The Outlaw Ned Kelly and Australian National Identity

FAIN: FT-52891-04

Penelope Anne Ingram
Auburn University (Auburn, AL 36849-0001)

I propose to examine changing conceptions of Australian national identity from the 19thC. to the present as articulated through cultural representations of the Australian outlaw Ned Kelly. Since his execution in 1880, Kelly has been the subject of 12 stage plays, numerous ballads and poems, 30 books, a famous series of paintings, and 10 films. He was also represented at the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games in Sydney in 2000. I wish to examine the significance and resurgence of the Kelly legend in various periods of Australian history, inquiring how Kelly becomes a template for prevailing national preoccupations, specifically the convict past, English/Irish relations, and the nation's ongoing debate about its ties to the British Crown.