Australian Public Intellectual [API] Network

Network Scholars

'Sorted?' Mapping the Regulation of Dance Parties

Susan Luckman
Raves, house clubs and music, the drug Ecstasy and ‘techno’ music became synonymous in the nineties with cutting edge youth style. The potential for rave culture’s popularity to be reconceptualised as a desirable and street credible youth identity has inevitably lead in Britain, Australia and elsewhere to the mainstream adoption of rave style and the widespread commercialisation of dance parties. Raves per se, acid house, dance parties and the rejuvenated club scene they facilitated have evolved in a number of different directions giving rise in part to well worn subcultural ...
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Network Review of Books

Global Sex (2001)

Reviewed by John Sinclair in the March 2002 issue.
Since globalisation is a cultural as well as an economic and political phenomenon, and all cultures have their modes of regulating gender and sexuality, a book on globalisation and sexuality seems a useful medium to approach questions of how the global interconnectedness of cultures today is exerting its influence on sexual mores, behaviour and identities everywhere. This is the rationale Altman makes for Global Sex, though he is also explicitly concerned to keep cultural changes firmly within the perspective of a 'political economy' of sex. In particular, he sees the structured inequalities ... read more.

Planting the Nation (2001)

Reviewed by Ann Howard in the October 2002 issue.
Planting the Nation is a handsome hardcover book in which nine erudite contributors discuss a rich variety of influences on gardeners, landscape gardeners, town planners and the populace in Australia between 1890 and 1914. Generous in detail and extensively foot noted and indexed, this is a book for browsing through or using as a research and study tool.For early settlers, Australia was a place in which the struggle for existence and the need to make money were paramount. Money spent on beautifying gardens would have been seen as a luxury or waste. By the 1880s perceptions were changing. ... read more.

Oscar and Lucinda (2001)

Reviewed by Melissa Bellanta in the April 2003 issue.
My initial encounter with Peter Carey was decidedly nasty. Some years ago I read The Tax Inspector, and could hardly sleep for days in horror of Benny Catchprice. Carey had drawn Benny with a savage verisimilitude: his pale angel-beauty and violent instability making him almost surreally lifelike, like Martin Bryant walking from a nightmare into Port Arthur's reality. Of course, Benny Catchprice is not Carey's only creation -- nor is nasty his only register. Indeed, now that University of Queensland Press has reissued his back-catalogue (along with a new collection of his stories), one thing ... read more.

Henry Handel Richardson: The Getting of Wisdom (2001)

Reviewed by Leonora Ritter in the August 2002 issue.
I must open with a confession. I am an Australian historian with an interest in biography, not a specialist in Australian literature. This complicates the already challenging task of reviewing this edition of the Australian classic, The Getting of Wisdom, a work whose previous incarnations have been reviewed by such notables as Germaine Greer, who described it as Henry Handel Richardson's 'only great book'. This particular previously unpublished version of The Getting of Wisdom is one of a series, the Academy Editions of Australian Literature, produced with the intent of providing 'reliable ... read more.

Parachute Silk (2001)

Reviewed by Iris Lowe in the August 2002 issue.
In this first novel by accomplished poet Gina Mercer, the reader is drawn into the personal worlds of forty-somethings Molly and Finn through their candid and eloquent letters to each other. There is an abundance to enjoy here and as a writer Mercer is both generous and passionate. Through the eyes of two long-term friends, Mercer explores a wide range of issues. What's more, she is not afraid to challenge stereotypes or cherished myths. Here are women of substance, painfully grappling with the contradictions and tensions of their lives and relationships. Finn, now in a monogamous ... read more.

Love This Life: Lyrics 1978--2001 (2001)

Reviewed by Steve Evans in the October 2001 issue.
Neil Finn has been writing popular songs through various permutations of bands (Split Enz, The Mullanes, Crowded House, Finn) and during his current solo career. His newly published collection of lyrics removes the musical props and gives us a chance to take the words in isolation. In the heyday of Crowded House, Finn was occasionally feted as the new Paul McCartney. There was a sting in the tail of that comparison, perhaps recalled when McCartney's own collection of lyrics and poems, Blackbird Singing: Poems and Lyrics 1965--1999, was released in March. Its editor, Mersey poet, Adrian ... read more.

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