Australian literature and its institutionalization in the offshore playground

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article maps out the globalization of Australian literary studies by examining the internal and external forces at play in the shaping of the discipline onshore and offshore. This survey of a declining field, which has recently been further diminished with the discontinuation of the Chair of Australian Literature at the University of Sydney, assesses the onshore impact of the global crisis in the humanities before discussing the geopolitics of Australian literary studies within the larger context of our hyper-connected world. By investigating the offshore institutionalization of Australian fiction, the article challenges what Robert Dixon perceives to be the “weak” version of the internationalization of Australian studies as presented in a rhetoric that has counterproductively pitted the local against the global. While the global state of Australian literary studies can be seen as revealing a mixed picture, offshore efforts to maintain a vigorous field are commendable.