Australian Spirit

At the time of Federation, Australia was seen as a country of some substance - despite all the contradictions reflected in its history. It was country that was willing to experiment with innovative legislation and social programs, and to promote egalitarian values. It was a country that embraced liberal values, but they were not lacking in social content. While the influence of religion may have been subtle, it was nevertheless real. As Australia celebrates its Centennial, this book reflects on the role of religion in Australian national life and citizenship while documenting that history and looking to the future.

In the world of crime fiction, Arthur W. Upfield stands among the giants. His detective-inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, is one of the most memorable of all crime fighters. Upfield was an independent, fiercely self-assertive ex-Britisher, who loved Australia, especially the Outback. In many ways Upfield became Outback Australia—the “Spirit of Australia.”

Popular account of authors encounters with Aboriginal people and culture in the Kimberley and Great Sandy Desert; definition of Dreamtime, contemporary political background; based on conversations with Daisy Utemorrah, Ted Carlton, Jim Ward, Danny Wallace, George Wallaby, Reg Birch, Betty Johnston, Jack Rogers, Billy Oscar, Banjo Woorunmarra and David Mowaljarlai; visits to Wandjina art site, Waringarri, Mowanjum, Emu Creek, Kununurra, Balgo, Halls Creek and Yiyilu; relationship to land, parallels with native Americans; land rights; alcohol abuse; station life; mythology (eagle hawk, Billaluna region, Wandjina); mining industry; ATSIC; Christianity; law and punishment; healing; smoking ceremony; music; Pigeon (Jandamarra); Mowaljarlais Body of Australia vision.

This book is dedicated to those Aboriginal women, men and children who gave their lives for this land, and to those who survived but have lost their spiritual connection with the land

Spirit Country explores the vibrant contemporary Aboriginal art of northern and central Australia, with its diverse regional traditions – from the finely cross-hatched bark paintings of Arnhem Land to the mesmerising dotted canvases of the Central Desert, from the elaborate Pukumani poles of the Tiwi islands to the broad fields of ochre in contemporary works from the Kimberley. Jennifer Isaacs has been a close observer of the artistic renaissance across Aboriginal Australia since it began during the early 1970s. In Spirit Country she outlines the forces that propelled the movement’s initial upsurge and seeks the sources of its continuing vitality. Drawing on the rich resources of the Ganter Myer Collection of Contemporary Aboriginal Art, she traces the widening compass of the movement, and particularly the involvement of women artists, whose works have taken contemporary Aboriginal art in new directions. For the communities of the Central Desert, the Kimberley and Arnhem Land, art is both a much-needed source of income and a vital means of personal and collective expression. The art of these remote communities is intended to send a message to the wider world, to educate and enlighten outsiders about the artists’ religious thought and the continuing vitality of their cultures. Theirs is an artistic practice that comes from a conjunction of individual creativity, ancient art-making traditions and contemporary political struggles for land. While the extraordinary abstract qualities of these works have caught the eyes of the Western art world, for those who make them they are also religious documents, maps, personal histories and title deeds to land.

Pagan Portals: Australian Druidry works as a supplement to the study of Druidry and other nature-based spiritual paths as practiced in Australia. The seasons, animals, plants and ancestral histories of the land in Australia are quite different from those of the Celtic lands where Druidry originates. Julie Brett discusses the difficulties of following a nature-based tradition in an environment wildly different from Druidism's place of origin, and offers practical information on how to adapt the practice of Druidry to suit the energy of the land and respect its spirits and ancestors.

The second volume of essays to mark the centenary of federation in Australia and examines the issue of religion in society and culture.

From Terra Nullius to Land of Opportunities and Last Frontier, the European dream has constructed and deconstructed Australia to feed its imagination of new societies. At the same time Australia has over the last two centuries forged and re-invented its own liaisons with Europe arguably to carve out its identity. From the arts to social sciences, to society itself, a complex dynamic has grown between the two continents in ways that invite study and discussion. A transnational research group has begun its collective investigation project of which this first volume is the outcome. The book is a substantial multidisciplinary collection of current research and offers critical perspectives on culture, literature and history around themes at the heart of the Imagined Australia project. The essays instigate reflection, discovery and discussion of how reciprocal imagining between Australia and Europe has articulated itself and ways and dimensions in which a relationship between communities, imagined and not, has unfolded.