Insights and interpretation: 21-year-old Gilbert Ostini. Photo / Supplied
Insights and interpretation: 21-year-old Gilbert Ostini. Photo / Supplied
Gilbert Ostini, 21, is doing his BA Honours at Victoria University Te Herenga Waka.
His focus is the anonymous 14th-century poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, not quite as obscure as it would have been just a couple of years ago thanks to an acclaimed film version in 2021.
For his BA, the ex-Queenslander’s subject choices were equally impractical in neoliberal economic terms.
“I did a bunch of history, mostly focused on Pacific and indigenous histories; lots of decolonising methodologies. Then English literature – I did whatever I could get my hands on. Plus creative writing and Pacific studies.”
Ostini has faced all the usual criticisms for pursuing his field of study.
“My deep frustration is when people are like, ‘I know how to read,’ and I’m like, ‘Okay, I’m glad.’ Not in the way that I do, I guess. It really does give me energy.”
And insights. He says studying literature closely has helped him see beyond what’s on the page – “all the little bits that go in together and then the cultural context that informs stories, so that you can read something and not just get the story itself – seeing into people’s minds and seeing into a kind of cultural moment”.
Sure, but what sort of job is he going to get with that?
“I know that I’m supposed to talk about transferable job skills, and that’s kind of the impression I gave in a talk at our open day,” Ostini says.
“Generally, the parents were like, ‘But will my child be able to get a good job?’ And I’m like, ‘Yes.’
“That’s not even a consideration. They will be able to get a good job because they can put sentences together, and think about how the world works, and engage kind of meaningfully in cultural and critical contexts.
“But that’s not what it’s for. And that’s not what university is for. It’s not a jobs factory. I feel like I’ve got a set of glasses that I can take off and put on and interpret the world.”
