Australian Public Intellectual [API] Network

Network Scholars

Frontier Feminism and the Marauding White Man

Marilyn Lake
‘Here in Australia’, Louisa Lawson observed with characteristic matter-of-factness, ‘it is considered more a crime to steal a horse than ruin a girl’.1 On the Darling Downs, at the turn of the century, another pioneering wife explained; ‘Women in the farming districts don’t occupy a very high place in the masculine community — being classed usually according to their degree of usefulness with other animals’.2 (And thanks to Anne Maree Collins’ work on bestiality the extent of the usefulness of the other animals is only now beginning to be ...
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Network Review of Books

Near-Life Experience (2003)

Reviewed by Cath Vidler in the November 2005 issue.
Near-life Experience is Australian poet Mark Mahemoff's first book of poems. It is an assured collection in which Mahemoff manages to integrate his distinctive poetic skill and sophistication with an accessible, unpretentious style. The opening sequence 'Love at the Movies' immediately establishes the poet's striking voice. Terse descriptions of scene and action give a cinematographic quality to the poems, positioning readers as privileged voyeurs. In 'French', for example, A couple relaxes in their stark, white bed. She performs fellatio while he smokes and reads a pristine copy of ... read more.

Blood and Old Belief: A Verse Novel (2003)

Reviewed by David McCooey in the April 2004 issue.
The popularity of the verse novel--at least among poets--continues with new works from Geoff Page and Paul Hetherington. Australian verse novels tend to either minimalist or maximalist poles. The former is most obviously seen in the work of Dorothy Porter, but it is also seen in the documentary verse novels of Jordi Albiston. The latter is seen in the long (and very different) works by Alan Wearne and Les Murray. The difficulty for all verse novelists is maintaining both the energy of lyric poetry and the impetus of narrative poetry. Drumming on Water, Geoff Page's second verse novel, shows ... read more.

Malaria Frontline: Australian Army Research During World War II (2003)

Reviewed by Jonathan Richards in the April 2004 issue.
Medical history, while not everyone's 'cup of tea', is nevertheless an interesting and important subject. This book details the development of anti-malarial drugs and regimes by an Australian Army medical unit stationed in Cairns, North Queensland during the Second World War. There are a number of reasons why this book is worth reading, apart from its value as a well-written account of a relatively unknown part of recent Australian history and as a social history of wartime army medical volunteers and staff. Malaria, which is still regarded as the world's most important vector-borne disease, ... read more.

Who Owns Native Culture? (2003)

Reviewed by Michele Grossman in the December 2004 issue.
In this lucid, well-researched, unsettling excursion into the realm of Indigenous cultures, intellectual property, and the nexus of Indigenous and non-Indigenous proprietary interests and rights, anthropologist Michael Brown pursues a self-avowed 'centrist' line of inquiry as he attempts to balance the historical and cultural interests of specific Indigenous communities and cultural groups with 'the requirements of liberal democracy', particularly those of settler societies. (p 9) The book's major strength lies in its effort not to answer the question posed by Brown's title, but to re-orient ... read more.

Tender Hammers (2003)

Reviewed by Andrew Johnson in the April 2004 issue.
The New Poets series from Five Islands Press has, with the addition of this group of six, now put fifty-four Australian poets into print. The 'new' of the series title might suggest to some that the poets presented are young, and if not previously unpublished at least relatively unknown in print. Neither of these assumptions is correct. All of the poets have appeared, frequently, in print in a variety of Australian and international journals, magazines and daily papers, and while it is irrelevant as a category for judging the merit of the poetry, or much else for that matter, it might also be ... read more.

Kissing the Curve (2003)

Reviewed by Andrew Johnson in the April 2004 issue.
The New Poets series from Five Islands Press has, with the addition of this group of six, now put fifty-four Australian poets into print. The 'new' of the series title might suggest to some that the poets presented are young, and if not previously unpublished at least relatively unknown in print. Neither of these assumptions is correct. All of the poets have appeared, frequently, in print in a variety of Australian and international journals, magazines and daily papers, and while it is irrelevant as a category for judging the merit of the poetry, or much else for that matter, it might also be ... read more.

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