Australian Public Intellectual [API] Network

Network Scholars

Starch on the Collar and Sweat on the Brow: self sacrifice and the status of work for nurses

Alison Bashford
From the 1890s, labor politics and language offered an alternative meaning of ‘work’ for the nurse. This alternative was neither specific nor restricted to working-class women. Nonetheless, it was one constructed around an idea of work more consonant with working-class needs and experiences, than ‘self-sacrifice’. Dominant ideas about nursing were being challenged as notions of femininity (and masculinity) were questioned, destabilised and reorganised. The women’s movement that emerged in Australia from the late 1880s both reflected and produced this questioning ...
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Network Review of Books

The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War (2006)

Reviewed by Rosemary Hollow in the May 2006 issue.
The destruction of architecture has regrettably become a regular feature of our daily news, even on the front page at times. We have watched the bombing of the sacred Shiite shrine in Iraq, the bulldozing of Palestinian homes along the West Bank, the demolition of the Bamiyan Buddhas, and the repeated televised images of the collapse of the World Trade Centre towers. Death does not always accompany the destruction of architecture, but the effect can still be catastrophic and long term. The dismantling and displacement of a community, the removal of centuries-old places of worship, means the ... read more.

Changing Ways of Death in Twentieth Century Australia: War, Medicine and the Funeral Business (2006)

Reviewed by Stephanie Bishop in the July 2006 issue.
Amongst my most enduring childhood memories is one in which I have my small seven year old hand pushed deep into the blue china urn that housed my great grandmother's ashes. I was curious as to how her body came to resemble grey dust, leading my father to explain to me the process of cremation whilst I, excitedly, came upon small bits of bone that I pulled out of the urn as though they were minor trophies in a gothic lucky dip. I seem to remember my father and I marvelling at these tiny fragments together, wondering as to what part of the body they once belonged. By the time she died my ... read more.

The Sleepers Almanac 2006: The nervous system (2006)

Reviewed by Catie Gilchrist in the July 2006 issue.
Anthologies of short stories are by their very nature fragmented and momentary. At times, this can make for a fractured reading experience, a literary equivalent of eating tapas when you crave something rather more solid and substantial. On the other hand, leaving the reader with a yearning desire for 'more' is perhaps the subtle art of crafting a good short story. The Nervous System succeeds remarkably well in this respect. It is an illustrated, irreverent anthology of short stories by established and unknown writers, offering an eclectic mix of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and recipes. Some ... read more.

Deconstructing Sport History: A Postmodern Analysis (2006)

Reviewed by David Rowe in the May 2006 issue.
The discipline of history and postmodern thought have rarely been happy travelling companions, not least in the subdiscipline of sport history. Without wishing to caricature the latter, or discount its honourable exceptions, much of it has displayed the 'reconstructionist na�ve empiricism' (p viii) bemoaned by Alun Munslow in the Foreword to this book. In sport history, furthermore, the easily obtained 'facts' of who played, lost and won have tended to be accompanied by nostalgic, romantic celebrations of its object. This is, then, not an intellectual space generally much given to ... read more.

The Ethics of Waste: How we relate to rubbish (2006)

Reviewed by Lisa McDonald in the May 2006 issue.
I am standing in the local supermarket while renovations are made around me. I scan my list. Things have been moved: shelves, boxes, all kinds of items. Entire walls have disappeared. I stare at grime newly exposed which has set into some type of resin. Its crusty heritage contrasts in silent relief the otherwise polished architecture of supermarket things. A woman walks past and traces the direction of my eye. She winks this at me as I catch hers: 'Tsk'. And all this right here in the aisle of bleach, inside the colony of clean. Waste is nothing if not perverse, I think. I've been reading ... read more.

Will Dyson: Australia's Radical Genius (2006)

Reviewed by Bernard Whimpress in the July 2006 issue.
Following Sir Donald Bradman's death in 2001 Prime Minister John Howard has been slow in pronouncing a new 'greatest living Australian'. Perhaps he might have had Shane Warne in mind but if so he has kept such an idea to himself. Poet Les Murray has been mentioned in the press but the idea seems to have died a natural death. Poets don't score as well as cricketers and in any case it's not something average Australians generally feel the need to talk about. Around ninety years ago cartoonist Will Dyson might have been a candidate for the title, and he was certainly described in London as 'the ... read more.

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