Thinking the Antipodes

Thinking the Antipodes Synopsis

In 1956 Bernard Smith wrote that we in Australia were migratory birds. This was to become a leading motif of his own thinking, and a significant inspiration for Peter Beilharz. Beilharz came to argue that the idea of the antipodes made sense less in its geographical than its cultural form, viewed as a relation rather than a place. Australians had one foot here and one there, whichever 'there' this was. This way of thinking with and after Bernard Smith makes up one current of Beilharz's best Australian essays.