Extract: Nation, Memory, Myth by Steve Vizard
Posted on 11 Jun 2025
How does myth generate meaning for a nation and its citizens? How does a national myth transform into symbolic performances of cultural memory and kinship?
Dean Boyce is a retired journalist who was born and raised in South Australia. He has worked abroad, in Fleet Street newspapers and at the BBC, and in Sydney at The Australian, The National Times, and the Sydney Morning Herald. During his last decade working in newspapers he specialised in the then changing pre-press technology, on which he wrote a number of booklets and training manuals.
While in Europe he travelled widely and spent a year in Italy, studying at the University of Perugia, and teaching English. He has always had a keen interest in Australian history (he is a graduate of Sydney University, where he majored in history and art history and theory).
This book is his first, published in 1970. In recent years he has written two other books and a commissioned article for the Dictionary of Sydney. He also had a part-time formal education in art and continues this interest. (His own sketches illustrate this book.)
Posted on 11 Jun 2025
How does myth generate meaning for a nation and its citizens? How does a national myth transform into symbolic performances of cultural memory and kinship?
Posted on 11 Jun 2025
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Fri 27 June at 12:00PM
Four Seasons Hotel, 199 George Street, Sydney NSW 2000
Join Chris Hammer in conversation with ABC's Fran Kelly to discuss the updated edition of The River.
Thu 26 June at 6:00PM
Readings Carlton, 309 Lygon St, Carlton VIC 3053
Join us to hear Steve Vizard in conversation about Nation, Memory, Myth.
Tue 08 July at 6:00PM
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Thu 10 July at 6:30PM
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