Remembering Patrick White

Elizabeth McMahon and Brigitta Olubas are both Senior Lecturers in English at the University of New South Wales and are co-editors of Women Making Time: Contemporary Feminist Critique and Cultural Analysis (2006). Elizabeth has published numerous essays on Patrick White and is the co-editor of Southerly, Australia’s oldest literary journal. Brigitta has published widely on Australian literary and visual culture, including essays on Tracey Moffatt and Raimond Gaita.

• AcknowledgementsIntroductionPatrick White’s Public SelvesBrigid Rooney: Public Recluse: Patrick White’s Literary-Political ReturnsBernadette Brennan: Riders in the Chariot: A Tale For Our TimesRodney Wetherell: Patrick White and his AwardForm and ExpressionJennifer Rutherford: Homo Nullius: The Politics of Pessimism in Patrick White’s The Tree of ManAnthony Uhlmann: The Symbol in Patrick WhiteElizabeth McMahon: The Lateness and Queerness of The Twyborn Affair: White’s Farewell to the NovelWhite’s MetaphysicsBill Ashcroft: The Presence of the Sacred in Patrick WhiteLyn McCredden: Voss: Earthed and Transformative SacrednessVeronica Brady: The Dragon Slayer: Patrick White and the Contestation of HistoryPerformanceJohn McCallum: The Late, Crazy PlaysBrigitta Olubas: “Some of the doors of the house have never been seen open”: Poetic Habitation and Civil Space in Patrick White’s Early DramaGregory Graham–Smith: Against the Androgyne as Humanist He(te)ro: Patrick White’s Queering of the Platonic MythBibliographyLorraine Burdett: Patrick White, 1994–2009Notes on ContributorsIndex

Remembering Patrick Whiteis an essential shot in the arm. It reminds us we do need actively to remember Patrick White, to fetch him back centre-stage in Australian literary scholarship. And yet the essays in this book also look forward, remembering in order to re-energise scholarship on White’s novels, plays, and life. Indeed, if this timely book reminds us of the vitality – and the resolute contemporaneousness – of White’s intellectual engagement with Australia and the world, it is to show us how much we still have to gain from bringing new perspectives to bear upon his body of work, which is no less astounding in the twenty-first century than it was during his lifetime.” – Ian Henderson, King’s College London