Joseph Furphy on Settler Violence
Melbourne Rare Book Week
An unlikely candidate for bush laureateship, Irish-Australian Joseph Furphy came to writing late with Such is Life (1903). His Bulletin apprenticeship features ‘pars’ (short contributions and one mini-essay) on Aboriginal ethnology. His final novella (The Buln-Buln and the Brolga) and a late short story interrogate race-based prejudice and settler violence. This talk examines Furphy’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 nationalist enterprises as The Bulletin.
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