« With a chapter by Zahi Zalloua: ‘Critique of Indigenous Reason: The Case of Palestine’, in P. Khalil Saucier (ed.), Practices of Disciplinary Refusal for New Futures: On Critique and Humanism, Bloomsbury, 2026
Indigenous children under settler colonialism (a scoping review): Akilew Awoke Adane, Tracy Reibel, Ailsa Munns, Carrington C. J. Shepherd, Helen Doreen Bailey, Fiona Stanley, Rhonda Marriott, ‘Child Development Interventions Among Indigenous Peoples in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States: A Scoping Review’, Children, 13, 2, 2026, #252 »

West of the Western (and a bit south too, and still bloody settler colonial): Brian McFarlane, Outback: Westerns in Australian Cinema, Intellect, 2026

18Feb26

Description: A study of the role of the Western film genre in Australia’s changing political and cultural landscape. Focusing on the influence of the cinematic Western in Australian cinema history, Outback explores how the American genre has been adapted to the changing Australian social, political, and cultural contexts of their production, including the shifting emphases in the representation of the Indigenous population. Brian McFarlane emphasizes the ways film can, without didacticism, provide evidence of changing politics and culture. McFarlane explores Australian history with the genre by analyzing such films as Charles Tait’s 1906 The Story of the Kelly Gang and Justin Kurzel’s 2020 adaptation of Peter Carey’s The True History of the Kelly Gang. He further explores other key matters, including the changing attitudes to and representation of Indigenous peoples and of women’s roles in Australian Westerns. Brian McFarlane is adjunct professor in the Department of Media and Communications at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. He is the editor of The Encylopedia of British Film and coeditor of The Oxford Companion to Australian Film, among others.


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