversely, it could be argued that concealing the author’s choice so as to prolong a book’s life unfairly deceives readers.)</p>
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<p>In most circumstances, there is nothing wrong with trying to avoid offence. When teaching a text that students may find difficult, I am happy to provide a content warning. It is not obvious to me that forcing a student to encounter shocking material, perhaps material they find personally painful, is necessarily edifying or educational. </p>
<p>In fact, any social interaction requires us to calculate what it is permissible to say, and there are many remarks we refrain from making for fear they might hurt. In the case of this current controversy, however, attention must be paid to how and why the decisions about what constitutes unacceptable material are being made.</p>
<p>In an ordinary setting, a reader who finds a book disagreeable can put that book down, or not pick it up in the first place. An author might also consider such consequences when writing a book. </p>
<p>But if the moral authority to make these decisions on behalf of an audience is sourced from the imperative to keep a property such as James Bond or Willy Wonka marketable, the literature is degraded. While it may be in the interest of art to leave its audience in distress, it will never be in the interest of capital to upset a potential consumer. </p>
<p>To defend literature entirely on moral grounds is to cede important territory. Of course, literature can make you a better person; it can also make you a worse one. It is most likely to do neither. Of course, a reader can find a book morally offensive or morally instructive, but that might be only one thread in a complex array of responses. </p>
<p>Any argument that treats literature as fundamentally therapeutic, self-improving or society-improving, risks reducing literature to self-help – a genre that promises to improve its reader’s character. To approach literature as a machine for self-improvement is to share ground with the bad-faith arguments of those who justify their bigoted moralising by referring to the cultural achievements of Western civilisation. </p>
<p>The shared perspective is that the value of books depends on the readers they produce. To read broadly and deeply is a marvellous thing that can make us alert to the wide-ranging varieties of being. But no book will condemn or redeem us. This is because books do not exist without readers, and each reader is an unpredictable variable. While it is appealing to believe that a person’s aesthetic judgement is a reliable indication of their moral character, these traits are only tenuously connected.</p>
<p>So, if not on moral terms, how might we defend literature? We can liken it to conversation. A conversation can be morally nourishing or deadening. It is neither good nor bad. Conversations are surely responsible for some of history’s worst atrocities, along with its most wondrous achievements. And clearly we cannot stop having conversations, whether we wish to or not. </p>
<p>In this and other ways, reading resembles conversation. It is an ongoing exchange between reader and writer, one that will continue to change with the times, enlivening us for its own sake.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209864/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dan Dixon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>To read broadly and deeply is a marvellous thing that can make us alert to the wide-ranging varieties of being. But no book will condemn or redeem us.Dan Dixon, Adjunct Lecturer, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1831362022-10-06T19:04:46Z2022-10-06T19:04:46ZFriday essay: romance fiction rewrites the rulebook<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480680/original/file-20220823-20-e3toeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=47%2C9%2C6205%2C7816&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Kiss - Francesco Hayez (1859).</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Romance fiction has one of the most recognisable brands in book culture. It is known for a handful of attributes: its happy-ever-after endings, the pocket Mills & Boon and Harlequin editions, the covers featuring Fabio (in the 1990s) or naked male torsos (the hot trend in the 21st century). It is known for being overwhelmingly written and read by women, and for being mass-produced. </p>
<p>But romance fiction is also the most innovative and uncontrollable of all genres. It is the genre least able to be contained by established models of how the publishing industry works, or how readers and writers behave. </p>
<p>Contemporary romance fiction is challenging the prevailing wisdom about how books come into being and find their readers. </p>
<p>For our book <a href="https://www.umasspress.com/9781625346612/genre-worlds/">Genre Worlds: Popular Fiction and Twenty-First Century Book Culture</a>, coauthored with Lisa Fletcher, we conducted nearly 100 interviews with contemporary authors and publishing professionals. Our research shows that fiction genres are not static. They do not constrain artistic originality, but provide the kind of structure that sparks creativity and passion. </p>
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<p>Genre fiction can be understood as having three dimensions. The textual dimension is what happens on the page. The industrial dimension is how the books are produced. And the social dimension is the people who write, read and talk about genre fiction. </p>
<p>These three dimensions interact to create what we have called a “genre world”. Each distinct genre world (such as fantasy or crime) combines textual conventions, social communities and industry expectations in its own way. And romance is the most fast-paced, rapidly changing genre world of them all. </p>
<p>When it comes to genres of articles, we have a soft spot for the listicle. So, here are five things you may not know about contemporary romance fiction – five things that show the dynamism at the heart of book culture. </p>
<h2>1. Romance is at the forefront of digital innovation</h2>
<p>Twenty-first century publishing has seen fundamental shifts in the way books are produced, distributed and consumed, largely thanks to digital technology. </p>
<p>The romance genre is notable historically for its rapid production and consumption cycle. As a result, it has been well placed to adapt to the widespread uptake of digital publishing, which also moves rapidly. Romance writers and publishers are entrepreneurial and comfortable taking risks. The moment constraints are released, romance writers rush in. </p>
<p>This is exactly what has happened with self-publishing. Since the advent of <a href="https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/">Kindle Direct Publishing</a> in 2007, hundreds of thousands of romance books have been self-published there. Other opportunities have blossomed on sites such as <a href="https://www.wattpad.com/">Wattpad</a> or through print-on-demand services such as <a href="https://www.ingramspark.com/">IngramSpark</a>. In Australia, for example, there was a 1,000% increase in the number of self-published romance novels between 2010 and 2016. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480683/original/file-20220824-20-nwghon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480683/original/file-20220824-20-nwghon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480683/original/file-20220824-20-nwghon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=931&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480683/original/file-20220824-20-nwghon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=931&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480683/original/file-20220824-20-nwghon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=931&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480683/original/file-20220824-20-nwghon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1170&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480683/original/file-20220824-20-nwghon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1170&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480683/original/file-20220824-20-nwghon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1170&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Some self-published romance novels have achieved mind-boggling success. Anna Todd’s 2014 romance novel <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_(Todd_novel)">After</a>, originally fan fiction based on the band One Direction, drew more than 1.5 billion reads on Wattpad. It was subsequently acquired by Simon & Schuster and has spawned a movie series. </p>
<p>In other cases, romance authors have formed co-ops to publish work together. <a href="https://tulepublishing.com/">Tule Publishing</a> is a small, largely digital publisher with a limited print-on-demand service that produces multi-author continuity series as part of its publishing model. The Tule authors we interviewed spoke of their strong community and creative connections.</p>
<p>The self-publishing of genre fiction has blurred the lines between author, agent, editor, cover designer, typesetter, publisher and bookseller. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.stephanielaurens.com/">Stephanie Laurens</a>, one of the world’s most successful romance novelists, began writing with Mills & Boon before moving to HarperCollins. In 2012, she gave a keynote address to the <a href="https://www.rwa.org/">Romance Writers of America</a> convention. She used the opportunity to reflect on industry change. Soon after, she began reconfiguring her own publishing arrangements. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480697/original/file-20220824-22-eclhkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480697/original/file-20220824-22-eclhkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480697/original/file-20220824-22-eclhkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480697/original/file-20220824-22-eclhkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480697/original/file-20220824-22-eclhkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480697/original/file-20220824-22-eclhkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1215&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480697/original/file-20220824-22-eclhkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1215&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480697/original/file-20220824-22-eclhkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1215&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Now Harlequin publishes her print novels, while she self-publishes the e-book versions. She also self-publishes novellas that are prequels to, or that sit between, the novels in her traditionally published series. </p>
<p>Laurens is a prolific author with loyal fans, an author who can afford to take risks. She realises that self-publishing potentially offers her a better deal and has been able to pursue that while retaining ties to a traditional publisher. </p>
<p>Her career complicates any view of self-publishing as second best. Her example has been much emulated among romance writers. Such a career move challenges how we might typically theorise the power relations of literary culture.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/goodreads-readers-readwomen-and-so-should-university-english-departments-157108">'Goodreads' readers #ReadWomen, and so should university English departments</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>2. Romance readers are active and engaged</h2>
<p>The dynamism of romance fiction is intimately linked with its engaged readers. Unlike other kinds of publishing, where the fate of each book is relatively unpredictable, romance has historically had many loyal readers who subscribe through mail-order systems to receive books regularly – a model that has not worked successfully at scale for any other genre. </p>
<p>In the 21st century, many of these loyal romance readers are online. They tweet about their favourite authors, write Goodreads reviews, and run blogs and podcasts. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481032/original/file-20220825-1676-iwmz7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481032/original/file-20220825-1676-iwmz7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=955&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481032/original/file-20220825-1676-iwmz7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=955&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481032/original/file-20220825-1676-iwmz7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=955&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481032/original/file-20220825-1676-iwmz7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1201&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481032/original/file-20220825-1676-iwmz7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1201&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481032/original/file-20220825-1676-iwmz7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1201&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>People read romance fiction for different reasons. They might be drawn to its focus on the emotional nuances of relationships, its escape into various times and places (romance subgenres really do cover the gamut), or its gold-plated promise of happy endings and pleasure. They might read casually or intensely, with curiosity, scepticism or devotion. </p>
<p>All of these are active modes; they can’t be reduced to consumerism. There is an element of feeling to the involvement. The shared pleasure and sense of belonging that comes with being in the genre world came up regularly in our interviews. </p>
<p>Author <a href="https://www.rachaeljohns.com/">Rachael Johns</a>, speaking of romance fiction, said “this is my passion, I fell in love with the romance genre”. Agent Amy Tannenbaum described the romance community as “tight-knit”. Harlequin marketing specialist Adam Van Roojen suggested the romance community’s supportive nature makes it “so distinctive I think from other genres”. </p>
<p>People say the same thing about other genres, of course, but these claims show how people imagine genre worlds as a kind of community.</p>
<p>Communities have boundaries and can be exclusionary. <a href="https://kristinabusse.com/">Kristina Busse</a> has written about the impulse to police borders in fan-fiction communities, and of how ascribing positive values to some members of a community may exclude other people. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481031/original/file-20220825-5641-zv34k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481031/original/file-20220825-5641-zv34k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481031/original/file-20220825-5641-zv34k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481031/original/file-20220825-5641-zv34k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481031/original/file-20220825-5641-zv34k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481031/original/file-20220825-5641-zv34k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1256&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481031/original/file-20220825-5641-zv34k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1256&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481031/original/file-20220825-5641-zv34k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1256&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>This dynamic is at work in genre worlds, even if it is low-key or not openly acknowledged. What’s more, the inside world of romance fiction has an inside of its own. This is evident in the way readers relate to one another (there is an implicit hierarchy of fans) and in the industrial underpinnings of the genre. </p>
<p>For example, there is a distinction between a writer’s core audience and fringe audience that affects sales formats and international editions. Core romance readers tend to read digitally, and therefore can often access US editions of a book. Casual romance readers are more likely to pick up a print book from a store like Big W or Target and are therefore more likely to be the target audience for local editions. </p>
<p>In general, though, both core and fringe romance readers know how to read romance fiction. They are attuned to the codes that run through the novels. Back in 1992, <a href="http://faculty.winthrop.edu/kosterj/engl618/readings/theory/Krentz&BarlowRomanceCodes.pdf">Jayne Ann Krentz and Linda Barlow</a> argued that certain words and phrases in romance fiction act as a hidden code “opaque to others”. </p>
<p>Committed romance readers have a deep knowledge that makes them experts in their genre. When these readers express their views online, authors and publishers take note. </p>
<p>One recent example involves a tweet from romance fiction author, podcaster and blogger <a href="https://www.sarahmaclean.net/">Sarah McLean</a>. She asked her nearly 40,000 Twitter followers to “Tell me the best romance you’ve read in the last week. Bonus points for it being 🔥🔥🔥.” </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1556835069834285058"}"></div></p>
<p>The tweet was directed at the hardcore readers of the romance genre world. It assumed an audience that reads more than one romance novel per week. The 300 or so replies constitute a mega-thread of recommendations. </p>
<p>Romance readers are generous to one another this way, as the sheer abundance of commercially and self-published romance fiction makes it hard to sort and choose. The replies also offer an up-to-the-minute map of the subgenres and tropes to which readers are responding. These include shape-shifters, second-chance love stories, queer romance, and dukes and duchesses (possibly a Bridgerton effect). </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/to-the-mattresses-a-defence-of-romance-fiction-72587">To the mattresses: a defence of romance fiction</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>3. Romance fiction is global</h2>
