Ned Kelly as Memory Dispositif: Media, Time, Power, and the Development of Australian Identities (Media and Cultural Memory / Medien und kulturelle Erinnerung Book 13)

Nineteenth-century outlaw Ned Kelly is perhaps Australia's most famous historical figure. Ever since he went on the run 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 main national icon of Australia. Kelly's flamboyant crimes turned him into 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 has been as WikiLeaks founder and fellow Australian "cyber outlaw" Julian Assange. Despite the huge number of representations of Kelly – from rampant newspaper reporting of the events, to the iconic Sidney Nolan paintings, to a movie starring Mick Jagger, to contemporary urban street art – this is the first work to take this corpus of material itself as a subject of analysis. The fascinating case of this young outlaw provides an important opportunity to further our understanding of the dynamics of cultural memory. The 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 national identity. It breaks new ground in memory studies in the first place by showing that cultural memories are formed and develop through tangles of relations, what Basu terms __memory dispositifs.__ In introducing the concept of the memory dispositif, this volume brings together and develops the work of Foucault, Deleuze, and Agamben on the dispositif, along with relevant concepts from the field of memory studies such as __allochronism, colonial aphasia,__ and __multidirectionality,__ the __memory site__ – especially as developed by Ann Rigney – and Jan Assmann's __figure of memory.__ Secondly, this work makes important headway in our understanding of the relationships between cultural memory and national identity, at a time when matters of identity appear to be more urgent and fraught than ever. In doing so, it shows that national identities are never purely national but are always sub- and transnational. The Ned Kelly memory dispositif has made complex and conflicting contributions to constructions of national identity. Ever since his outlawry, the identities invested in Kelly and those invested in the Australian nation have, in a two-way dynamic, fused into and strengthened each other, so that Kelly is in many ways a symbol for the national identity. Kelly has come to stand for an anti-establishment, working class, subaltern, Irish-inflected national identity. At the same time he has come to represent and enforce the whiteness, hyper-heterosexual masculinity and violence of "Australianness". Basu shows that Kelly has therefore always functioned in both radical and conservative ways, often both at once: a turbulent, Janus-faced figure.

Im Kontext der kulturwissenschaftlichen Gedächtnisforschung widmet sich diese interdisziplinär ausgerichtete Reihe dem Verhältnis von Medien und kultureller Erinnerung. Die hier vorgestellten Studien behandeln die ganze Bandbreite der durch Medien konstruierten, tradierten und verbreiteten Erinnerung. Schrift und Bild, das Kino und die ‘neuen’ digitalen Medien, Intermedialität, Transmedialität und Remediation sowie die sozialen, zunehmend transnationalen und transkulturellen, Kontexte der mediatisierten Erinnerung gehören zu den Forschungsinteressen der Reihe. Ziel ist es, eine internationale Plattform für die interdisziplinäre Medien- und Gedächtnisforschung zu schaffen. Eingereichte Manuskripte werden im peer review Verfahren durch externe Experten begutachtet.

Den Herausgebern, Astrid Erll (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main) und Ansgar Nünning (Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen) ist ein internationaler Beirat aus renommierten Wissenschaftlern assoziiert:

• Aleida Assmann (Universität Konstanz)
• Mieke Bal (University of Amsterdam)
• Vita Fortunati (University of Bologna)
• Richard Grusin (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
• Udo Hebel (Universität Regensburg)
• Andrew Hoskins (University of Glasgow)
• Wulf Kansteiner (Binghamton University)
• Alison Landsberg (George Mason University)
• Claus Leggewie (Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut Essen)
• Jeffrey Olick (University of Virginia)
• Susannah Radstone (University of South Australia)
• Ann Rigney (Utrecht University)
• Michael Rothberg (University of Illinois)
• Werner Sollors (Harvard University)
• Frederic Tygstrup (University of Copenhagen)
• Harald Welzer (Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut Essen)

Introduction 1. Sites and Dispositifs 2. Media 3. Time 4. Power 5. Australian Identities 6. Ned Kelly Chapter 1. 1878-1882: The Power of the Press 1. The Kelly Memory Dispositif: The Power of the Press i. Memorialisation: Mediation and Time ii. Incorporation part I: Mediation iii. Incorporation part II: Mediation and Power iv. The Press, the Sympathisers, and the Authorities 2. Identity i. The Criminal Class ii. From Antithetical Identity to Non-Identity iii. Between Antithetical and Extinct: The Irish Conclusion Chapter 2. 1882-1930: Truth and Myth, the Bushman and the Empire 1. Truth and Myth: Mediation, Temporality, and Power i. Authority and Authenticity ii. Romance and Myth 2. The Bushman and the Empire: Identity i. The Radical Bushman ii. The Imperial Bushman iii. Displacement and Double Displacement Conclusion Chapter 3. 1930—1960: High Culture and Deferred Identities 1. Ned Kelly and Australian Historiography 2. Ned Kelly and High Culture i. Douglas Stewart ii. Sidney Nolan 3. Deferred Identities Conclusion Chapter 4. 1960—1990: The Bushman Breaks Down 1. Ned Kelly as Social Bandit and the Memory of British Imperialism i. Ned Kelly: Social Bandit ii. Back to the “Present”: Mediation and Power iii. What’s Missing? 2. Law and Out-Law 3. New Articulations of Gender and Sexuality i. Ned Kelly: Herstory ii. “Perfumed Ned was no Pansy” Conclusion Chapter 5. 1990-2010: Ned Kelly and the Global Nation 1. Ned Kelly and the Memory Industry i. Globalisation, Commodification, and Ned’s Loss of Meaning ii. Privatisation of the Nation 2. Reconciliation, the “History Wars”, and Ned Kelly post 9/11 i. Reconciliation ii. The History Wars iii. Ned Kelly post 9/11 Conclusion Conclusion References References without Author Index Main description: Nineteenth-century outlaw Ned Kelly is perhaps Australia's most famous historical figure. This book explains the processes by which the cultural memory of Kelly has developed over time, and how it has related to negotiations of group identity. It breaks new grounds in memory studies by showing how memories are formed and develop through tangles of relations - memory dispositifs - and by furthering understanding of the relationships between cultural memory and national identity, at a time when matters of identity are more urgent than ever