Australian Public Intellectual [API] Network

Network Scholars

Plagiarism and Presentation of Self in Elizabeth Spurrell's Journal of her Voyage to New South Wales 1815-16

Anette Bremer
At first glance, Elizabeth Spurrell is something of an anomaly in the history of travel to early New South Wales. Her journal tells us that she disembarked at Sydney Cove in August 1815 and remained in the colony until the following March. While her travelogue describes what she did and with whom she fraternised, it is curiously silent on why she journeyed across the seas in the first place. In light of this, it is difficult to know how to account for her travel. Two familiar definitions of the unattached woman traveller — the matron inspired with missionary zeal and the adventuring ...
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Network Review of Books

Undemocratic Schooling: Equity and Quality in Mass Secondary Education in Australia (2003)

Reviewed by Julie Ustinoff in the October 2003 issue.
It goes without saying that the schooling received by an individual is one of the most important and influential determinants of that person's long-term personal, professional, social, and economic success. In this regard, the duration and type of secondary schooling that Australian students receive is of extreme importance. However, as Teese and Polesel point out in their book, Undemocratic Schooling, the influence of secondary education spreads much further a field than the boundaries of the individual; it reaches deep into the economic and social fabric of the nation. As they argue, the ... read more.

Many Voices: Reflections on Experiences of Indigenous Child Separation (2003)

Reviewed by Christine Cheater in the October 2003 issue.
The back cover of this book features rows of thumbnail photographs of faces. Imposed on the faces is a single line quote from Annie Ozies, 'I didn't think my little story would be so big ...' This quote and the faces encapsulate the contents of the book. Many faces, many voices, each face with a little story that personalises a momentous and sorry episode of Australian history, the separation of Aboriginal children from their families. This practice ran from the earliest years of British colonisation to the 1970s and has generated intense debate in all levels of Australian society. The ... read more.

Hey Joe (2003)

Reviewed by Janet Brown in the October 2004 issue.
'It occurs to me that those of us who were in the midst of that mighty social and political upheaval that shook the world have been conveniently forgotten'. The silencing of stories, taboos on acknowledging and claiming life experiences, is dangerous in any society. Writers help rid us of the burden of stigma and secrecy by creating stories that evoke irreconcilable experiences, or, more importantly perhaps, the possible consequences of such experiences. Michael Hyde successfully does this in Hey Joe. It is claimed this may be the first novel that tells the story of the sixties in Australia ... 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.

Native Title in Australia: an Ethnographic Perspective (2003)

Reviewed by Christine Cheater in the October 2005 issue.
According to Peter Sutton the Native Title Act of 1993 is an attempt to recognise customary rights by translating them into legal terms. Proving Native Title involves a process of cultural translation where rights to land are established through a procedure in which '...evidence about indigenous cultural understandings and practices comes under legal scrutiny and is tested, usually by non-indigenous professionals'. (p 1) Non-indigenous professionals include anthropologists, lawyers, historians and administrators. It is these men and women who are the intended readers of Sutton's book, which ... read more.

The Boy in the Green Suit: A Memoir (2003)

Reviewed by Lynne Barwick in the June 2005 issue.
The role of narrative in the construction of self has been debated in the humanities for some time now. For Robert Hillman the centrality of narrative is clear. Throughout The Boy in The Green Suit, Hillman details how stories have defined and propelled his life. He suggests that narrative breeds more of the same: 'Any child can pick up a yarn that draws together fragments of daydream, threads of ambition, only to find much later that it has become the initial paragraph of a life story'. The starting point for Robert's story is a green island his father has described. It is a boy's paradise; ... read more.

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