Myths, Heroes and Anti-Heroes

MYTHS, HEROES AND ANTI-HEROES

The Literature of the Asia-Pacific Region

Edited by Bruce Bennett and Susan Miller

This collection of essays considers the functioning of myths, particularly those about heroes or anti-heroes in a wide range of literature from the Asia-Pacific region (including Australia). Myths focus the values of a culture and in this volume, written by scholars from throughout the region, the myths are both various and have a certain commonality. The subjects range from Don Bradman to cartoons to Shiva, and a poem by Vikram Seth is a bonus.

ISBN 0 86422 072 3
$12.95



CONTENTS:

'Introduction' by Bruce Bennett and Dennis Haskell

'Some Maori Versions of Pastoral' by Ken Arvidson

'Two Corroborees: Constructions of Myth by Katherine Susannah Pritchard and Mudrooroo' by Sue Hosking

'Heroes Against Empire: Reading Aboriginal Texts' by Veronica Brady

'The Myth of Divine Kingship in Malay History' by Sharifah Maznah Syed Omar

'Myths, Heroes and Anti-Heroes in Japanese Culture' by Orie Muta

'Disguising Desire: Gender and Imperialism in Jill Shearer's Shimada' by Leigh Dale & Helen Gilbert

'The Writing of Heroism: Conrad, Clifford and Swettenham' by Ban Kah Choon

'The Politics of Pathology: Wong Phui Nam's Remembering Grandma and Other Rumours' by Chin Woon Ping

'Heroines in Australian Fiction: Myths of Adolescence' by Richard Rossiter

'Constructing the Female Hero: Keri Hulme's The Bone People' by Suzette Henke

'Adam Lindsay Gordon as Hero' by Martin Gray

'The Heroism of Comedy: Smith's Weekly in the 1930s' by Dennis Haskell

'Tracing Emily of Emerald Hill : Subject Positioning in Performance' by Jacqueline Lo

'Myths of a Nation: History as Narrative Invention in David Malouf's The Great World' by Amanda Nettlebeck

'Unhappy The Land That Has A Need Of Heroes : John Romeril's Asian plays' by Gareth Griffiths

'Fugitives and Prisoners: Narratives of Escape' by Leong Liew Geok

'Notes on the Writing of Po-On' by F. Sionil Jose

'The Heroic Type in Australian Nationalist Autobiography' by Joan Newman

'Roro Mendut: The Past and the Present' by Susi Sunarya

'Don Branman: That Inscrutable Object of Adulation' by R.S. White

'The Mahabharata and Modern Fiction' by Satendra Nandan

'The Fox and the Swan' by Vikram Seth