David Carter

David Carter is Professor of Australian Literature and Cultural History at the University of Queensland. His books include Making Books: Contemporary Australian Publishing (2007), Dispossession, Dreams and Diversity: Issues in Australian Studies (2006), The Ideas Market (2004), and A Career in Writing: Judah Waten and the Cultural Politics of a Literary Career (1987). He is currently researching the history of American editions of Australian books, and middle-brow book culture in Australia.

David Carter reviews ‘Australia Imagined: Views from the British periodical press, 1800–1900’ edited by Judith Johnston and Monica Anderson

February 2006, no. 278 • 01 February 2006

Judith Johnston and Monica Anderson have assembled a book full of quotable quotes for future scholars: ‘The typical Australian is an Englishman with a dash of sunshine in him’; or ‘Why has God given to England nearly all the waste places of the earth, unless she is to fill them?’ (1899). Perhaps even more chilling: ‘the acknowledgement of sin amongst a good many blacks proves the working ... (read more)

David Carter reviews '"A World-Proof Life": Eleanor Dark, a writer in her times, 1901-1985' by Marivic Wyndham

September 2008, no. 304 • 01 September 2008

Eleanor Dark is one of the great novelists of Australia’s mid-twentieth century, along with Christina Stead, Katharine Susannah Prichard, and Patrick White. The modernity of her writing is still stunning. But it has always been difficult to grasp her oeuvre whole. Her novels have seldom, if ever, all been in print at once, and some have virtually disappeared from sight, while the popular success ... (read more)

David Carter reviews 'Coppertales, No. 7', 'Imago, Vol. 13, No. 2', and 'Meanjin, Vol. 60, No. 2'

December 2001–January 2002, no. 237 • 12 August 2022

What do we do with literary magazines? How do we read these more or less accidental collections of literary fragments? How can we say that they matter? It would be nice if we could hold on to the heroic model of the modernist little magazine always ‘making it new’, forging a space for the advance guard, with what Nettie Palmer once called a ‘formidable absence of any business aims’. But, i ... (read more)

David Carter reviews 'Australian National Cinema' by Tom O’Regan

November 1997, no. 196 • 01 November 1997

In a course on Australian popular culture, I routinely ask students a pair of questions: is Australian culture increasingly Americanised; is Australian culture increasingly distinctive and original? They routinely answer yes to both. Australian National Cinema suggests why there might be more than poor logic behind their response. Its contradictoriness tells us something fundamental about how Aust ... (read more)

'Patrick White to the Rescue' by David Carter

December 2012–January 2013, no. 347 • 28 November 2012

With the centenary of Patrick White’s birth being celebrated this year, it seems appropriate to highlight the great legacy that White left Australian writers in the form of the Patrick White Literary Award. On 16 November, the 2012 Award was presented to novelist, short story writer, and essayist Amanda Lohrey, the thirty-ninth winner since the Award was first presented, to Christina Stead, in 1 ... (read more)