Literary Series: (TALK) Melb Rare Books introduces Joseph Furphy
As part of the Melbourne Rare Book Week festival, Frances Devlin-Glass, a Life Member of the Celtic Club, and representing both the Club and Bloomsday in Melbourne, will give a talk on Friday 25 July at 7.30pm at the Members' Lounge, Celtic Club @ The Wild Geese - The Bistro opens from 5pm if you wish to dine beforehand, reservations via here.
Frances will give a talk to introduce Irish-Australian author Joseph Furphy to a general reader. Furphy is best known for his classic novel "Such is Life" (published under the pseudonym, Tom Collins). It is one of the two outstanding novels of c19 Australia. This talk draws on the troubled publication history of the novel, Furphy's published novels, and the variety of outlets used by Furphy to become established as a writer (in particular, his apprenticeship as a ‘pars’ writer: he wrote short-form interactive contributions for the Bulletin).
Entitled ‘Joseph Furphy on Settler Violence’, the talk also focuses on Joe Furphy as an amateur ethnologist and ethnographer (of Irish Australia and well as Indigenous Australia). He is not usually invoked in relation to Indigenous history and the paper uncovers his lifelong curiosity about Indigenous culture and settler violence, and the multiple and sophisticated ways in which he resisted very popular and racist views of the Bulletin. It examines the Furphy family’s context as first settlers in the Yarra Valley, Joe's admiration for Indigenous individuals, as well as his anxiety about, and subtle resistance to, Social Darwinism. It also canvasses the many genres he deployed in resisting the culture of such hyper-nationalist and racist enterprises as the so-called science of his day.
It will be a free event but bookings are necessary and now open here or via https://rarebooksmelbourne.com/event-organizer/bloomsday-in-melbourne-inc/
*FREE EVENT - Registration required.