<p>Far from being circumscribed by small horizons, romance fiction is globally connected and inflected. This is amply demonstrated by the example of Australian romance fiction, which is formed and sustained across international literary markets and creative communities. </p>
<p>Pascale Casanova’s theory of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Republic_of_Letters">world republic of letters</a> notes the cultural force of London and New York as anglophone publishing centres. This mitigates against the inclusion of Australian content in popular fiction. Stories set in New York or London seem to have no limits in terms of international portability. But stories set in Australia, or another peripheral market, can be harder to pitch. </p>
<p>Australian writers are conscious of this, as it directly affects the viability of their careers. But export success is possible for Australian work. The subgenre of Australian rural romance or “RuRo” is the best-known example. Authors like Rachel Johns are bestsellers in other territories. Romance novels set in Australia are popular in Germany – the Germans even have a name for them, the “<em>Australien-Roman</em>”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480690/original/file-20220824-632-8r055b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480690/original/file-20220824-632-8r055b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480690/original/file-20220824-632-8r055b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480690/original/file-20220824-632-8r055b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480690/original/file-20220824-632-8r055b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480690/original/file-20220824-632-8r055b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480690/original/file-20220824-632-8r055b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Popular Australian romance author Rachel Johns.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Goodreads</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Romance fiction is energised by transnational communities of readers and writers, often mediated online. Australian romance author <a href="https://www.panmacmillan.com.au/author/kylie-scott/">Kylie Scott</a>, for instance, credits American romance bloggers with driving the popularity of her books, and thanks book bloggers in the acknowledgements of her books. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481033/original/file-20220825-19-jfr4s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481033/original/file-20220825-19-jfr4s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481033/original/file-20220825-19-jfr4s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481033/original/file-20220825-19-jfr4s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481033/original/file-20220825-19-jfr4s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481033/original/file-20220825-19-jfr4s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481033/original/file-20220825-19-jfr4s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481033/original/file-20220825-19-jfr4s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>These cultural mediators assist the transnational movement of books in genre worlds. The development of digital-first genre fiction publishers and imprints also supports such movement, not least through promoting global release dates and world rights, so that genre books can be simultaneously accessible to readers worldwide. </p>
<p>But nothing comes close to the romance fiction convention, or “con”, in demonstrating the international cooperative links of the romance community. Cons, such as Romance Writers of America, support romance writers by providing professional development opportunities; they offer structure to participants’ professional lives. </p>
<p>For example, Regency romance writer <a href="https://www.fantasticfiction.com/c/anna-campbell/">Anna Campbell</a> has oriented her career towards the United States. Campbell began to professionalise by joining the <a href="https://romanceaustralia.com/">Romance Writers of Australia</a>, but then entered professional prizes run through US networks, and it was these that gained attention for her writing and enabled her to get an agent. American success followed: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>My agent ended up setting up an auction in New York, and three of the big houses wanted to buy it. The auction went for a week, and at the end of Good Friday 2006, I was a published author and they paid me enough money to become a full-time writer. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Campbell went on to write five books with Avon, then moved to Hachette for a number of books. She has now moved to self-publishing. The majority of her readership remains in the US. </p>
<p>Romance’s capacity to reflect the local concerns of writers and readers, coupled with its responsiveness to global industrial processes, makes it one of the most intriguing genres for considering what “Australian books” might look like in the 21st century. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/i-believe-in-romance-remembering-valerie-parv-the-australian-author-who-sold-34-million-books-160084">'I believe in romance': remembering Valerie Parv, the Australian author who sold 34 million books</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>4. Romance can be socially progressive</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480989/original/file-20220825-16-zv34k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480989/original/file-20220825-16-zv34k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480989/original/file-20220825-16-zv34k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480989/original/file-20220825-16-zv34k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480989/original/file-20220825-16-zv34k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480989/original/file-20220825-16-zv34k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1216&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480989/original/file-20220825-16-zv34k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1216&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480989/original/file-20220825-16-zv34k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1216&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>It has been more than 50 years since Germaine Greer, in The Female Eunuch, dismissed romance fiction as women “cherishing the chains of their bondage”. The perception that the genre is conservative persists. </p>
<p>But romance writers and readers are more and more concerned with inequality across gender, race and sexuality. They are pushing back against old conventions. </p>
<p>In 2018, Kate Cuthbert, then managing editor of Harlequin’s Escape imprint, gave a speech that revealed romance’s internal debates. She addressed the responsibilities of romance fiction writers and publishers in the #MeToo era, arguing that </p>
<blockquote>
<p>if we want to call ourselves a feminist genre, if we want to hold ourselves up as an example of women being centred, of representing the female gaze, of creating women heroes who not only survive but thrive, then we have to lead. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>For Cuthbert, this means “breaking up” with some familiar romance fiction tropes, such as the coercion of women: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>many of the behaviors that are now being called out – sexual innuendo, workplace advances, stolen kisses because the kisser couldn’t resist – feel in many ways like an old friend. They exist in the romance bubble […] and they readily tap into that shared emotional history over and over again in a way that feels familiar and safe.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Cuthbert’s compassionate acknowledgement of readers’ and writers’ attachment to established genre norms sits alongside her call for evolution, for renewed attention to “recognising the heroine’s bodily autonomy, her right to decide what happens to it at every point”.</p>
<p>Structural hostility in the publishing industry towards people of colour has also become a cause romance writers and readers rally behind. In 2018, <a href="http://blackmagicblues.com/">Cole McCade</a>, a queer romance writer with a multiracial background, revealed that his editor at Riptide had written to him:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We don’t mind POC But I will warn you – and you have NO idea how much I hate having to say this – we won’t put them on the cover, because we like the book to, you know, sell :-(. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the wake of this revelation, multiple authors pulled their books from Riptide, as a further series of revelations about the publisher’s bad behaviour emerged. </p>
<p>The following year, the Romance Writers of America examined the past 18 years of its <a href="https://www.rwa.org/Online/Awards/RITA/RITA_Award.aspx">RITA Awards</a> finalists and published the results: no black author had ever won a RITA, and the percentage of black authors represented on shortlists was less than half a per cent. </p>
<p>In response, the board published a “Commitment to RITAs and Inclusivity”, in which it called the shocking results a “systemic issue” that “needs to be addressed”. In 2020, they announced they were employing diversity and inclusion experts to help diversify their board, train staff, and help “design and structure” more inclusive membership programs and events, including the annual conference.</p>
<p>The Romance Writers of America’s intentions have not always been successful. The ongoing visibility of marginalised groups in the genre continues nonetheless, in part driven by romance’s rapid and robust uptake of digital publishing. Access to publishing platforms has allowed micro-niche genres to proliferate. LGBTQIA+ romance subgenres have become particularly visible: from lesbian military romance to gay alien romance to realist asexual love stories. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480701/original/file-20220824-18-duwh2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480701/original/file-20220824-18-duwh2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480701/original/file-20220824-18-duwh2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480701/original/file-20220824-18-duwh2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480701/original/file-20220824-18-duwh2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480701/original/file-20220824-18-duwh2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1147&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480701/original/file-20220824-18-duwh2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1147&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480701/original/file-20220824-18-duwh2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1147&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Sometimes these stories go spectacularly mainstream, as with C.S. Pacat’s <a href="https://cspacat.com/books/captive-prince/">The Captive Prince</a>, a gay erotic fantasy about a prince who is given to the ruler of a neighbouring kingdom as a pleasure slave. Originally self-published, The Captive Prince started as a web serial that gathered 30,000 signed-up fans and spawned Tumblrs dedicated to fan fiction and speculation about where the series would go. </p>
<p>The book was rejected by major publishers, so Pacat self-published to Amazon and within 24 hours it had reached number 1 in LGBTQIA+ fiction. A New York agent approached Pacat and secured her a seven-figure publication deal with Penguin. The queer fantasy or paranormal romance has continued to thrive in Pacat’s wake. </p>
<p>In our interviews with romance authors, questions of diversity, inclusion, representation and inequity arose again and again. In representation and amplifying marginalised voices, romance has enormous potential to lead the way.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/if-the-romance-writers-of-america-can-implode-over-racism-no-group-is-safe-130034">If the Romance Writers of America can implode over racism, no group is safe</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>5. Romance has gates that are kept</h2>
<p>Romance fiction is more progressive than some stereotypes might suggest, but it is not free from exclusion or discrimination. The genre is influenced by its gatekeepers – human and digital. </p>
<p>One form of gatekeeping takes place through the same voluntary associations that nurture community. In late 2019, the board of the Romance Writers of America censured prominent writer of colour, <a href="https://www.courtneymilan.com/">Courtney Milan</a>, suspending her from the organisation for a year and banning her from leadership positions for life. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481038/original/file-20220825-3929-t4h7l3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481038/original/file-20220825-3929-t4h7l3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481038/original/file-20220825-3929-t4h7l3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481038/original/file-20220825-3929-t4h7l3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481038/original/file-20220825-3929-t4h7l3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481038/original/file-20220825-3929-t4h7l3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1215&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481038/original/file-20220825-3929-t4h7l3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1215&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481038/original/file-20220825-3929-t4h7l3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1215&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>The decision was made following complaints by two white women, author Katherine Lynn Davis and publisher Suzan Tisdale, about statements Milan had made on Twitter, including calling a specific book a “fucking racist mess”. </p>
<p>This use of the organisation’s formal mechanisms to condemn a woman of colour and support white women was controversial, provoking widespread debate across social media and email lists. </p>
<p>Milan had long been an advocate for greater inclusion and diversity within Romance Writers of America and the romance genre. As <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/31/romance-novel-industry-uproar-discipline-author-racist-courtney-milan">the Guardian reported</a>, the choice not to discipline anyone for “actually racist speech” made punishing someone for “calling something racist” seem like a particularly troubling double standard. “People saw it as an attempt to silence marginalised people,” observed Milan.</p>
<p>The board retracted its decision about Milan. It is difficult, however, to calculate the damage that may have been done to readers and writers of colour in the romance genre world. Conversely, the use of Twitter to extend debate and eventually correct the Romance Writers of America shows change happening, in real time.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480762/original/file-20220824-12-ryjatq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480762/original/file-20220824-12-ryjatq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480762/original/file-20220824-12-ryjatq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480762/original/file-20220824-12-ryjatq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480762/original/file-20220824-12-ryjatq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480762/original/file-20220824-12-ryjatq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480762/original/file-20220824-12-ryjatq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480762/original/file-20220824-12-ryjatq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Another form of gatekeeping in romance fiction happens through the same digital platforms that put the genre at the forefront of industry change. </p>
<p>Safiya Umoja Noble’s book <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479837243/algorithms-of-oppression/">Algorithms of Oppression</a> demonstrates how apparently neutral automated processes can work against women of colour — for example, the different results that come up from a Google search of “black girls” compared with “white girls.” </p>
<p>In the world of romance fiction, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Claire-Parnell">Claire Parnell’s research</a> has shown the multiple ways in which the algorithms, moderation processes and site designs of Amazon and Wattpad work against writers of colour. For example, they make use of image-recognition systems that flag romance covers with dark-skinned models as “adult content” and remove them from search results. They can also override the author’s chosen metadata to move books into niche categories where fewer readers will find them, such as “African American romance” rather than the general “romance fiction”. </p>
<p>Concerted activism and attention is needed to work against this kind of digital discrimination, which risks replicating the discrimination in traditional publishing. </p>
<p>There is no simple way to account for the dynamics of contemporary romance fiction. It is inclusive and policed; it is public and intimate. Its industrial, social and textual dimensions are not static, but interact dynamically, incorporating the possibility of change. Only by understanding these interactions can we gain a complete picture of the work of popular fiction. </p>
