SOURCE: "'White Ravens' in a World of Violence: German Connections in Thomas Keneally's Fiction," in Australian Literary Studies, Vol. 14, No. 2, October, 1989, pp. 160-73.

In the essay below, Petersson investigates the parallels between Keneally's use of German imagery and the Australian cultural experience, correlating German traits to similar Australian values.

Despite an increasing diversity in both modes of, and critical approaches to Australian writing, the question of cultural specificity has remained one of the foremost issues. How do we see and represent ourselves? What distinguishes us from other cultures? What do we want to be? These are some of the major questions raised. The debate about 'radical/nationalist' vs. 'universalist' positions and their 'postcolonial' variants may have become more refined, but hardly less self-conscious. Cultural independence comprises the readiness to look for similarities as well as differences, for models and anti-models 'out there'. Perhaps cosmopolitan rather than universalist, Thomas...