Eventing, wandering through the physiology of Australian narrative

Abstract

I had been invited to attend a conference at which I would talk about events. Or an event. I could refer to any event, really, that I liked. But as I began to think about various events, sifting through my knowledge of Australian history as I did so, I began to realize that I couldn't find one. Of course, from a distance, I saw innumerable events rising like peaks above a smoky morning fog; the closer I got to them, however, they dissolved, and had dispersed into the fog by the time I was close enough to touch them. Australians come to this term, to "event," I then saw, within a particular style of discourse, implicit in which is a rather grand assumption about the construct of the nation's history.