This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Beilharz, P. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Australian Civilization and its Discontents

What are the peculiarities of Australian modernity? How can we make sense of Australia? This programmatic article opens up questions of how to think about Australia through thinking about thinking about Australia. National and imperial fallacies abound - that Australia is derivative of origin or environment, and is allegedly obsessed with identity crises. Much analysis of Australia is either celebratory or dismissive. Too often the question is `who are we?' rather than `what has been the nature of our collective and split experience?' The argument presented here is that the idea of Australian civilization can be used to hold these two dimensions together within the framework of an accelerating globalization process which divides rather than unites. Three negative and three positive theses are advanced to this end, anticipating a further article which follows Tocqueville into the antipodes.

Key Words: antipodes • Australia • civilization • cultural traffic • globalization

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				T. Hogan In but Not of Asia: Reflections on Philippine Nationalism as Discourse, Project and Evaluation Thesis Eleven, February 1, 2006; 84(1): 115 - 132. [Abstract] [PDF]

				P. Beilharz Rewriting Australia: The way we talk about fears and hopes Journal of Sociology, December 1, 2004; 40(4): 432 - 445. [Abstract] [PDF]