'Merely' academic? Critical responses to Australian Asian fiction

Abstract

In the Australian academy a revaluing of fiction, particularly the work of talented Asian Australians, for what it says, not necessarily in support of one kind of manifesto or another, but about our complex human synergy, and in many and varied voices, may be overdue. Facing widespread challenges to ‘merely academic’ cultural studies, as we are, this is the time for academic research to come to the rescue of the work of writers, and appreciating it, rather than making political ammunition out of it to fire at each other.