Rex Butler

Rex Butler is Professor of Art History at Monash University. He has written books on a number of literary (Jorges Luis Borges) and philosophical figures (Jean Baudrillard, Slavoj Zizek, Deleuze and Guattari and Stanley Cavell) figures. He writes mainly on Australian art and has recently completed books on Colin McCahon (with Laurence Simmons) and on “UnAustralian” art (with ADS Donaldson).

All essays by Rex Butler

Review: Rex Butleron the colonial kangaroo

The Colonial Kangaroo Hunt by Ken Gelder and Rachael Weaver Miegunyah Press
229pp
Published March 2020
ISBN: 9780522875850
The Enchantment of the Long-haired Rat: A Rodent History of Australia by Tim Bonyhady Text
304pp
Published August 2019
ISBN: 9781925773934

Unprecedented Creatures

if the metaphor of the kangaroo is some attempt to speak of what cannot be spoken of, so that it can be objectified and forgotten, the rat speaks of the impossibility of this, the constant return of the repressed, despite the best efforts of settlers to do away with it and live as though the land has always been theirs.