<p>Contemporary romance fiction is formally tight, emotionally intense and digitally advanced. It’s where the heartbeat of change and action is in book culture.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183136/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Beth Driscoll received funding for this research from Australian Research Council Discovery Project DP160101308, 'Genre Worlds: Australian Popular Fiction in the 21st Century.'</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kim Wilkins received funding for this research from Australian Research Council Discovery Project DP160101308, 'Genre Worlds: Australian Popular Fiction in the 21st Century.' Some of the interviewees cited in the article are industry peers.</span></em></p>Romance fiction has a reputation for being conservative, but in reality it is an innovative and uncontrollable genre.Beth Driscoll, Associate Professor in Publishing and Communications, The University of MelbourneKim Wilkins, Professor in Writing, Deputy Associate Dean (Research), Faculty of HASS, The University of Queensland, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1743292022-01-04T06:02:58Z2022-01-04T06:02:58ZMinisterial interference is an attack on academic freedom and Australia’s literary culture<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439279/original/file-20220104-27-1bx6nd1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=175%2C241%2C5384%2C3459&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Stuart Robert, who as acting Education Minister vetoed six ARC approved research projects.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lukas Coch/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Christmas Eve, many researchers across the country received the news that their Australian Research Council (ARC) funding applications had failed. For most of them, this was disappointing but not surprising: the success rate for the scheme is 19%. </p>
<p>Six research teams were informed they had been recommended for funding within this competitive pool, but <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/dec/24/federal-governments-christmas-eve-veto-of-research-projects-labelled-mccarthyism">the acting Education Minister Stuart Robert had vetoed their applications</a>. The rationale provided was that the vetoed projects “do not demonstrate value for taxpayers’ money nor contribute to the national interest”. </p>
<p>The focus of Robert’s veto is particularly worrying: all the rejected projects are in the humanities, and four of the six are in literary studies. The applications that were vetoed offer a snapshot of how literature has long been part of everyday life, examining topics such as Elizabethan theatre, popular narratives, science fiction and fantasy. </p>
<p>This shows a wilful ignorance of the value that literature and its study provide to Australia’s society, culture and economy. It is an affront to the principle of independence that should underpin research funding in a democracy. It disregards the expertise and time of the thousands of scholars involved in the process of writing and assessing these applications.</p>
<p>The Australian University Heads of English, the peak body for the study and research of literature in Australia, has released <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeDYfTcUgFjQvH9egPMVhUJSCKpDY6DCnQRRGMJv-pNBtsDfQ/viewform?vc=0&c=0&w=1&flr=0">a statement</a> calling on the minister to “reinstate the defunded projects and commit to legislating the complete independence of the ARC from government interference and censorship.”</p>
<p>Thus far, the more than 800 signatories to the statement include many of Australia’s most brilliant writers: Alexis Wright, J.M. Coetzee, Randa Abdel-Fattah, Gail Jones, Delia Falconer, Natalie Harkin, Peter Goldsworthy, Amanda Lohrey, Evelyn Araluen, Michelle de Kretser, Maria Tumarkin, and Roanna Gonsalves. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439286/original/file-20220104-23-leoijj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439286/original/file-20220104-23-leoijj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439286/original/file-20220104-23-leoijj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439286/original/file-20220104-23-leoijj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439286/original/file-20220104-23-leoijj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439286/original/file-20220104-23-leoijj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439286/original/file-20220104-23-leoijj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439286/original/file-20220104-23-leoijj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Amanda Lohrey, one of the signatories to the statement and the winner of the 2021 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for fiction and Miles Franklin Literary Award.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Richard Bugg</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When then education minister Simon Birmingham rejected 11 ARC applications four years ago, they were all in the humanities, including four from literary studies. The statement notes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The actions of the government reveal that it is committed to defunding Australia’s literary culture by overriding academic autonomy and determining what kinds of knowledge can and cannot be pursued.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/simon-birminghams-intervention-in-research-funding-is-not-unprecedented-but-dangerous-105737">Simon Birmingham's intervention in research funding is not unprecedented, but dangerous</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Time and money</h2>
<p>ARC applications are onerous. Each proposal goes through a process of drafting, internal university review, informal reading and advice, audit and redrafting. This process relies on collegial good will. Because of the timing of the deadlines, it is often undertaken over the summer.</p>
<p>Each application is then assessed by readers who are respected scholars in the field. This round, 9,402 assessors’ reports were submitted. The applications are then ranked by an overseeing assessor, and appraised by a selection committee and an eligibility committee.</p>
<p>The decisions to fund projects in such a competitive field, where research funding is already constrained, are the end result of a process that is extremely time-intensive and relies on countless hours of labour. This process is already a significant drain on the time and resources of universities across the country. </p>
<p>Minister Robert’s rejection of the expert recommendations is a shocking waste of time and money.</p>
<p>ARC funding can make the difference between researchers keeping or losing their jobs. In some institutions, it is a hard barrier to promotion and it has a compounding effect on gender disparity at professorial level in many disciplines. </p>
<p>Fewer than half of the chief investigators on research projects in the current round of applications were women. The success or failure of funding applications also influences how far institutions are willing to invest in particular areas of study. </p>
<h2>The value of literature</h2>
<p>Such ministerial decisions imply that the discipline of literary studies is antithetical to the national interest. On behalf of the nation’s readers, I would like to disagree. </p>
<p>Literature in Australia is put to many and diverse uses: it is part of our leisure, our social connections, our inner lives. It connects us to the past and informs our thinking about the future. It shapes our children’s and young adults’ sense of themselves and how they fit into the world at large. </p>
<p>Students study literature at school and university and find themselves challenged by and reflected in the works they read. Politicians quote poetry in their speeches in parliament. Book clubs are a vital source of community and connection for people of all walks of life. </p>
<p>Australian books are translated into many languages: they are read and studied all over the world. The publishing industry contributes <a href="https://www.ibisworld.com/au/market-size/book-publishing/">more than a billion dollars a year to the national economy</a>.</p>
<p>For these and many other reasons, I find it difficult to believe the study of literature does not provide “value for taxpayers’ money nor contribute to the national interest”. </p>
<p>What the writers who have signed the statement contribute “to the national interest” is inestimable. Unlike Robert, they recognise the role of literary research in supporting the literary cultures that enrich the lives of all Australians.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174329/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julieanne Lamond is affiliated with the Association for the Study of Australian Literature. </span></em></p>Government vetos of academic research reveal a worrying ignorance of the value of literature to Australia’s society, culture and economy.Julieanne Lamond, Senior Lecturer in English, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1363862020-06-09T19:52:56Z2020-06-09T19:52:56ZKylie’s hut: bushfires destroyed the writing retreat of an Aussie literary icon<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340462/original/file-20200609-176550-xozx2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C32%2C4270%2C2369&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/hodgiemullo/24452927171/in/photolist-DfPDjB">Mark Hodges/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Black Summer bushfires may have ended, but the cultural cost has yet to be counted. </p>
<p>Thousands of <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00164-8">Aboriginal sites</a> were likely destroyed in the 2019 bushfires. But at present, there is no clarity about the numbers of precious artefacts lost.</p>
<p>Though recent by comparison, relics from Australian literary heritage have also been reduced to ash. Last year’s bushfires destroyed <a href="https://www.nambuccaguardian.com.au/story/6501718/a-tragedy-kylies-hut-precious-coastal-habitat-destroyed/">a hut</a> built specially for author Kylie Tennant (1912–1988) at Diamond Head, and <a href="https://www.theland.com.au/story/6577461/act-races-to-save-historic-huts-after-kosciuszko-devastation/">many High Country huts</a> associated with A.B “Banjo” Paterson’s The Man From Snowy River.</p>
<p>Thankfully, NSW Parks and Wildlife Service are making plans to rebuild Kylie Tennant’s hut. But after this <a href="https://www.camdencourier.com.au/story/6499390/kylies-hut-gone-precious-coastal-habitat-destroyed/">devastating loss</a>, it’s impossible to ever fully recreate the authentic atmosphere of Tennant’s writing retreat. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340507/original/file-20200609-165393-uqmxm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340507/original/file-20200609-165393-uqmxm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340507/original/file-20200609-165393-uqmxm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340507/original/file-20200609-165393-uqmxm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340507/original/file-20200609-165393-uqmxm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340507/original/file-20200609-165393-uqmxm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340507/original/file-20200609-165393-uqmxm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340507/original/file-20200609-165393-uqmxm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Kylie’s hut after the recent bushfires tore through.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>The undeniable romance of Kylie’s hut</h2>
<p>Tennant was best known for her social realist studies of working-class life from the 1930s, including her Depression novels <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2262855.The_Battlers">The Battlers</a> (1941) and <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9780207197406/ride-on-stranger/">Ride on Stranger</a> (1943). </p>
<p>During the second world war, Tennant moved to Laurieton with her husband and their daughter Benison, and lived there until 1953. At nearby Diamond Head, she met Ernie Metcalfe, a returned serviceman from the first world war and well-known local bushman. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/reading-three-great-southern-lands-from-the-outback-to-the-pampa-and-the-karoo-60372">Reading three great southern lands: from the outback to the pampa and the karoo</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Metcalfe felt Tennant had paid him too much for the land she bought from him, which was partly why he offered to build the hut. Bill Boyd, who later restored the hut, remembers</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kylie would insist on paying him […] she only paid him about 25 pounds which was a lot of money in that time.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Metcalfe was memorialised in her non-fiction book <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/books/other-books/The-Man-on-the-Headland-Kylie-Tennant-9781743313626">The Man on the Headland</a> (1971). From the beginning, fire played a part in the hut’s life. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The first summer, as though Dimandead [Diamond Head] had made a sudden bid against this new invasion, a fire leapt the creek and came so close to the house that one window cracked in the heat. </p>
<p>Ernie fought the fire single-handed and when we arrived he was standing sooty with ash in his beard in a blackened desert with the house safe in the middle.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While appearing to be an ordinary bushman’s dwelling, “the romance” of Kylie’s Hut was “undeniable”, according to Andrew Marshall, a marine wildlife project officer in the NSW Parks and Wildlife Service. It’s fondly remembered by locals, tourists and aspiring writers who have visited since the 1980s. </p>
<p>Its location in a campground was unique because it quietly coexisted with holidaymakers rather than being relegated to a specially demarcated, curated space. However, this lack of protection left it exposed to the elements and the predations of climate change.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/like-volcanoes-on-the-ranges-how-australian-bushfire-writing-has-changed-with-the-climate-126831">'Like volcanoes on the ranges': how Australian bushfire writing has changed with the climate</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Protecting Crowdy Bay National Park</h2>
<p>In 1976, Tennant <a href="https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/camping-and-accommodation/campgrounds/kylies-hut-walkin-campground/learnmore#:%7E:text=Writers'%20retreat,-During%20World%20War&text=Kylie%20Tennant%20donated%20the%20hut,Kylie's%20Hut%20walk%2Din%20campground.">donated the hut</a> and the surrounding land to Crowdy Bay National Park, partly to try to protect the environment from ongoing rutile mining. </p>
<p>The creation of the <a href="https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/camping-and-accommodation/campgrounds/kylies-hut-walkin-campground">Crowdy Bay National Park</a> was facilitated not only by Tennant’s gift, but also by the earlier dispossession of the Birpai peoples and the re-zoning of their land.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340469/original/file-20200609-165361-q951ka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340469/original/file-20200609-165361-q951ka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340469/original/file-20200609-165361-q951ka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340469/original/file-20200609-165361-q951ka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340469/original/file-20200609-165361-q951ka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340469/original/file-20200609-165361-q951ka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340469/original/file-20200609-165361-q951ka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340469/original/file-20200609-165361-q951ka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kylie Tennant donated her hut to Crowdy Bay National Park.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s also important to acknowledge Tennant’s tendency to erase the Indigenous presence in this book. In the opening chapter, Tennant writes that Diamond Head’s “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jan/16/diamond-head-beach-a-paradise-where-i-lost-all-sense-of-time-and-space">aborigines were gone, all gone, like the smoke blown from their fires</a>”.</p>
<p>The erroneous belief that previous inhabitants had “disappeared”, meant the story of Tennant and Metcalfe’s friendship, symbolised by the hut, effectively obscured earlier stories of the Traditional Owners. </p>
<h2>Restoration worthy of preservation</h2>
<p>Local bush carpenter Bill Boyd substantially refurbished Kylie’s Hut in the early 1980s. <a href="https://shop.nfsa.gov.au/artisans-of-australia">A master</a> of old forestry and timber working tools, Boyd used the restoration of Kylie’s Hut as a way to share his knowledge of the uses of broad-axe and adze (an axe-like tool with an arched blade).</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/old-white-men-dominate-school-english-booklists-its-time-more-australian-schools-taught-australian-books-127110">Old white men dominate school English booklists. It's time more Australian schools taught Australian books</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Aside from its association with Tennant, the hut has additional significance because it was built using “unpretentious construction techniques” and displays “a unity of form, design and scale”, according to Libby Jude, a ranger from the NSW Parks and Wildlife Service. </p>
<p>It was composed of “strong, natural textures” associated with the fabric of the place in which it stood. And the specialised restoration methods Boyd used are heritage practices that are themselves worthy of preservation.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340461/original/file-20200609-176560-c9v3l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340461/original/file-20200609-176560-c9v3l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340461/original/file-20200609-176560-c9v3l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340461/original/file-20200609-176560-c9v3l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340461/original/file-20200609-176560-c9v3l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340461/original/file-20200609-176560-c9v3l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340461/original/file-20200609-176560-c9v3l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340461/original/file-20200609-176560-c9v3l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kylie’s Hut post restoration.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Benison Rodd</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Boyd also passed on his knowledge to younger carpenters while restoring many of the High Country huts, some dating back to the 1860s and associated with The Man From Snowy River. Most of these were also razed by the recent bushfires.</p>
