Australian Public Intellectual [API] Network

Network Scholars

Armchair Tourists: Two 'Furniture Portraits' by Expatriate South Australian Women Artists

Georgina Downey
In the early years of the twentieth century expatriate Australian artists turned their gaze upon iconic sites of European cultural tourism. They painted the monuments and city squares of Paris and London and the quaint rural and fishing communities outside the modern metropoles. After trying for a coveted place ‘on the line’ at the Royal Academy or at the Paris Salons, they sent their ‘picture-book’ representations of Europe home to a respectful Australian audience.1 The gaze of the obeisant colonial artist upon the historic landscapes and cities of Europe was ...
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Network Review of Books

Influence - Operator: Two Plays (2005)

Reviewed by David Crouch in the February 2006 issue.
If the rumours are true, rather than a ploy to promote a play, then it seems David Williamson has written his final work for the theatre. Influence is reportedly Williamson's last play, and it seems a highly successful note on which to end; the play broke the Sydney Theatre Company's box office records when it debuted, and the script has the incisive insight and economy of Williamson's best creations. As in earlier work like The Removalists, the play draws its substance from certain crucial, always vexed, issues in currency within the milieu of contemporary society; and, again in keeping with ... read more.

Two For the Price of One: The Lives of Mining Wives (2005)

Reviewed by Bronwyn Fredericks in the April 2006 issue.
Let me declare my interest up front: I read Linda Rhodes' book, Two for the Price of One, The lives of Mining Wives, because I am the partner of a miner, a 'mining wife'. I wanted to see how Rhodes handled the issues of the long working hours, extended absences, unavailability of partners, child rearing, domestic duties, career or rather lack of career options for women, perceptions of women and relationships, classism, racism, sexism and more. Mining wives -- whether by marriage, de-facto or long-term relationship -- have not featured in journals, magazines, annual reports from mining ... read more.

A Lifetime in Conservative Politics: Political memoirs of Sir Joseph Carruthers (2005)

Reviewed by Amanda Day in the July 2006 issue.
In 2006 New South Wales is celebrating 150 years of responsible government and Michael Hogan's edited memoirs of Sir Joseph Carruthers is another offering from UNSW Press that has commemorated the people who developed representative democracy and governance in NSW. Politics, sport, free trade, arbitration and federalism are key features of Carruthers' memoirs and serve to provide a snapshot of a time that Hogan suggests 'should be read as a document of the early 1930s'. (p xii) The interaction of politics, personal life and Carruthers' desire to leave manuscripts that reflect positively on ... read more.

Traumascapes: The power and fate of places transformed by tragedy (2005)

Reviewed by Eve Vincent in the October 2005 issue.
Maria Tumarkin travels to Shanksville, site of the failed September 11 attack. Here, the hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 plunged into a Pennsylvanian field near a tiny rural community of just 245 residents. According to locals, visitors began turning up days after the crash. A spontaneous shrine reproduced itself, growing and changing as it is added to -- miniature flags, symbols of American cultural life (baseball bats) and spiritual offerings. 'Why did they come?' Tumarkin asks. It is not an idle, curious question, nor is it disingenuous -- posed only so that she can impress us with ... read more.

Blush: Faces of Shame (2005)

Reviewed by Zoe Anderson in the July 2005 issue.
Shame, in its collective context, has been explored by many writers in recent years in very indirect ways. In the Australian cultural and political milieu shame seems to be the silent 'other' to which we defer and which we deny; a constant, shadowing us in debates on everything from the interaction between indigenous and 'white' Australian histories, to personal anxieties over bodies and self. In this work Probyn attempts to bring together varied manifestations of shame in (mostly) the Australian socio-cultural setting. In doing so, Probyn also riskily endeavours to utilise that troublesome ... read more.

Australia: Nation, Belonging and Globalisation (2005)

Reviewed by Matthew Lamb in the January 2006 issue.
A lot of books about globalisation look at the issues involved -- quite obviously -- from a global perspective. It is one of the fundamental claims of globalisation that other perspectives are no longer tenable; or at best, that other perspectives should by now be subsumed under this more dominant point of view. Individuals, regions and nation-states are now subordinate to the global level of analysis. And even when these other perspectives are entertained, it is usually to reinforce this claim. Take for example a book I reviewed previously in these pages, Globalisation: Australian Regional ... read more.

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