'The Shapeless Ghost': Ambiguous Loss and Creativity in Learning How to Breathe
This paper explores the representation of ambiguous loss in a recent Australian memoir, Learning how tobreathe by Linda Neil (2009). My reading of this memoir focuses on the way presence and absence aremanifested in the text and the way acts of creativity— making music, recreating family history and...
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| Format: | Journal Article |
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University of Canberra
2013
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| Online Access: | http://www.axonjournal.com.au/issue-4/%E2%80%98-shapeless-ghost%E2%80%99 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/30972 |
| _version_ | 1848753244818374656 |
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| author | Robertson, Rachel |
| author_facet | Robertson, Rachel |
| author_sort | Robertson, Rachel |
| building | Curtin Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | This paper explores the representation of ambiguous loss in a recent Australian memoir, Learning how tobreathe by Linda Neil (2009). My reading of this memoir focuses on the way presence and absence aremanifested in the text and the way acts of creativity— making music, recreating family history and writingthe memoir—are invoked as a way of tolerating ambiguity and reconfiguring the narrator’s sense ofidentity. I suggest that memoirs about ambiguous loss give an important voice to an otherwise silenced,though common, form of grief. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T08:21:26Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | curtin-20.500.11937-30972 |
| institution | Curtin University Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T08:21:26Z |
| publishDate | 2013 |
| publisher | University of Canberra |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | curtin-20.500.11937-309722017-02-28T01:38:26Z 'The Shapeless Ghost': Ambiguous Loss and Creativity in Learning How to Breathe Robertson, Rachel ambiguous loss—grief—life writing—memoir—creativity - That This paper explores the representation of ambiguous loss in a recent Australian memoir, Learning how tobreathe by Linda Neil (2009). My reading of this memoir focuses on the way presence and absence aremanifested in the text and the way acts of creativity— making music, recreating family history and writingthe memoir—are invoked as a way of tolerating ambiguity and reconfiguring the narrator’s sense ofidentity. I suggest that memoirs about ambiguous loss give an important voice to an otherwise silenced,though common, form of grief. 2013 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/30972 http://www.axonjournal.com.au/issue-4/%E2%80%98-shapeless-ghost%E2%80%99 University of Canberra fulltext |
| spellingShingle | ambiguous loss—grief—life writing—memoir—creativity - That Robertson, Rachel 'The Shapeless Ghost': Ambiguous Loss and Creativity in Learning How to Breathe |
| title | 'The Shapeless Ghost': Ambiguous Loss and Creativity in Learning How to Breathe |
| title_full | 'The Shapeless Ghost': Ambiguous Loss and Creativity in Learning How to Breathe |
| title_fullStr | 'The Shapeless Ghost': Ambiguous Loss and Creativity in Learning How to Breathe |
| title_full_unstemmed | 'The Shapeless Ghost': Ambiguous Loss and Creativity in Learning How to Breathe |
| title_short | 'The Shapeless Ghost': Ambiguous Loss and Creativity in Learning How to Breathe |
| title_sort | 'the shapeless ghost': ambiguous loss and creativity in learning how to breathe |
| topic | ambiguous loss—grief—life writing—memoir—creativity - That |
| url | http://www.axonjournal.com.au/issue-4/%E2%80%98-shapeless-ghost%E2%80%99 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/30972 |