Postcolonial Issues in Australian Literature By Nathanael O'Reil ...

teaching and studying Australian literature; Australianists in the American academy research (and occasionally teach) Australian literature as an adjunct to their primary roles as teachers of, for example, American, British, and/or postcolonial literature.² Moreover, to my knowledge there is not a single PhD program in the United States in which Australian literature is a formal specialization. To make matters worse for would-be scholars of Australian literature, it is not uncommon for senior faculty members to dismiss Australian literature as “not a real field of study,” “merely a branch of British literature,” or simply “not worth studying,” to quote just a few of the remarks I have encountered.

The marginal status of Australian literature within the American academy more broadly and within postcolonial studies specifically is clearly evident in the American academic job market. The 2009 Modern Language Association Job Information List (JIL) did not contain a single advertisement containing the word “Australian” or the phrase “Australian literature.” In 2008, the JIL contained two advertisements that listed Australian literature as one of several acceptable specialties; within the last half dozen years, I have not seen or heard of any other open positions at American universities that listed Australian literature as a possible specialty. Scholars of Australian literature who wish to work in the American academy are limited to applying for positions as specialists in postcolonial, world, or Anglophone literature.³ However, such positions often stipulate that the successful candidate must specialize in African, Caribbean, or South Asian literature and sometimes must be proficient in a language from one of those regions.

There is clearly a bias within postcolonial studies against scholars who focus on literature from the settler colonies, especially Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.⁴ The great irony of the situation in the American academy is that the United States is itself a postcolonial nation and a settler colony; however, for a great many reasons, none of which I have the space to discuss here, the literature of the United States is not often read as postcolonial. Although American universities are not legally allowed to stipulate in job advertisements that they seek to hire a candidate of a particular nationality, ethnicity, or race, there is much anecdotal evidence