Synopses & Reviews
Bernard Smith is widely recognized as one of Australia's leading intellectuals in the fields of anthropology and art history. Peter Beilharz argues that Smith's work also contains a social theory or a way of thinking about Australian culture and identity. Smith enables Australians to think about matters of place and cultural imperialism through the image of being not Australian so much as antipodean. This is the first book-length analysis of Bernard Smith's work. It is both an introduction to Smith's thinking and an important interpretive argument about imperialism and the antipodes.
Review
"The art historian and critic Bernard Smith has long been a central figure and core thinker in the field of European `envisioning' of the Pacific and his work has influenced thinking well beyond the field of Antipodean studies. So it is beneficial and refreshing to have at last a thoroughgoing, analytically and critically rich assessment of Smith's work, and in particular, to have one as vibrant and wide-ranging as Peter Beilharz's inventively imagined work." Douglass Drozdow-St.Christian, Pacific Affiars
Synopsis
Bernard Smith is one of Australiaâs leading intellectuals, yet the recognition of his work has been partial, focused on art history and anthropology. Peter Beilharz argues that Smithâs work also contains a social theory, or a way of thinking about Australian culture and identity in the world system. Smith enables us to think matters of place and cultural imperialism through the image of being not Australian so much as antipodean. Australian identities are constructed by the relationship between core and periphery, making them European and Other at the same time.
Synopsis
This book analyses Bernard Smithâs work and is the result of careful and systematic research into Smithâs published works and his private papers.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 194-205) and index.
Table of Contents
Introduction; 1. Beginnings; 2. Encountering art in Australia; 3. Imagining the Pacific; 4. The Antipodean manifesto; 5. Death of the hero as artist; 6. Modernity, history and postmodernity; 7. Conclusions - imagining the Antipodes.