The open access Journal of Australian, Canadian & Aotearoa New Zealand Studies recently published my review of Victoria Herche’s book The Adolescent Nation: Re-Imagining Youth and Coming of Age in Contemporary Australian Film (Universitätsverlag Winter, 2021) an interesting addition to recent book-length surveys of contemporary Australian cinema.
Here’s a taster of the review:
As one of the United Kingdom’s most ‘successful’ settler colonies, transformed into an equally ‘successful’ settler state, the notion of Australia as a ‘young’ nation has long held sway over public discourse within (and beyond) its borders. Ideas about nationhood and national identity – fostered via the media, arts, and public discourse – are thus fixated on adolescence and becoming, and are often content to overlook or ignore the realities of Australia’s settler national complex.
Victoria Herche’s book, The Adolescent Nation: Re-Imagining Youth and Coming of Age in Contemporary Australian Film seeks to outline the important role played by one key cultural form in fostering this ‘adolescent nationhood’ across the twentieth century, analysing youth and coming of age as defining narratives (and fantasies) of Australia’s national cinema.
Stephen Morgan (2023) ‘Victoria Herche: The Adolescent Nation: Re-Imagining Youth and Coming of Age in Contemporary Australian Film’ , Journal of Australian, Canadian & Aotearoa New Zealand Studies, 3, 215-216, DOI: 10.52230/SBYG5403
View the full review (open access) via the JACANZS Journal website
Dr Stephen Morgan 