Abstract
Scholarship and teaching about a body of work such as ‘Indigenous autobiographies’ generates the practical need for a canon. Any field of study has to be defined. A course or a book is obliged to focus, to limit its view to a manageable quantity of material. These unavoidable processes of selection and exclusion, combined with the tendency of scholars to engage with one another’s work, help to form a restricted field of attention. Whether or not we make judgments of value, we may refer to the resulting short list of important materials as a canon. What is the emerging canon in the study of Indigenous Autobiographies by Australians and North Americans?
Original language | English |
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Number of pages | 16 |
Journal | Australian Humanities Review |
Publication status | Published - 2004 |
Keywords
- Aboriginal Australians
- Indians of North America
- autobiographies
- canon (literature)
- literature