Australian Public Intellectual [API] Network

Network Scholars

'That Shy Mysterious Poet Arthur Stace'

Peter Kirkpatrick
It would be a fair generalisation to say that most academic discussion of graffiti seems to focus on either its sociological meanings or its visual semiotics as ‘street art’, or else some combination of these two approaches. I want to open up a discussion about graffiti’s literary implications, its status as a form of writing. My focus will be the work of one particular graffiti artist who managed to leave an enduring mark on the city of Sydney, even though his actual inscriptions only ever survived a few weeks or days.1 I refer to Arthur Stace, who for the best part of forty ...
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Network Review of Books

Radical Brisbane: An Unruly History (2004)

Reviewed by Max Quanchi in the December 2004 issue.
The twenty authors in Radical Brisbane argue in a set of essays loosely structured around historic sites in 'conservative Brisbane and dull boring Brisbane' that Queenslanders have suffered oppression, discrimination and authoritarian regulations and 'continually responded with passion and purpose'. Each essay argues that angry voices have been raised, banners unfurled, manifestos passed around, secret underground meetings convened, demonstrations planned, prison terms appealed, and blood spilt, to challenge the rigid settler, trader and officialdom conformity of a society founded as a penal ... read more.

Split Lives: Croatian Australian Stories (2004)

Reviewed by Sue Summers in the February 2005 issue.
Split Lives features eight stories from Croatian migrants and refugees, who arrived in Australia between 1949 and 1996. The inspiration for this collection evolved from Colic Peisker's (2000) doctoral research into Croatian migration to Australia, drawing upon material that, at the time, she considered too personal and too rich for academic use. This is an engaging and readable book which provides the reader with an overview of the complicated and turbulent history of Croatia in order to provide a clear and coherent background from which the stories of individuals could emerge. Particularly ... read more.

Watson's Dictionary of Weasel Words, Contemporary Cliches, Cant and Management Jargon (2004)

Reviewed by Sue Bond in the May 2005 issue.
The world where weasel words are used is one in which people are defined as customers * and to consume is to live. If you are killed, particularly in war, you are said to have been attrited, taken out, lit up or degraded. If you are sacked from your job, you are downsized, decruited, iced (have an involuntary career event), dejobbed, rightsized, made redundant, re-engineered or made subject to an efficiency gain output. If you die in hospital, you have suffered a negative patient (or client) outcome. It is the world of mission statements, team players, torture lite and lifestyles, ordinary ... read more.

Reluctant Saviour: Australia, Indonesia and the independence of East Timor (2004)

Reviewed by Damian Grenfell in the February 2005 issue.
It has been more than five years since Australian-led intervention in East Timor. Following the 30 August vote for independence in 1999, both the Indonesian military and militias destroyed much of the physical and social infrastructure of East Timor. In September an international military force, largely made up of Australians, finally entered to prevent further violence. Answering to key questions on the nature of this intervention is Reluctant Saviour, a short polemically-styled text by Clinton Fernandes. With Australia finally taking a political and military lead to secure East Timor from ... read more.

Identity and Justice: Conflicts, Contradictions and Contingencies (2004)

Reviewed by Barbara Baird in the August 2005 issue.
Debbie Rodan's book sets out to weave a path through theoretical approaches that assume sameness among people, and those that assume difference, in order to think about justice in a contemporary liberal society like Australia. (The book uses 'liberal' broadly and does not, for example, engage in arguments about neoliberalism). Rodan neither fully embraces nor discards modernist or postmodern conceptions of identity and sets out to propose models that do not fall into binary oppositions of sameness and difference. The book is oriented to the goal of achieving social change in the political ... read more.

The Diary of Emily Caroline Creaghe, Explorer (2004)

Reviewed by Amanda Day in the May 2005 issue.
Originally published in the Lett's Australasian Diary and Almanac for 1883, the diary of explorer, Emily Caroline Creaghe has been republished with an introduction by Peter Monteath, Senior Lecturer in Australian History at Flinders University. Corkwood Press are known for their publication of journals of other explorers including Charles Sturt and Ludwig Leichhardt. Born in 1860, Creaghe spent her early life in India before her father retired from his post in the Royal Artillery. Her family returned to England before migrating in 1876 to Australia, settling at Lavender Bay. During a visit ... read more.

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