<p>Members of the Kosciuszko Huts Association have expressed their desire to <a href="https://www.theland.com.au/story/6577461/act-races-to-save-historic-huts-after-kosciuszko-devastation/">restore the huts</a>, but a conversation about when and how they could be reconstructed will be well down the track.</p>
<h2>Australian literary heritage is often forgotten</h2>
<p>Unlike the United Kingdom, where literary properties are routinely listed on maps, Australia tends not to proudly celebrate sites related to its writers. </p>
<p>Aside from the work done by the <a href="https://www.nationaltrust.org.au/explore/?content=places">National Trust</a>, literary societies and enthusiasts in regional communities mostly drive the protection of Australian literary sites. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ten-of-australias-best-literary-comics-98766">Ten of Australia's best literary comics</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Ideally, there should be a more coordinated approach to our literary heritage which could identify vulnerable structures and take steps to ensure that, wherever possible, they’re not wiped out by natural and man-made disasters.</p>
<p>The memorialisation of Kylie’s Hut, which began in the 1980s as a response to her book The Man on the Headland, rendered black history peripheral to the central story of bushmen like Metcalfe living in the area. Nevertheless, it was an accessible literary site stimulating awareness of aspects of our cultural history, which might otherwise remain almost completely unknown.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136386/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brigid Magner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Kylie Tennant’s hut is fondly remembered by locals, tourists and aspiring writers who have visited since the 1980s.Brigid Magner, Senior Lecturer in Literary Studies, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/783102017-05-26T14:48:02Z2017-05-26T14:48:02ZDjuna Barnes: the ‘lesbian’ writer who rejected lesbianism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170868/original/file-20170524-31339-1tbwfx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C107%2C399%2C277&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Writer Solita Solano and Djuna Barnes in Paris, 1920s.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&title=Special:Search&redirs=0&search=Djuna+Barnes&fulltext=Search&fulltext=Advanced+search&ns0=1&ns6=1&ns14=1&advanced=1&searchToken=1xlkda5js9pvi8tbp2zfer3ny#/media/File:Solita_Solano_und_Djuna_Barnes_in_Paris.jpg">Wikipedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“I’m not a lesbian, I just loved Thelma.” What did the modernist author Djuna Barnes mean by this? And why has this quote – in which the elderly Barnes managed to sound both closeted and confessional – become one of her best-known statements? </p>
<p>Barnes’s refusal to turn her love for the silverpoint artist Thelma Wood into a signifier of her identity has sometimes frustrated readers who seek to celebrate her as a major lesbian voice in 20th-century literature, while others have seized upon her statement to undermine attempts to “claim” Barnes as a lesbian writer.</p>
<p>Barnes had affairs with various women and men throughout her life, though the relationship with Wood seems to have affected her most profoundly. She referred <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Improper_Modernism.html?id=TDrTX0eRDmUC">to herself as</a> “the most famous unknown of the century” (another Barnes paradox), bemoaning the fact that most people knew the gossip but not the writing. </p>
<p>And the writing certainly poses certain challenges. Rich, intricate and darkly camp, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/mar/31/featuresreviews.guardianreview32">her modernist masterpiece Nightwood</a> (1936) demands (and rewards) our patience: “I have a narrative,” says Dr Matthew O’Connor, Nightwood’s cross-dressing, unlicensed gynaecologist, “but you will be hard pressed to find it.” Set in the bars, salons and empty churches of the Parisian demi-monde, Nightwood narrates the failed love affair between the American Nora Flood and the silent, androgynous Robin Vote, a story often interpreted as a fictional rendering of Barnes’s relationship with Wood.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170867/original/file-20170524-31324-18lzp6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170867/original/file-20170524-31324-18lzp6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170867/original/file-20170524-31324-18lzp6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170867/original/file-20170524-31324-18lzp6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170867/original/file-20170524-31324-18lzp6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170867/original/file-20170524-31324-18lzp6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170867/original/file-20170524-31324-18lzp6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Barnes the bohemian expat.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djuna_Barnes#/media/File:Djunabarnes.jpg">Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Most negatively, we might read the “I’m not a lesbian” part of Barnes’s statement in the context of some of the overtly anti-feminist and homophobic statements <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1996/02/04/books/l-djuna-and-the-scholars-018988.html">she made in later life</a>. The Djuna Barnes of legend is the glamorous figure cutting a dash in cape and cloche among the bohemian expatriates of 1920s Paris. The elderly Barnes, transplanted from this liberal Left Bank to the Cold War US, is harder to like. She complained about a feminist bookstore using “Djuna” in its name <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1996/02/04/books/l-djuna-and-the-scholars-018988.html">and reputedly expressed</a> her disdain for women and lesbian writers to the doting male fans whose company she preferred.</p>
<p>Barnes’s resistance to the category of “lesbian” and even “woman” writer might be interpreted as a conscious strategy to align herself with the axis of modernist high culture she associated with James Joyce and, above all, her longtime correspondent and editor, T.S. Eliot. Such a positioning required that she downplay any autobiographical elements of her writing and assert the universal (read: heterosexual, non-feminine) perspective of her work, as Eliot in fact did in his cagey <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/23739272">Preface to Nightwood</a>.</p>
<p>Barnes’s biographer Philip Herring was working under the same premise when he posited <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Djuna.html?id=MVqwAAAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">his book</a> as an attempt to end the “victim celebrations” of “a few <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1996/02/04/books/l-djuna-and-the-scholars-018970.html">ideological cosmetologists</a>” and to let Barnes “belong to all readers”. Like the other male critics who wished to “rescue” Barnes from the feminists and lesbians, Herring draws on comments of the “I just loved Thelma” variety for ammunition. </p>
<p>The implication that privileging some of Barnes’s later, more conservative comments over the rich depictions of queerness one finds in her works is not in itself an act of “ideological cosmetology” is pretty staggering. Those critics who wish to render invisible Barnes’ status as a woman who slept with women claim Barnes as one of their own – just as much as lesbian and feminist readers do.</p>
<h2>Queer politics</h2>
<p>However, there might be another interpretation of Barnes’s wish to emphasise her particular love for Wood over her identification with the label “lesbian”, one that chimes with the queerness of her fictional works. Identity categories provide a ground for political agency: they allow us to demand rights and recognition and they help us to find each other, to form alliances and communities. But they can also be used to contain and police us. Unlike earlier lesbian and gay movements, whose politics depended on the idea of visible identities, queer theory grew out of a critique of identity politics. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170866/original/file-20170524-31324-lr0sra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170866/original/file-20170524-31324-lr0sra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170866/original/file-20170524-31324-lr0sra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170866/original/file-20170524-31324-lr0sra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170866/original/file-20170524-31324-lr0sra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1080&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170866/original/file-20170524-31324-lr0sra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1080&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170866/original/file-20170524-31324-lr0sra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1080&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cover illustration, The Trend magazine, by Djuna Barnes, issue of October 1914.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djuna_Barnes#/media/File:Cover_illustration_The_Trend_by_Djuna_Barnes_October_1914.jpg">Wikipedia/General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Broadly speaking, while lesbian and gay historians have sought to locate forms of homosexuality in the past, to recover lost and usable histories, queer critics have tended to emphasise queerness’s more radical disruption of systems of representation, often understanding “sexual identity” as a contradiction in terms. “[Q]ueerness can never define an identity,” <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/no-future">writes queer theorist Lee Edelman</a>, “it can only ever disturb one”.</p>
<p>In her queer fiction, Barnes invites and thwarts her readers’ impulse to “identify” in both senses of the term. She playfully encourages her readers’ desires to find the queer in the text (perhaps to find themselves) yet refuses to represent any singular lesbian or gay identity. On a couple of occasions, she even pre-empts the late 20th-century habit of lesbian list-making or celebratory historical “outing” to which she would herself become subject. Yet her lists of historical women are designed to confuse, combining queerer names with those about whom no speculations have been made. Barnes piques, then frustrates, our desire to know.</p>
<p>This logic dominates her 1928 <em>roman à clef</em>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladies_Almanack">Ladies Almanack</a>, which is less well-known than Nightwood but offers a decidedly more joyful vision of queer sex. Barnes’s bawdy, illustrated Almanack is inspired by the lesbian literary circle surrounding the Left Bank expatriate Natalie Clifford Barney, and chronicles the sexual adventures of the heroic Dame Evangeline Musset. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170862/original/file-20170524-31322-5qgupn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170862/original/file-20170524-31322-5qgupn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170862/original/file-20170524-31322-5qgupn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170862/original/file-20170524-31322-5qgupn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170862/original/file-20170524-31322-5qgupn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170862/original/file-20170524-31322-5qgupn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=990&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170862/original/file-20170524-31322-5qgupn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=990&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170862/original/file-20170524-31322-5qgupn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=990&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cover of 1972 facsimile edition of Ladies Almanack.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladies_Almanack#/media/File:Djuna_Barnes_-_Ladies_Almanack_cover.jpg">Wikipedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In one sense, the Almanack invites us to read it as a work by, for, and about the lesbian woman – it’s almost like an early queer ’zine – and Barnes even hawked hand-coloured copies among her Left Bank community. Yet it ultimately refuses to define “the Lesbian”, because to do so would be to pursue the aims of the Almanack’s chief object of parody: the late 19th-century sexology that defined and medicalised homosexual desire. Barnes uses the astrological motifs of the Almanack to satirise the attempt to “diagnose” lesbianism as simply a form of quackery. </p>
<p>The ladies of Barnes’s Almanack enjoy plenty of queer sex, for sure, but they resist our classification as any particular identity: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>They swing between two Conditions like a Bell’s Clapper, that can never be said to be anywhere, neither in the centre, nor to the Side, for that which is always moving, is in no settled State long enough to be either damned or transfigured. </p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/154361027" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Barnes’s fictional works deal with both the pleasures and problems of belonging to any group. And although her autobiographical pronouncements, which are sometimes disingenuous, often tongue-in-cheek, are no substitute for reading her work, even they end up speaking to the complex questioning of identity we find in her books. “I’m not a lesbian, I just loved Thelma” contains a tension that we might want to resolve, but in trying to resolve it we might end up missing the point.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78310/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julie Taylor received funding from the AHRC for her doctoral research on Djuna Barnes. </span></em></p>Unlike earlier lesbian and gay movements whose politics depended on visible identities, queer theory grew out of a critique of this – and perhaps that’s where Djuna Barnes sits.Julie Taylor, Senior Lecturer in American Studies/Literature, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/641562016-10-20T19:16:51Z2016-10-20T19:16:51ZFriday essay: why literary celebrity is a double-edged sword<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142285/original/image-20161019-20333-u5msmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A wax model of Ernest Hemingway at Madame Tussauds in New York.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anton_Ivanov/Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1967, French theorist Roland Barthes famously <a href="http://artsites.ucsc.edu/faculty/Gustafson/FILM%20162.W10/readings/barthes.death.pdf">declared</a> the metaphorical “death of the author” in his essay of the same name. Barthes rejected the Romantic idea of the author as a unique figure of genius. Still, despite his best efforts, this romantic notion of the heroic, solitary wordsmith lives on today. </p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/1319.html">Medieval times</a>, authors were seen as nothing more than craftsmen. But the Romantic poets – Byron, Coleridge, Blake, Shelley – singled out the writer as a figure of “spontaneous creativity”. As academic Clara Tuite <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/210888">has noted</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the Romantic period saw the birth of the literary celebrity, a figure distinguishable from the merely famous author by his or her status as a cultural commodity.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This Romantic writer was seen as either a solitary hero, a tragic artist, a melancholy genius - or all three. In the centuries since, famous authors have been both celebrated and panned, adored and ridiculed. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142299/original/image-20161019-20316-e1o1li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142299/original/image-20161019-20316-e1o1li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142299/original/image-20161019-20316-e1o1li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142299/original/image-20161019-20316-e1o1li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142299/original/image-20161019-20316-e1o1li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142299/original/image-20161019-20316-e1o1li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142299/original/image-20161019-20316-e1o1li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142299/original/image-20161019-20316-e1o1li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lord Byron (1788-1824), engraved by H.Robinson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Georgios Kollidas</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since Romantic times, we have often expected writers to be detached from the trappings of celebrity culture, aligning their integrity with an anti-commercial attitude. There is, <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Star_Authors.html?id=QFcqYIHCfgAC">argues author Joe Moran</a>, a “nostalgia for some kind of transcendent, anti-economic, creative element in a secular, debased, commercialised culture” that we commonly attach to writers.
