Introduction: Australian Literature, Companionship, and Viral Responsibility

Introduction: Australian Literature, Companionship, and Viral Responsibility

This chapter considers the way ‘companion’ collections such as this one must be seen as a product of their particular cultural moment. To refer to such collections as ‘companions’ is a means of acknowledging the sense in which literature and its cultural commentary is our companion as we navigate the world, since literature and its criticism demonstrate the sense in which we must think through and respond to the world. To refuse to do so is to submit to a kind of virus of thoughtlessness. The counter to this, on the other hand, might be an attitude of ‘viral responsibility.’ This, the chapter suggests, can be catching, primarily through our very companionship, the construction of community, the continuous, performative choice of compassion and responsibility constructed in this volume’s responses to Australian literature.