Asset Details
Do you wish to reserve the book?
Unpunishable Crimes in Claire G. Coleman’s Futuristic Novel Terra Nullius
Hey, we have placed the reservation for you!
By the way, why not check out events that you can attend while you pick your title.
Oops! Something went wrong.
Looks like we were not able to place the reservation. Kindly try again later.
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
Unpunishable Crimes in Claire G. Coleman’s Futuristic Novel Terra Nullius
Do you wish to request the book?
Unpunishable Crimes in Claire G. Coleman’s Futuristic Novel Terra Nullius
Please be aware that the book you have requested cannot be checked out. If you would like to checkout this book, you can reserve another copy
We have requested the book for you!
Your request is successful and it will be processed during the Library working hours. Please check the status of your request in My Requests.
Oops! Something went wrong.
Looks like we were not able to place your request. Kindly try again later.
Journal Article
Unpunishable Crimes in Claire G. Coleman’s Futuristic Novel Terra Nullius
2022
Overview
Aside from being part of a vibrant corpus of Indigenous futurism, Claire G. Coleman’s novel Terra Nullius (2017) can also be analysed as an eco-crime novel. Indigenous Australian authors of this genre (e.g., Philip McLaren, Steven McCarthy, Nicole Watson) often anchor the source of criminal acts in the theft, loss and devastation of traditional lands, which provides their crime novels with a heightened awareness of environmental issues. The same applies to Terra Nullius. This is, however, a novel that successfully conceals its futuristic framework until halfway through. Equally, this successfully disrupts the usual postulates of crime fiction by shifting the reader’s attention from the usual “whodunnit” to the more elusive “whoizzit” mode of crime fiction. This, as the discussion reveals, means that the criminal acts in Terra Nullius are rendered unpunishable. This paradox, as it is argued, is strengthened by introducing the so-called “noir detective” (Timothy Morton) in the character of Father Grark, who cannot investigate that which constitutes the crime and the alibi shaping the world of Coleman’s futuristic novel.