Indeed theorist Lorraine York <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Literary_Celebrity_in_Canada.html?id=_5HhaFex8BsC&redir_esc=y">has asked</a> if we can even use words like “fame” and “celebrity” to describe writers, “those notorious privacy-seeking, solitary scribblers”. </p>
<p>One of the first to question the idea of literary celebrity was the 18th century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who found his own fame something of a burden.
More recently, authors such as Jonathan Franzen, David Foster Wallace, and Dave Eggers have struggled with the desire for popularity and credibility. In today’s internet culture, reaction to a famous writer’s actions or utterances is quick and merciless. Next week, a new author will be thrust into the media spotlight, with the announcement of <a href="http://themanbookerprize.com/fiction">the Booker Prize winner</a>. </p>
<p>Yet interestingly, discussions about the difficulties of being a famous writer rarely include women. The notion of the solitary genius is usually attached to men. A notable exception is the Italian novelist Elena Ferrante – who is famous, ironically, precisely because of her reluctance to engage with literary celebrity. Ferrante writes under a pseudonym, in her words, to “liberate myself from the anxiety of notoriety”. </p>
<p>Ferrante’s recent unmasking by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/03/elena-ferrante-anita-raja-unmasking-publisher-outing-my-brilliant-friend">a literary journalist</a> has unleashed a torrent of condemnation. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"784869671145054208"}"></div></p>
<p>The extent to which her true identity has been picked over shows how our society craves constant closure, often at the expense of creativity and imagination. As Michel Foucault once <a href="http://artsites.ucsc.edu/faculty/Gustafson/FILM%20162.W10/readings/foucault.author.pdf">noted</a>, literary anonymity is “of interest only as a puzzle to be solved”. </p>
<p>Such is the nature of contemporary celebrity culture that many cannot tolerate the idea of writers who prefer anonymity over fame. So those such as Thomas Pynchon, J.D. Salinger and Ferrante, who have evaded the limelight, have been scrutinised as much for their personal lives as their actual works. </p>
<h2>A short history of famous (male) writers</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142289/original/image-20161019-20330-15h0a68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142289/original/image-20161019-20330-15h0a68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142289/original/image-20161019-20330-15h0a68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142289/original/image-20161019-20330-15h0a68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142289/original/image-20161019-20330-15h0a68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1047&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142289/original/image-20161019-20330-15h0a68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1047&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142289/original/image-20161019-20330-15h0a68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1047&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Russian stamp showing Charles Dickens on his 150th birth anniversary.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Olga Popova / Shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The 19th century writers Charles Dickens (hero of the working class) and Mark Twain (America’s most beloved humourist), were plagued with aspects of their fame. While Dickens was often criticised for appealing to the lower classes, Twain <a href="http://www.twainquotes.com/Celebrity.html">likened</a> celebrities to clowns. Celebrity, he said, “is what a boy or a youth longs for more than for any other thing. He would be a clown in a circus […] he would sell himself to Satan, in order to attract attention and be talked about and envied”.</p>
<p>Yet Dickens and Twain also enjoyed their fame. Dickens was renowned for engaging his audiences at public lectures; Twain also went on speaking tours. </p>
<p>If we fast forward half a century or so, we come to Ernest Hemingway – another author who felt imprisoned by his fame. As theorist Leo Braudy <a href="http://leobraudy.com/the-frenzy-of-renown-fame-and-its-history/">puts it</a>, Hemingway was caught between “his genius and its publicity”. In an undated writing fragment, Hemingway <a href="http://www.thefreelibrary.com/%22Glow-in-the-dark+authors%3A%22+Hemingway's+celebrity+and+legacy+in+under...-a0246955529">wrote</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have reached the point where we are ruled by photographers and agents of publishers and writing is no longer of any importance.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He also called fellow writer F. Scott Fitzgerald a “hack” for writing Hollywood screenplays.</p>
<p>Yet Hemingway nevertheless helped promote the “Hemingway myth”, built around ideals of <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7096913-all-man">masculinity</a> and genius. He was frequently photographed outdoors, fishing and hunting, or attending bullfights. </p>
<p>Then there was Norman Mailer, the pugnacious, Jewish author of The Naked and the Dead and Advertisements for Myself. In 1960, Mailer <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/24/arts/adele-mailer-artist-who-married-norman-mailer-dies-at-90.html?_r=0">stabbed and seriously wounded his then-wife, Adele Morales</a> with a pen-knife at a drunken party. (After pleading guilty to a charge of third-degree assault, he received a suspended sentence.)</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142282/original/image-20161019-20324-fg6cqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142282/original/image-20161019-20324-fg6cqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142282/original/image-20161019-20324-fg6cqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142282/original/image-20161019-20324-fg6cqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142282/original/image-20161019-20324-fg6cqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142282/original/image-20161019-20324-fg6cqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142282/original/image-20161019-20324-fg6cqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142282/original/image-20161019-20324-fg6cqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Norman Mailer receives an Austrian decoration for science and art in 2002.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Leonard Foeger/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mailer cultivated a public persona that certainly boosted his fame, but did little for his literary reputation. Many critics accused him of wasting his talents by shamelessly promoting himself; he did frequent TV interviews, including a particularly notorious <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8m9vDRe8fw">appearance</a> on The Dick Cavett Show, where he and Gore Vidal famously butted heads over Mailer’s public profile and ego. </p>
<p>Indeed, Mailer once <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674005907&content=reviews">called himself</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>a node in a new electronic landscape of celebrity, personality and status.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Theorist John Cawelti suggests that unlike Hemingway, who lived out to the end an ambiguous conflict between celebrity and art, Mailer “tried to make his public performances themselves into a kind of artistic exploration”. Mailer frequently wrote about himself in the third-person, in an effort to “perform” himself as a character. </p>
<p>Interestingly, at the same time as all this was happening, <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/jd-salinger-9470070">J.D. Salinger</a>, author of <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5107.The_Catcher_in_the_Rye">The Catcher in the Rye</a>, famously was living as a recluse. </p>
<h2>Franzen and Oprah</h2>
<p>In 2001, Oprah Winfrey put Jonathan Franzen’s sprawling family saga <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3805.The_Corrections?from_search=true">The Corrections</a> on her <a href="https://static.oprah.com/images/o2/201608/201608-obc-complete-list-01a.pdf">book club list</a>, encouraging her audience to read it. Franzen was invited onto Oprah’s show. He declined, <a href="http://www.powells.com/blog/interviews/jonathan-franzen-uncorrected/">saying</a> he didn’t want his novel placed alongside “schmaltzy, one-dimensional [books]”. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142297/original/image-20161019-20308-1fntotq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142297/original/image-20161019-20308-1fntotq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142297/original/image-20161019-20308-1fntotq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142297/original/image-20161019-20308-1fntotq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142297/original/image-20161019-20308-1fntotq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142297/original/image-20161019-20308-1fntotq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142297/original/image-20161019-20308-1fntotq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142297/original/image-20161019-20308-1fntotq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wolf Gang/flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Franzen was widely panned for being a snob. Andre Dubus III, for instance, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/29/books/oprah-gaffe-by-franzen-draws-ire-and-sales.html?pagewanted=all">criticised</a> Franzen’s assumption that “high art is not for the masses, that they won’t understand it and don’t deserve it”. </p>
<p>Media scholar Ian Collinson <a href="https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/everyday-readers-reading-popular-culture-ian-collinson/">sees</a> Franzen’s reaction as a symbolic attempt to separate the television celebrity from the novel, an act of “cultural decontamination”. Franzen, he writes, feared his position within the high-art tradition “would be compromised if his novel were subject to such blatant commercialism”.</p>
<p>Yet nine years later, Franzen <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/sep/16/oprah-winfrey-jonathan-franzen-freedom">apologised</a> to Oprah. He was again invited onto her show, this time to promote his 2010 book <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7905092-freedom">Freedom</a>. He did not refuse a second time. Ironically, many criticised Franzen for succumbing to the allure of popularity. The old assumptions regarding the incompatibility of literature and celebrity resurfaced, with one critic, Macy Halford, <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/franzen-meets-oprah">suggesting</a> that “Oprah and Franzen are not terribly compatible personalities”. </p>
<p>This whole saga attests to what Tessa Roynon <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/literature/american-literature/cambridge-introduction-toni-morrison-1">has called</a> the “damned if you don’t, damned if you do” mentality of literary celebrity. Authors are often seen as having to choose between respectability amongst fewer critics, or widespread popularity at the expense of their reputations. (<a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2011/06/literary-celebrity">One article</a> about a speech Franzen gave to students in 2011 was memorably titled, “Touching the hem of Mr Franzen’s garment.”)
Like Mailer, Franzen’s career has been marred by the troubled union between mass media presence and desire for literary acceptance. </p>
<h2>Celebrity and Sincerity: Wallace and Eggers</h2>
<p>One of Franzen’s peers, the late David Foster Wallace, was an author in the Romantic mould; he is associated with the <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/11/sincerity-not-irony-is-our-ages-ethos/265466/">“New Sincerity”</a> literary movement, and his 1996 novel <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6759.Infinite_Jest?from_search=true">Infinite Jest</a> has been judged by many as a work of genius. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142298/original/image-20161019-20336-13tkw4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142298/original/image-20161019-20336-13tkw4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142298/original/image-20161019-20336-13tkw4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142298/original/image-20161019-20336-13tkw4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142298/original/image-20161019-20336-13tkw4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142298/original/image-20161019-20336-13tkw4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1127&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142298/original/image-20161019-20336-13tkw4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1127&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142298/original/image-20161019-20336-13tkw4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1127&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A hand-drawn tribute to David Foster Wallace.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Steve Rhodes/flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2008, Wallace took his own life. Before his death, Wallace was known to have suffered from depression, and he projected an image of the melancholy genius. His opinion of celebrity was less than favourable. His widow Karen Green once <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/apr/10/karen-green-david-foster-wallace-interview">noted</a> in an interview that all of the media attention given to Wallace “turns him into a celebrity writer dude, which I think would have made him wince”.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/16/reviews/wallace-v-profile.html">1996 New York Times piece</a>, Wallace claimed that the “hoopla” of celebrity made him want to become a recluse. The cult of celebrity was something he consistently mocked in his work, <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/365145-the-paradoxical-intercourse-of-audience-and-celebrity-the-suppressed-awareness-that">calling</a> celebrities “symbols of themselves” rather than real people. As with Rousseau and Salinger, the logic went that Wallace “deserved his celebrity”, journalist Megan Garber <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/08/david-foster-wallace-the-end-of-the-tour/400928/">writes</a>, specifically because he had not sought it.</p>
<p>Dave Eggers is also part of the “New Sincerity” movement. A writer of serious, sentimental fiction, his books include his debut memoir <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4953.A_Heartbreaking_Work_of_Staggering_Genius?from_search=true">A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius</a>, and <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4952.What_Is_the_What?from_search=true">What is the What?</a>, the fictionalised story of the life of Sudanese refugee Valentino Achak Deng. Eggers also opened the writing centre <a href="http://826valencia.org/about/">Valencia 826</a> in San Francisco, which helps children develop their writing skills (and inspired the <a href="http://www.sydneystoryfactory.org.au/our-inspiration/">Sydney Story Factory</a> and Melbourne’s <a href="http://www.100storybuilding.org.au/">100 Story Building</a>.)</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142291/original/image-20161019-20302-1xjeoh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142291/original/image-20161019-20302-1xjeoh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142291/original/image-20161019-20302-1xjeoh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142291/original/image-20161019-20302-1xjeoh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142291/original/image-20161019-20302-1xjeoh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142291/original/image-20161019-20302-1xjeoh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142291/original/image-20161019-20302-1xjeoh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142291/original/image-20161019-20302-1xjeoh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dave Eggers in 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Elliot Margolies/flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Early in his career, Eggers often spoke of wanting to retreat into anonymity. Instead, he <a href="http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/one-man-zeitgeist-dave-eggers-publishing-and-publicity-9781441117373/">seized</a> the reins of literary celebrity. Some then accused him of hypocrisy – in criticising fame while also inviting it. He has also been criticised for “excessive sincerity”, while journalist David Kirkpatrick <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/14/books/ambivalent-writer-turns-his-memoir-upside-down-denouncing-profits-publishers.html">called</a> Eggers “agonizingly ambivalent”. </p>
<p>Journalist James Sullivan <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Eggers-Surprised-By-Success-Author-to-read-from-2935959.php">notes</a> that Eggers</p>
<blockquote>
<p>treats his celebrity like a gold lamé suit: It’s amusing, absurd and, in his mind, not quite appropriate.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Meanwhile, in her reading of Eggers’ 2003 book <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4954.You_Shall_Know_Our_Velocity_?from_search=true">You Shall Know Our Velocity</a>, Caroline Hamilton <a href="http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/one-man-zeitgeist-dave-eggers-publishing-and-publicity-9781441117373/">suggests</a> that the central characters “resemble the credibility-obsessed younger Eggers torn between longing for celebrity and legitimacy”. </p>
<p>In a <a href="http://www.armchairnews.com/freelance/eggers.html">2000 email interview</a>, Eggers referred to himself as a sellout for having sold many books and appeared in various magazines. As Hamilton <a href="http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/one-man-zeitgeist-dave-eggers-publishing-and-publicity-9781441117373/">writes</a>, the term sellout has less to do with wealth, and more to do with “the popularity that comes with it”.
