All this activity and jockeying for visibility was a welcome development for a culture too often made timid by what AA Phillips had identified in the 1950s as the ‘cultural cringe’. In its own way it was a grassroots upsurge, not necessarily led by the universities, but it played a part in opening up the possibilities of an Australian literature. If as Nile suggests, quoting Roland Barthes, ‘literature is what is studied inside of universities, in that universities legitimate and give value to canonical texts’ (202), it was not until the 1970s that some progress was made in introducing some Australian books to curricula. There had been proponents for many years in and outside the system — such as Colin Roderick, Nettie Palmer, PR Stephenson, Rex Ingamells and Miles Franklin — and in 1940 Brian Elliott became the first specialist appointment at the University of Adelaide. Even so, scholars such as Leonie Kramer and JM Stewart still actively questioned whether there was ‘enough of it’ to study:

Founded in 1963, Australian Literary Studies pre-empted, and later articulated, the changes. Australian Literary Studies was solely dedicated to critical work on Australian literature, and was the first journal of its type. Further formalisation followed in 1977 with the foundation of the Australian Association for the study of Australian Literature (ASAL). According to Denholm, Australian Literary Studies was founded on the suggestion of James McAuley at the University of Tasmania (2: 68) and Laurie Hergenhan became its first editor and over much of its life its mainstay. According to Michael Wilding, McAuley, because of his conservative leanings, wanted to counter the promotion of Australian literature along the radical nationalist lines promoted by Meanjin and Overland at the time (Australian Literary Studies 76). Furthermore, the aim was that ‘Australian Literary Studies would be professional — not amateur, enthusiastic and radical’ (‘Letter to the author’).