Trafficking literature: travel, modernity, and the middle ground of Canadian and Australian middlebrow print cultures

Kuttainen, Victoria (2014) Trafficking literature: travel, modernity, and the middle ground of Canadian and Australian middlebrow print cultures. International Journal of Canadian Studies, 48. pp. 85-103.

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Abstract

This article explores the possibility of renewing the comparative study of Canadian and Australian literatures through an alertness to parallel developments in mid-range magazines and middlebrow print cultures in Canada and Australia in the early- to mid-twentieth century. While coping the possibilities of full-fledged comparative studies, its focus is a case study of the Australian magazine BP: a well-capitalized, plush, up-market publication of the Australian steamship company Burns Philp. The BP Magazine promoted travel between 1928 and 1942 as the nation underwent a transition from settler colonialism to vernacular modernity. The magazine lays bare tensions between literary aspiration and commodity culture, sophistication and escapism, edification and entertainment, and modernity and primitiveness. The aim of this case study is to raise questions that might be asked of both national literary cultures about the role of travel, modern consumer culture, magazines, and nationhood as the scales of literary values changed during the development of local and middlebrow values and tastes.

Item ID: 32394
Item Type: Article (Research - C1)
ISSN: 1180-3991
Funders: Margaret and Colin Roderick
Date Deposited: 27 Aug 2014 07:49
FoR Codes: 20 LANGUAGE, COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE > 2005 Literary Studies > 200502 Australian Literature (excl Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Literature) @ 85%
20 LANGUAGE, COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE > 2005 Literary Studies > 200506 North American Literature @ 15%
SEO Codes: 95 CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING > 9502 Communication > 950203 Languages and Literature @ 100%
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