Celebrity, then, remains a problem for those authors wishing to appear genuine and serious. </p>
<h2>Where are all the women?</h2>
<p>It is striking that female authors are, for the most part, excluded from all these agonised discussions about inner turmoil and perceived loss of prestige. This suggests that women are not often thought of as having substantial reputations in the first place. </p>
<p>Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, for instance, has <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Jw0Fu8nhOc">frequently appeared</a> on Oprah’s program to discuss her complex, poetically written, novels. In contrast to Franzen, however, Morrison’s credibility was never seen to be compromised in doing so. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142294/original/image-20161019-20330-gdzkaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142294/original/image-20161019-20330-gdzkaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142294/original/image-20161019-20330-gdzkaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142294/original/image-20161019-20330-gdzkaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142294/original/image-20161019-20330-gdzkaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142294/original/image-20161019-20330-gdzkaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142294/original/image-20161019-20330-gdzkaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142294/original/image-20161019-20330-gdzkaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Toni Morrison after being awarded the French Legion of Honour in 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Philippe Wojazer/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite the number of talented women writing today for large audiences – Margaret Atwood, Zadie Smith, Joan Didion, and Toni Morrison just to name a few – critics do not often think of female authors as having the kinds of monumental reputations that their male peers possess. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byronic_hero">The Byronic hero</a>, <a href="https://www.academia.edu/5771776/Remembering_Hemingway_The_Endurance_of_the_Hemingway_Myth">the Hemingway legend</a>, and the <a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/09/13/behind_the_david_foster_wallace_myth/">Foster Wallace genius</a> are larger-than-life men. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142305/original/image-20161019-20333-y1kpvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142305/original/image-20161019-20333-y1kpvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142305/original/image-20161019-20333-y1kpvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142305/original/image-20161019-20333-y1kpvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142305/original/image-20161019-20333-y1kpvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142305/original/image-20161019-20333-y1kpvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142305/original/image-20161019-20333-y1kpvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142305/original/image-20161019-20333-y1kpvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Margaret Atwood.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Blinch/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Women are seldom discussed in such a way – with the possible exception of Gertrude Stein and Virginia Woolf. Yet this may actually be a blessing for them. Avoiding the expectations that go along with literary celebrity can be an advantage. Female authors may be better able to breach certain boundaries – of genre, style, content – in ways that certain male authors cannot. </p>
<p>Ferrante, for instance, said she explicitly needed anonymity to write honestly. While some may see it as a bizarre sort of compliment to her that she is so intriguing that an Italian journalist spent weeks combing financial and property records to unmask her, she surely deserved the right to her privacy to focus on her own work. </p>
<p>Some of the most interesting genre-defying authors writing today are women such as Morrison, Atwood, and Emily St. John Mandel. Perhaps, then, female authors can more seamlessly defy stringent boundaries that continue to define the literary world when they are not hailed as heroic geniuses.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64156/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Siobhan Lyons does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Bob Dylan is now a literary celebrity. And next week, the Booker Prize judges will anoint another. The tag is still chiefly attached to men but women authors shouldn’t despair: fame and good writing can be uneasy bedfellows.Siobhan Lyons, Tutor in Media and Cultural Studies, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/613002016-06-22T03:52:35Z2016-06-22T03:52:35ZWhy the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards need an urgent overhaul<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127664/original/image-20160622-19789-1gbywp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What are the criteria for a Prime Minister intervening in these awards? Literary reasons? Personal reasons? 'History war' reasons?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Tapp</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Odd rules can help shape a writing prize’s long-term character in wonderful ways. But that’s not the case with the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, set up by the Rudd government and first awarded in 2008. (In 2012, they also took in the PM’s Prize for Australian History, which John Howard had begun.) </p>
<p>The expanded awards — with separate categories for fiction, non-fiction, Australian history, poetry, YA and children’s books and a winner’s prize money of A$80,000 tax free — should be well-placed to be our pre-eminent national literary awards. Instead, they bob on the vast sea of daily politics, occasionally getting dumped by a breaker.</p>
<p>As Colin Steele, a former judge of the non-fiction award <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/how-the-sex-lives-of-australians-upset-a-pm-and-the-pms-literary-awards-20160606-gpcfxg.html">recently suggested</a>, the issues facing the Awards include Prime Ministerial interventions in deciding winners, the appointment and treatment of judges, and the quality and focus of publicity and marketing. </p>
<p>I’d add that the name doesn’t help: almost anything — from the silly (The Oi Oi Oi’s?) to the prosaic (National Book Awards?) — would be preferable to the current one.</p>
<p>But the key flaw in the Awards’ guidelines is <a href="http://arts.gov.au/funding/awards/pmla/2015/entry-guidelines">this</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Prime Minister makes the final decision on the awarding of the Awards, taking into account the recommendations of the judges. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>As Beth Driscoll <a href="http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7203">put it in 2008</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>To appreciate the true scandal of this potentiality, imagine the Queen actually choosing the Governor General!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Steele identifies three separate instances of prime ministerial intervention in the awards. In 2013, he writes, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/how-the-sex-lives-of-australians-upset-a-pm-and-the-pms-literary-awards-20160606-gpcfxg.html">Kevin Rudd overruled the judges’ recommendation</a> for the History Award, Frank Bongiorno’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15729089-the-sex-lives-of-australians">The Sex Lives of Australians: A History</a> (2012). The Award was then given to Ross McMullin’s collection of World War I personal histories, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13629194-farewell-dear-people">Farewell, Dear People: Biographies of Australia’s Lost Generation</a> (2012).</p>
<p>In 2014, meanwhile, the fiction judges chose Steven Carroll’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17734472-a-world-of-other-people">A World of Other People</a> (2013), a novel about TS Eliot and London during the blitz, as the winner. But then <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-curious-case-of-the-prime-ministers-literary-awards-33467">PM Tony Abbott intervened</a> to make Richard Flanagan’s Booker Prize-winning <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17905709-the-narrow-road-to-the-deep-north">The Narrow Road to the Deep North</a> (2013) a joint winner. Years earlier, in 2006 (before the wider PM’s Literary Awards existed), John Howard had intervened to make Les Carlyon’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4751125-the-great-war">The Great War</a> (2006) a co-winner of the History Prize. </p>
<p>The lack of transparency around these awards is palpable. Should a Prime Minister intercede for purely literary reasons? Or are political reasons fine? Or “history war” reasons? Or local constituency reasons? Or personal reasons? </p>
<p>Can a PM reject a winner because of a cover image or an epigraph? Is a PM who wishes to intercede obliged to read all the shortlisted books? Can a PM “call in” a book that hasn’t made the shortlist or isn’t in competition?</p>
<p>In the meantime, judges engage in delicate debate and compromise amongst themselves, without knowing if they are actually choosing the winner. This is no clearly-defined two-tiered process – with one panel choosing a shortlist and another panel the winning book, as happens with the Pulitzer Prize. This is arbitrary.</p>
<p>Other complaints about the judging process have dogged the Awards. Senator George Brandis <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/estimate/219a9210-1ca0-49cb-903b-3e1309393869/toc_pdf/Legal%20and%20Constitutional%20Affairs%20Legislation%20Committee_2014_05_28_2522_Official.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22committees/estimate/219a9210-1ca0-49cb-903b-3e1309393869/0001%22">claimed in 2014</a> that the Labor-chosen panels lacked balance, as no judges were “conservative or even liberal democratic”. He suggested that that his government instead aimed for “balanced panels”, citing as examples Gerard Henderson as chair of the non-fiction and history panel (“conservative”) and Louise Adler as chair of the fiction and poetry panel (“a woman of the left”).</p>
<p>At around the same time as Brandis was complaining about past judges, Morry Schwartz and Chris Feik from Black Inc. <a href="https://dailyreview.com.au/can-gerard-henderson-judge-pms-literary-awards-fairly/6919/">protested the choice of Henderson</a> as a judge: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Henderson has a history of incessant and obsessive criticism of leading Australian writers and commentators with whom he disagrees politically … His appointment politicises what has until now been an apolitical award based on merit.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I happen to disapprove of Gerard Henderson’s politics, to the limited extent that I understand them. But any isolated scrutiny of a single judge mainly demonstrates the susceptibility of the awards to the politics of the moment, including the more tedious elements of the culture wars. </p>
<p>In any writing competition, a judge arrives with personal, political and literary baggage, preoccupations and biases. But judges also, ideally, bring a commitment to identifying and rewarding excellence that transcends their personal politics and previous public statements. </p>
<p>In turn, the judges’ collective decisions should provoke productive and passionate disagreement on literary, cultural and political grounds. In other words, in calling for changes to the PM’s Literary Awards, I am not seeking a saccharine or apolitical outcome. A prize’s idiosyncrasies can help define it. </p>
<p>For example, the flawed but magnificent legacy of the Miles Franklin Literary Award stems in large part from Franklin’s inspired stipulation that the winning novel (or play, if no novel measures up) should not only be of the “highest literary merit” but “must present Australian Life in any of its phases”. </p>
<p>The stipulation within the PM’s Literary Awards that a Prime Minister has the final say about winners is equally defining: it compromises the Awards’ credibility, purpose and depth.</p>
<p>That stipulation must go, without delay. To function effectively, the Awards need entrenched breathing space from the government that funds them. They need an unambiguous mandate: what are these Awards for?</p>
<p>And they need transparency. In the context of questioning Henderson as judge, Schwartz and Feik called for a published list of all entries received. In the spirit of critically celebrating the breadth of Australian writing, the PM’s Literary Awards – indeed, all major Australian book prizes – should embrace this suggestion.</p>
<p>In the meantime, I, for one, look forward to the 2017 judges of the PM’s Literary Awards perhaps choosing Niki Savva’s <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29415878-the-road-to-ruin">The Road to Ruin: how Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin destroyed their own government</a> (2016) as the winner of the non-fiction award.</p>
<p>If this eventuates, what happens next may well depend on whether the Prime Minister is Malcolm Turnbull or Bill Shorten … or perhaps even, by then, a reawakened Tony Abbott.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61300/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patrick Allington's novel Figurehead was published by Black Inc., a publisher this article discusses. He has served as a judge for several writing competitions, including the Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature - but not the PM Literary Awards.</span></em></p>They should be our pre-eminent national writing prizes. Instead, these awards bob on the vast sea of daily politics, occasionally getting dumped by a breaker.Patrick Allington, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/594552016-05-17T00:52:34Z2016-05-17T00:52:34ZThe Meanjin funding cuts: a graceless coup?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122641/original/image-20160516-26383-1nms10c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Meanjin has published leading writers, including Patrick White and Peter Carey.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Charles Stanford</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1940, in Brisbane, the young journalist Clem Christesen initiated a “desperate attempt” to offer Queensland writers a “modest publishing outlet”. What the country needed (in this second year of WW2) was a literary magazine to provide a forum for the defence of “important values”. In December, Meanjin Papers was launched: a small edition of eight pages, 250 copies. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122638/original/image-20160516-26353-1i19p90.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122638/original/image-20160516-26353-1i19p90.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122638/original/image-20160516-26353-1i19p90.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122638/original/image-20160516-26353-1i19p90.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122638/original/image-20160516-26353-1i19p90.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122638/original/image-20160516-26353-1i19p90.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122638/original/image-20160516-26353-1i19p90.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122638/original/image-20160516-26353-1i19p90.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first edition of Meanjin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Meanjin, 1940.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Its aim was to ensure that the nation did not “drop its mental life, its intellectual and aesthetic activities” simply because of Australia’s military involvement. The local reception, to judge from a disparaging article in the Courier-Mail, was cool, but interstate the new baby was warmly hailed; contributions began to flow in. A young woman named <a href="http://judithwrightcentre.com/who-was-judith-wright">Judith Wright</a> came forward to offer not only some of her poems, but help with correspondence and receipts. The baby grew.</p>
