According to Professor Gelder, the 'great Australian novel' was only possible during a couple of moments in Australia's literary history.

"Such novels were possible when literary culture invested heavily in a nationalist project that could stand alongside the best elsewhere in the world," he says.

"Patrick White was the only author in Australia who was able - or enabled - to do this, helped along by a modernist literary aesthetic that prioritised particular literary sensibilities (suffering, isolation, vision, etc) that seemed important to Australia at the time".

But Professor Gelder says the nationalist project was always fragile and has never lasted long in Australia.

"Usually, it is tied to parochialism and a retreat from the world, rather than an engagement with it.  Tim Winton's 'Cloudstreet' got close to being a 'great Australian novel', but at a cost. It was nostalgic, homely, remote from reality, and conservative.

"These days especially, Australia participates in transnational cultural economies, and literature does this better than most other media. Our best contemporary literary works, such as Nam Le's 'The Boat', for example - are fully transnational, set in various locations around the world."

He says many Australian writers produce novels that have nothing to do with Australia at all, or novels in which Australia comes and goes, woven in and out of other places and experiences, as it is in, say, J.M. Coetzee's 'Elizabeth Costello'.

Professor Gelder says that in order to succeed Australian writers cannot afford to be nationalist and parochial any more. 

"The literary economy is, and in fact, has always been, a transnational one, which makes the call for a 'great Australian novel' something of an anachronism these days," he says.

Professor Gelder will lead the side ‘for the negative’ in a debate - ‘Publishing the Great Australian Novel: Is it Still Possible in an Era of Globalisation?’ - with Torpedo Editor Chris Flynn and student Nicole Eckersley.  For the positive will be Scribe commissioning editor Aviva Tuffield, Publishing Director of Penguin Australia Robert Sessions, and student Jessie Mawson.

The debate will be held today, Wednesday 2 December, at 6pm in the Multifunction Room, 1888 Building, University of Melbourne.