Category Archives: Australia

John Stanley Martin – Australia as an Iceland of the south

By KDSMurray | January 21, 2010

One way of reading an antipodean country like Australia is through the lens of its symmetrical opposites. For many, Australia has been compared to Nordic countries. One of Australia’s leading Nordicists, John Stanley Martin, unfortunately passed away this week. Here he talking about the commonality between Australia and Iceland.
John Stanley Martin, descendent of [...]

Also posted in North, Northern mirror | Tagged antipodes, Australia, Iceland | Leave a comment

Vertiginous Africa

By KDSMurray | December 20, 2009

Tourist images of the African continent are dominated by scenes of safari adventures. While these entail their own colonial associations – Africa as nature rather than culture – there is a more phenomenological dimension to the African experience for westerners. This suggests a continent that we look down to.
Virgin Airlines have just released their first [...]

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Jorgen Jorgenson returns yet again

By admin | June 23, 2009

Jorgen Jorgenson was a Danish adventurer who travelled to Tasmania twice, first in the founding party of Hobart and then as a convict. Between visits, he had been bestowed with the title of the first King of Iceland. He wrote many books, including a study of Tasmanian aborigines. His life sustains a ongoing link between [...]

Posted in Australia | Tagged Denmark, Iceland, Tasmania, wind | Leave a comment

When children grow up in the Kingdom of Bellavista

By admin | April 23, 2009

In the Kingdom of Bellavista there lived two peoples. For centuries they had lived in perfect harmony, but lately there had been troubles.
High on the hill, there lived the refined nobles, who cultivated highly sophisticated sciences and arts. With great care and kindness they managed the affairs of the realm, particularly those they fondly called [...]

Also posted in Developmentalism, provocation | Tagged children, North in the South | Leave a comment

Dumont d’Urville’s epic tale of the noble New Zealander

By admin | February 8, 2009

Inspired by Bougainville’s accounts of Tahiti, Jules Sébastien César Dumont d’Urville sought out a mission to explore the south. His first commission was in the Aegean, where he ‘discovered’ the Venus de Milo. In 1822 he was part of an expedition south, when it was still considered possible that France might recover some its recent [...]