<p>In 1944, <a href="https://meanjin.com.au/">Meanjin</a> received an offer from the Extension Board of the University of Melbourne to bring the magazine down south, where an unsigned agreement promised a rather unclear relationship with Melbourne University Press.</p>
<p>Clem, Nina (his Russian-born wife) and Meanjin arrived in Melbourne in February 1945. By the end of the following year it had sought and achieved independence from MUP. It was now published by the Meanjin Press but still housed on campus, overseen by an academic Advisory Board, and meagerly supported by the Commonwealth Literary Fund and the University’s Lockie Bequest.</p>
<p>Before long, however, the left-leaning tendencies of both the journal and its editor had inflamed a right-wing opposition, which thought he should concentrate on literature and art to the exclusion of politics. </p>
<p>For Clem and his supporters, who included a quartet of “Red Professors”, this was never an either-or situation; he would just keep on introducing to the reading public of the 1950s, ‘60s and '70s the likes of AD Hope, Arthur Phillips, Rosemary Dobson, Patrick White, Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Martin Boyd, Dorothy Green, Gwen Harwood, Christina Stead, Peter Carey, and the “little bugger” for whom he felt a strong affection, Vincent Buckley. </p>
<p>In a 1966 paper delivered at the University of New England, Clem elaborated the crucial importance of literary magazines. They were an indispensable catalyst for the discovery and dissemination of a new creative and critical talent; they set standards; they provided a forum for discussion across the whole field of intellectual enquiry; they enabled writers to gauge the effects of their work and they provided a meeting point for both writers and readers.</p>
<p>It was a blueprint for an ideal that Clem’s successors in the editorial chair continued to promote in their own ways.</p>
<p>By the early '70s, Clem had handed his magazine over to the young and talented historian Jim Davidson, the first in a series of, to date, ten editors, all of shorter tenancy than that of the founding father, and seven of them female. </p>
<p>Yet again the terms were not sufficiently spelled out, and that first transition was fraught: Clem chafed when the archive was not transferred to the Baillieu Library, nor any editorial board set up. But Davidson and those who followed him have maintained Clem’s “important values”, be it in the “themed editions” of Ian Britain, or, in the words of its present patron, the distinguished poet Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Jonathan Green’s current “snappy” presentations.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122637/original/image-20160516-10694-6r7i5w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122637/original/image-20160516-10694-6r7i5w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122637/original/image-20160516-10694-6r7i5w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122637/original/image-20160516-10694-6r7i5w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122637/original/image-20160516-10694-6r7i5w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122637/original/image-20160516-10694-6r7i5w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122637/original/image-20160516-10694-6r7i5w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chris Wallace-Crabbe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kristin Headlam/Wikimediacommons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2008, the magazine was absorbed by Melbourne University Publishing, which now provides space, facilities and publicity. But most of the funding required to pay the contributors comes from the Australia Council.</p>
<p>It is this body which, itself newly unfunded by the government to the tune of $A73 million dollars, has slashed an annual A$95,000 (30%) from Meanjin’s operating costs, according its editor Green.</p>
<p>He has confirmed that it will now be difficult to pay contributors. Wallace-Crabbe views it as “outrageous” that Australia’s “premier literary magazine” should be prevented from carrying on the tradition inherited from its founder.</p>
<p>To Meanjin’s credit, it has never been without its critics, some of whom seem to speak more out of concern than contrariness. <a href="http://www.sydneyreviewofbooks.com/quiet-conversations-in-a-very-noisy-room/">Emmet Stinson, in the Sydney Review of Books</a>, argues that only those who are published in Meanjin actually “like” it.</p>
<p>He is critical of the fact that since 1987 it has had nine editors, resulting in a variable quality which casts doubts over “its place in the larger scheme”. </p>
<p>It is also interesting, given the advice once meted out by the University, to note Stinson’s implied disapproval of the increased focus on “political interviews and commentary”. </p>
<p>A trend noticeable in other magazines such as the London Review of Books, it was evidenced in Meanjin when a recent volume was guest-edited by Glyn Davies, the Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Melbourne">University of Melbourne</a>, and a Professor of Political Science whose field is public policy. </p>
<p>On the other hand, no regular publication can or should deliver material that never changes in content or style; and it is in any case a moot point whether the material between the covers moulds or is moulded by external considerations.</p>
<p>The current cuts may or may not deliver the coup de grâce to Meanjin, but if they do, it will have lasted 75 years - five years longer than New York’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partisan_Review">Partisan Review</a>, which closed down in 2003.</p>
<p>Prose and poetry-lovers who have come to treasure their favourite Australian writing won’t necessarily have first read it in Meanjin or any other literary magazine. But if, say, a young Peter Carey had not received some early exposure, his award-winning novels might arguably not have been written. Will future Miles Franklin winners be generated by blogs?</p>
<p>The question is not whether three score years and fifteen is or is not an “appropriate” lifetime for a “little magazine” (an epithet that riled Clem Christesen) but rather that the decision to starve Meanjin has been made not by critics, readers or contributors (to whom publication lends confidence), but by a government fixated on balancing a quite different kind of book.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59455/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Judith Armstrong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The literary magazine Meanjin was founded to ensure the nation did not ‘drop its mental life’ during World War Two. Given the decision to starve it of funding, will future Miles Franklin winners be generated by blogs?Judith Armstrong, Honorary Associate Professor in Arts and Languages & Linguistics, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/443812015-08-06T04:34:18Z2015-08-06T04:34:18ZShould Shakespeare be taught in Africa’s classrooms?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90415/original/image-20150731-11786-12sdjk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Actor Joseph Marcell plays the lead role in The Globe's production of Shakespeare's King Lear in Malta, Valletta. Shakespeare divides opinions and his texts often terrify learners.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Darrin Zammit Lupi/Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Should <a href="http://www.shakespeareinamericancommunities.org/education/life-william-shakespeare">William Shakespeare</a> be taught in Africa’s schools and universities? It’s a question that emerges, sometimes flippantly and sometimes in earnest, when conversations about post-coloniality and decolonisation turn to literature and culture.</p>
<p>It’s a useful and necessary question that I - as a scholar who teaches and writes about Shakespeare in a South African context - am often asked. Indeed, it’s one that I ask myself frequently.</p>
<p>But it is also a clumsy question and it needs rephrasing – or, at least, the terms in which it is couched need further investigation if we are to attempt a nuanced, coherent answer.</p>
<h2>Africa is not a country</h2>
<p>The first problem is in generalising about the African continent. Education systems and their infrastructural or economic contexts are vastly different. This is not only true from country to country and region to region, but also within each country and region.</p>
<p>It’s impossible to speak accurately about “Shakespeare in Asia” without accommodating the fact that his place in India - with its <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/east_india_01.shtml">colonial history</a> and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/world/asia/17iht-letter17.html?_r=0">linguistic environment</a> - is a phenomenon that’s almost incomparable to Shakespeare in China or in Japan.</p>
<p>In Europe, national distinctions are equally severe. The history of Shakespeare’s reception in <a href="http://theshakespeareblog.com/2011/07/shakespeare-and-the-french/">France</a> is completely unlike that in <a href="http://www.dw.com/en/germans-count-shakespeare-as-one-of-their-own-says-festival-director/a-5816542">Germany</a>. </p>
<p>Likewise, there’s no singular “Shakespeare in Africa”. </p>
<p>An obvious division could be made between Francophone and Anglophone countries, but even these categories falter. The engagement of writers such as Frantz Fanon and Aimé Césaire with Shakespeare’s <a href="http://www.bachelorandmaster.com/globaldrama/the-tempest-as-a-play-about-colonialism.html#.VbtHO_mqqko">“colonial”</a> play <em>The Tempest</em> influenced the <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/negritude/">Negritude</a> movement associated with Léopold Senghor and, through him, with Senegal. Césaire’s <em>Une Tempête</em> was first performed in Tunisia. But this has no purchase in other Francophone African countries like Gabon or Niger.</p>
<p>In Zimbabwe, despite <a href="https://www.newsday.co.zw/2015/02/12/scrap-shakespearean-literature/">occasional posturing</a>, Shakespeare is a common and largely unproblematic reference point in political speeches, newspaper articles and daily conversation.</p>
<p>This is not the case in neighbouring South Africa, where there are again many different Shakespeares. He was <a href="http://www.southafrica.info/about/history/robbenisland-bible.htm#.VbtQbPmqqko">one of Nelson Mandela’s favourites</a> and a copy of the <em>Collected Works</em> was circulated among prisoners on Robben Island. Author, journalist and political icon Sol Plaatje <a href="http://zar.co.za/plaatje.htm">translated</a> several of Shakespeare’s works into Setswana.</p>
<p>But there is also the Shakespeare of “white English liberals”, and the Shakespeare invoked by the apartheid state as an example of exclusively European “high culture”. Then there is the Shakespeare associated with former president <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2008-12-23-where-is-mbekis-world-elsewhere">Thabo Mbeki</a>, who was seen as something of an intellectual elitist and was ultimately recalled by the governing African National Congress.</p>
<p>These examples make it clear that Shakespeare can’t be viewed or read – and therefore can’t be taught – in an ahistorical or apolitical vacuum. If we are to teach Shakespeare in Africa, we cannot teach the text alone.</p>
<p>We owe it to students to acknowledge, indeed to emphasise, and then to analyse the baggage that Shakespeare brings with him.</p>
<h2>Where does Shakespeare “fit”?</h2>
<p>Shakespeare traditionally goes hand in hand with “English”. In secondary schools, this implies that his work will be studied as a literary text. “English” at high school is also about the acquisition of the English language, particularly for learners who have English as a second or additional language. </p>
<p>Is the difficulty – sometimes the downright opacity – of Shakespeare’s Early Modern English helpful to these learners? Probably not. Arguably, without a very skillful and enthusiastic teacher, Shakespeare’s language remains obscure even to teenagers with “mother tongue” or “first language” English competence (this includes many bilingual learners).</p>
<p>Here a case may be made for translation as a vital aspect of teaching and learning Shakespeare. Why can’t extracts from Shakespeare, or even entire plays, be studied in translation into <a href="http://aboutworldlanguages.com/kikuyu">Gikuyu</a> or <a href="http://www.unisa.ac.za/free_online_course/Zulu/Zulu.html">isiZulu</a>? From these languages the work could be translated once again, into contemporary English - a much more interesting process of “modernising” Shakespeare.</p>
<p>Teachers could then draw on the resource of a polyglot classroom, affirming rather their undermining their learners’ multilingual confidence. At the same time, Shakespeare could be placed in dialogue with African writers like Ngugi wa Thiong’o or Mazisi Kunene.</p>
<p>All of this hinges, however, on the awkwardness of “should”. Making something compulsory usually has the effect of making it resented - and that’s anecdotally the case for most learners who’ve sweated over Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets. </p>
<p>In the final school year, or the senior years, continuity and consistency across a provincial or state schooling system requires a syllabus that offers individual schools and teachers limited choice. But where possible, it is preferable for curriculum guidelines to present Shakespeare simply as an option: a writer among many other writers.</p>
<p>Learners could encounter Shakespeare productively outside of the classroom environment: on stage, on screen, modernised, translated, without the stigma of being a canonical author. Some might arrive at university without having studied him at all. Would this be a bad thing? Imagine discovering Shakespeare in a political science class, or a philosophy course – or through art history, economics or media studies. </p>
<p>Ultimately, the discipline in which Shakespeare really “belongs” is drama. Sometimes that’s in the context of theatre and performance; it may also be in a field like film study. </p>
<p>Perhaps, then, to return to the clumsy question that got us started, there’s only one “should” when it comes to teaching Shakespeare. Whether it’s at secondary or tertiary level, as part of a formal curriculum or extra-curricular activity, in Africa or elsewhere in the world, the magic of performance should remain at the core of any assignation with Shakespeare.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44381/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Thurman receives funding from the National Research Foundation of South Africa and the Humboldt Foundation.</span></em></p>Is there a place for Shakespeare in African schools, or is his time long past?Chris Thurman, Associate professor, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/400442015-04-23T09:58:25Z2015-04-23T09:58:25ZThou art translated! How Shakespeare went viral<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78984/original/image-20150422-1885-1v6kz7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A 1964 Soviet stamp depicts William Shakespeare.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-51135505/stock-photo-russia-circa-stamp-printed-by-russia-shows-portrait-shakespeare-circa.html?src=csl_recent_image-1">"Stamp" via www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, when Peter Quince sees Bottom turned into an ass-headed figure, he cries in horror: “Bless thee, Bottom, bless thee. Thou art translated!” </p>
