Promoting Postcolonial Australia

John Uhr is emeritus professor in politics at the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. Born in Australia, John completed graduate studies in political science at the University of Toronto, Canada and has taught political theory and public policy at the Australian National University since 1990.

• List of FiguresPrefacePart OneIntroduction: Relating Franklin and Furphy1. Revising Postcolonial Literary TheoryPart Two2. Feminism in Franklin’s My Brilliant Career3. Socialism in Furphy’s Rigby’s Romance4. Elections in Franklin’s Some Everyday Folk and Dawn5. Truth-telling in Furphy’s The Buln-Buln and the Brolga6 Democracy in Franklin’s All That SwaggerPart Three7. Reframing Franklin’s Philosophical FurphyConclusion: Promoting PostcolonialismAbout the Author

In this stimulating study of two once famous but now neglected Australian novelists – Joseph Furphy and Miles Franklin – John Uhr stakes their respective claims as creative postcolonial political thinkers, civic humanists and stoic cosmopolitans. More broadly, his book is an eloquent plea to take seriously the role of the novel in the study of political theory, and to treat the ideas of novelists as a fruitful source of ‘spiritual exercises’ in fostering civic virtue and renewing liberal democracy.