Overview

This unique book is the only fully interdisciplinary and comprehensive study of the Australian desert and its pivotal role in the cultural history of Australia. Beginning with the prehistory of the continent, it engages with geology, the Aboriginal Dreaming narratives of origin, the arrival of the first Australians, Aboriginal culture of the Dreaming, anthropology, colonial history and the cult of the inland explorer-hero, and integration of the central deserts through the responses of writers, artists, and filmmakers into the national identity. Chapters explore the unique way Indigenous artists have evolved a method of expressing their spiritual relationship to Country, while hiding from uninitiated eyes the secret-sacred meaning beneath the paint. It takes us on a journey through the politics of Land Rights for First Nations peoples, the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and an analysis of Indigenous ecological principles which may suggest a new and radical approach to navigating climate change in the Anthropocene. The Australian Desert is written for scholars of fine arts, anthropology, literature, film studies, cultural history, Indigenous studies, ecology and tourism, and for anyone interested in deserts.

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9781032835198

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Reviews

“Readers familiar with Roslynn Haynes’s important earlier book Seeking the Centre will be excited to discover The Australian Desert: Nature, Culture, Future. The new work is a comprehensive and authoritative study of Australian desert culture, placing special emphasis on Aboriginal art and storytelling and what non-Aboriginal people can—and perhaps must—try to learn from Indigenous people about how to live on our increasingly desert-like planet.” —Scott Slovic, Distinguished Professor of Environmental Humanities Emeritus, University of Idaho, and Editor of Getting Over the Color Green: Contemporary Environmental Literature of the Southwest “Bringing together the art, literatures, histories and science of Indigenous locals and Western outsiders, Roslynn Haynes’s luminous prose shimmers like the desert itself, which she places at the heart of Australia. A uniquely multidisciplinary but very readable work of subtlety and deep learning which makes ambivalence a virtue.” —Associate Professor Richard White, Department of History, University of Sydney, Author of Inventing Australia, The Oxford Book of Australian Travel Writing, Cultural History in Australia and co-editor of Symbols of Australia: Imagining a Nation

Author Information

Roslynn Haynes is Adjunct Associate Professor of Arts and the Media at UNSW and has published ten books on deserts, literature, art, science, and Aboriginal astronomy. As a graduate of both science and literature, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, Roslynn Haynes is fascinated by the intersection of disciplines.

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