<p>Other characters in the play use the verb in similar ways to refer to a broad range of altered states. Helena hopes to be “translated” into Hermia, her childhood friend and rival, while a love potion transforms characters that come in contact with it. </p>
<p>Appropriately enough, translation has come to define Shakespeare’s legacy. Since the 16th century, his plays and sonnets have been translated and performed all over the world in an ever-growing number of languages, dialects and styles. One of the most translated secular authors in the world, more than four billion copies of his works have been sold.</p>
<p>Why did Shakespeare – and not his contemporaries like Christopher Marlowe or Thomas Kyd – “go viral?” </p>
<p>A closer look reveals that his narratives contain qualities that are easily adaptable to different cultures and eras, and have given his works broad appeal outside his native England. It helps explain why, even before mass communication, Shakespeare was a hit with readers ranging from Soviet communists, to German Romanticists like Goethe.</p>
<h2>Plays depict a brave new world</h2>
<p>Shakespeare’s global popularity is paralleled by the diverse settings of his plays. </p>
<p>As English audiences were becoming more attuned to the world beyond their own, Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies and romances were often set in locales outside of England, Scotland and Wales – places like Athens, Elsinore (Denmark), Illyria, Troy, Cyprus, Cairo, Tunis, Bohemia, Verona and Venice. And many of his characters hail from various parts of the world, whether it’s The Merchant of Venice’s Prince of Morocco or the Indian pageboy from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.</p>
<p>While Shakespeare’s plays were initially performed in England and Europe, by the end of the playwright’s life they’d been transported to corners of the globe that would have seemed remote from the perspective of a 17th-century Englishman. In 1619, for example, Hamlet was performed in colonial Indonesia.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78983/original/image-20150422-1907-b67naf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78983/original/image-20150422-1907-b67naf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78983/original/image-20150422-1907-b67naf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78983/original/image-20150422-1907-b67naf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78983/original/image-20150422-1907-b67naf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78983/original/image-20150422-1907-b67naf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=776&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78983/original/image-20150422-1907-b67naf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=776&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78983/original/image-20150422-1907-b67naf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=776&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Shakespeare translated into Odia, a language spoken in India.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nauright/5287024052/in/photolist-94co47-rHLdCm-688NpQ-arTTLh-nSRAPy-46uZse-gJuMsj-8PybHq-4HiKJE-64qbTH-onLhdx-8iVbfE-5XgjuA-6D8yQr-3QC6s3-fTDmB2-4NBjrz-bGQ5W-qkHV1-paTgTs-6thXSP-bUYTaW-8eJ1tx-6tn6WW-6Vsaot-eqaBkt-adpM3Z-6TfzmX-6TeXKc-kDBNrX-z8Jg3-5QnRnU-6Zs4mc-a5eJd-2NiV3-dQfTY1-8gpifr">ramona klee/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Translations of Shakespeare’s Complete Works began emerging in the 18th century. With time, to have a Shakespearean play translated into a country’s native language became an honor. When his translation of Hamlet was published in 1877, Portugal’s King Luis I was widely <a href="http://books.google.com/books/about/1860_1929_In_memoriam.html?id=RD_vcQAACAAJ">praised</a> for “giving to the Portuguese Nation their first translation of Shakespeare.”</p>
<p>Today, several editions of Shakespeare exist in hundreds of languages. And a number of the translators are prominent figures in the world of letters in and beyond their own cultures: August Wilhelm von Schlegel and Paul Celan (Germany), Voltaire (France), Tsubouchi Shōyō (Japan), Rabindranath Tagore (India) and Wole Soyinka (Nigeria).</p>
<h2>Cultural appropriation</h2>
<p>Literary translation can modernize the original text, making it culturally relevant to a specific time and place. </p>
<p>For this reason, Shakespeare in translation can appear as a contemporary of the German Romantics, a spokesperson for the proletarian heroes of the Soviet Union or required reading for communists.</p>
<p>New titles given to Shakespeare’s plays are suggestive of the preoccupations of the society that produced them. The 1710 German adaptation of Hamlet is titled <em>Der besträfte Brudermord</em> (The Condemned Fratricide), which suggests Germany’s interest in the legalistic and thriller aspects of the tragedy, rather than the prince’s moral dilemma. Meanwhile, Sulayman Al-Bassam’s 2004 Arabic adaption is called The Al-Hamlet Summit, which comments on terrorism and contemporary politics in the Middle East. </p>
<p>The elasticity of Shakespeare’s narratives allow them to act as a vehicle for discussion of taboo or difficult subjects, which vary depending on the audience they’re geared towards. </p>
<p>For example, Western directors, translators and critics of The Merchant of Venice tend to zero in on the character Shylock, the ethics of conversion and the play’s religious tension. </p>
<p>But in East Asia, the play wears a completely different mask: Portia is its central character, the female emancipation movement its main concern. Meanwhile, Asia’s nascent capitalism looms. Again, the titles reflect a shifting focus. In China, it’s commonly called A Pound of Flesh, while a 1885 Japanese adaptation was dubbed The Season of Cherry Blossoms, the World of Money. Meanwhile, a 1927 Chinese silent film adaptation of The Merchant of Venice was titled The Woman Lawyer.</p>
<h2>Eternal evolution</h2>
<p>Over the past century, stage, film and television adaptations of Shakespeare have emerged in every corner of the globe. Audiences, in turn, have become both an outsider and insider – exposed to shifting styles and interpretations, but familiar with certain aspects of Shakespeare.</p>
<p>Shakespearean motifs and characters are found in popular shows like Star Trek, while stage productions utilize a wide range of styles (for example, physical theater companies like <a href="http://www.synetictheater.org/">Synetic Theater</a>) and languages (such as <a href="http://www.kli.org/stuff/Hamlet.html">Klingon</a>!). </p>
<p>Even in Britain, homegrown and touring companies have staged Shakespearean performances that may seem foreign to the sensibilities and linguistic repertoire of local audiences. Acclaimed directors such as Claus Peymann (Germany), Robert Lepage (Quebec) and Peter Sellars (US) have presented Shakespeare in styles borrowed from international theatrical traditions. They have also used multi-national casts, some of whom will speak in foreign languages on stage. </p>
<p>In 2014, the Royal Shakespeare Company <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/01/19/translating-shakespeare-in-china/">announced</a> a $2.4 million initiative to commission a new Mandarin translation of the Complete Works, setting an unprecedented example of a major translation of Shakespeare supported by British funds and led by a major British organization. The new translation will be part of a “global folio” of Shakespeare translations timed for the 400th anniversary of the First Folio.</p>
<p>Clearly, Shakespeare’s popularity and global appeal is only growing. And like any virus that adapts and changes to its host environment, the works of Shakespeare will continue to evolve into 21st century.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40044/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexa Huang receives funding from the US-UK Fulbright Commission to research global Shakespeare</span></em></p>Centuries before the internet, Shakespeare became a global phenomenon.Alexa Huang, English professor, George Washington UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/287322014-07-09T05:23:51Z2014-07-09T05:23:51ZHere they are: the rules for book reviewing<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/53265/original/q9tn2db3-1404795255.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">We all know a good review when we read one – but what actually differentiates a good review from a bad one?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hartwig HKD</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Good book reviews are all alike while every bad review is bad in its own way.</p>
<p>In Australia reviews are often bad in many different ways. Historically the trade has consisted of retired English academics, tyro writers wishing to carve out a reputation, and old journalists. </p>
<p>There are exceptions of course, reviewers who understand the complexities of constructing and analysing fiction and non-fiction. It is generally acknowledged, however, that the standard of book reviewing in Australia is poor. Certainly there is no antipodean <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/bios/james_wood/search?contributorName=james%20wood">James Wood</a>.</p>
<h2>Complaints about reviews</h2>
<p>A common complaint is that the reviewer hasn’t engaged with the writer’s work with sufficient depth and inquiry. </p>
<p>Sometimes there are hidden agendas at play. </p>
<p>Book reviewing is not a financially rewarding occupation. Many scholars don’t have the time to spend a day reading a book and then writing an insightful review for A$120. So it invariably falls to the second-rate, the hack who skims the text and summarises the blurb and whose real motive for reviewing the novel in the first place is to see their name in the book pages. </p>
<p>Every writer at some point experiences a sloppy or inaccurate review.</p>
<h2>The pleasure of a good review</h2>
<p>We all know what a good review is. </p>
<p>It is engaging, lively, a pleasure to read and gives readers a taste of the prose and the narrative so that they can decide whether to buy the book. For the writer a good review is anything positive written by someone who understands the intentions of your work. </p>
<p>A good review may be critical of aspects or even the execution of the writing, but the only way a good review can be bad if it is exaggerated in its praise. Excessive admiration provides a disservice to author and reader. </p>
<p>Most writers, however, don’t just receive good reviews. </p>
<p>They receive contradictory reviews. Is it any wonder so many writers are manic depressives? But what does such wide divergence of opinion tell us about the motives for reviewing? </p>
<p>In cases of outright hostility the reader suspects that it is not the work being attacked, but the writer. </p>
<h2>The local problem</h2>
<p>The problem of reviewing in Australia lies not so much with our literary editors but with a limited pool of reviewers. A large part of an editor’s job is to find a suitable reviewer for a book – and that is no easy task given the size of Australia’s literary scene. </p>
<p>Invariably editors return to the same old names and although most of them try to follow the unwritten code that you don’t review a book of an author you know intimately, or one you dislike intensely, the root of the problem stems from the fact that aside from the word limit there are no guidelines.</p>
<p>Teaching writing in a university and reviewing fiction are not dissimilar. </p>
<p>In a writing workshop there are rules that assist constructive criticism and allow the students to come away with insights into the strengths and weaknesses of their own work, and also the process of writing.</p>
<h2>The rules</h2>
<p>These rules are distributed by an experienced teacher who guides the discussion and ensures that the text is the only focus of review. Flattery as a critical response is discouraged, and political ideologies are not permitted to influence the criticism.</p>
<p>Without these basic rules the workshop falls apart and participants are reduced to responding at the lowest critical level. Just as there are rules for teaching writing there are also rules for reviewing fiction. </p>
<p>Novelist and reviewer John Updike established <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/05/john-updikes-6-rules-for-constructive-criticism/256643/">five useful rules</a> which are valid today:</p>
<ol>
<li>Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame them for not achieving what they did not attempt.<br></li>
<li>Give them enough direct quotation – at least one extended passage – of the book’s prose so the reader can form their own impression, can get their own taste.</li>
<li>Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.</li>
<li>Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending. </li>
<li>If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author’s ouevre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it’s theirs and not yours?</li>
</ol>
<p>The majority of bad reviews in Australia violate at least one of Updike’s precepts. </p>
<p>There is the kind of bad review which is ostensibly about “the book” but is really about “the reviewer”. But the worst review is where the reviewer (Updike’s Rule 4) relates the plot in mind-numbing detail. No reader wants to know the plot of a book. So why should a lazy reviewer give it away? </p>
<p>Instead, give readers a sample of the prose. Show them something of the texture, of the book’s narrative arc, of historical precedents in the genre. It is better to praise and share, as Updike wrote, than to blame and ban. </p>
<p>But book reviewing is not about the writer, just as it should never be about the reviewer. Book reviewing is about the reader. It is about bringing ideas and information and entertainment and education to a wider public. The review pages of a newspaper should serve as a barometer of a city’s intellectual life and for all the wonder and joy of the internet, the quality of critical response out there on the world wide web is far exceeded by the quantity of uninformed opinion. </p>
<p>Reading is one of life’s great pleasures so anything that lifts the standard of book reviewing in this country is doing us all a service. Reviewers need to be as knowledgeable, as committed and as scrupulous as their readers. </p>
<p>“The communion between reviewer and reader is based upon the presumption of the possible joys in reading,” Updike wrote, “and all our discriminations should curve towards that end”. </p>
<p><br>
<strong>See also:</strong> <br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/anonymous-book-reviews-dont-foster-our-literary-culture-28507">Anonymous book reviews don’t foster our literary culture</a>. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/28732/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Dale does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Good book reviews are all alike while every bad review is bad in its own way. In Australia reviews are often bad in many different ways. Historically the trade has consisted of retired English academics…John Dale, Professor of Writing and Director - Centre for New Writing, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.