On The Cultural Cringe
(Paperback)
Publishing Details
On The Cultural Cringe
By (Author) A.A. Phillips
Melbourne University Press
Melbourne University Press
30th December 2005
Australia
Classifications
General
Non Fiction
Cultural studies
Literary studies: general
700.994
Physical Properties
Paperback
89
Width 113mm, Height 183mm, Spine 6mm
72g
Description
The MUP Masterworks series celebrates distinguished Australian writers and ideas. Other writers in the series include Manning Clark, Donald Horne, Janet McCalman, Ray Parkin and Brenda Niall. The Australian writer, critic and teacher A.A. Phillips coined the term 'the cultural cringe' in 1950 to describe an Australian tendency to identify our literature and art as inferior to work produced overseas, particularly in Britain and the United States. The term has resonated in debates about Australian culture, society and identity ever since. Although Phillips' famous essay on the cringe was first published more than fifty years ago, it remains a powerful reference point in discussions of the national culture. It is reprinted here with two of his other essays on Australian culture, and with additional biographical and critical material, including an essay by Ivor Indyk.
Author Bio
A.A. (Arthur Angell) Phillips was born in Melbourne in 1900 and died in 1985. He was educated at the Universities of Melbourne and Oxford, and was a schoolmaster at Wesley College, Melbourne. He published several books of criticism, including The Australian Tradition, and had a long association with Meanjin, in which his article about the cultural cringe first appeared.
