Ned Kelly as Memory Dispositif Media, Time, Power, and the Development of Australian Identities

Nineteenth-century bandit Ned Kelly is perhaps Australia´s most famous historical figure. Ever since he became outlawed in 1878 his story has been repeated time and again, in every conceivable medium. Although the value of his memory has been hotly contested - and arguably because of this - he remains perhaps the national icon of Australia. Kelly´s flamboyant crimes enabled him to become a popular hero for many Australians during his lifetime and far beyond, a symbol of freedom, anti authoritarianism, anti-imperialism: a Robin Hood, a Jesse James, a Che Guevara. Others have portrayed him as a villain, a gangster, a terrorist. His latest incarnation - astonishingly - has been as WikiLeaks founder and fellow-Australian Julian Assange. Despite the huge number of representations of the Kelly in all media and genres - from rampant newspaper reporting of the events, to the iconic Sydney Nolan paintings, to a movie starring Mick Jagger, to contemporary urban street art - this is the first work to take this corpus of texts itself as a subject of analysis. The fascinating case of the young outlaw provides an important opportunity to further our understanding of the dynamics of cultural memory. This book explains the processes by which the cultural memory of Ned Kelly was made and has developed over time, and how it has related to formations and negotiations of group identity. a

Laura Basu, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.

Laura Basu, Utrecht University, Niederlande.