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 ...
Click here to read more.

Network Review of Books

Unearthed: The Aboriginal Tasmanians of Kangaroo Island (2002)

Reviewed by Bernard Whimpress in the October 2003 issue.
There couldn't be a better title for this book which is about digging, uncovering, discovering, sifting and weighing evidence of an untold story. Tantalisingly, it has not one but three beginnings. It starts with Kingscote woman Mavis Golder glancing through Walkabout magazine in 1954 to find a photograph of her grandfather, described as the 'last Tasmanian half-caste of Kangaroo Island'; continues four years later with her son Michael finding a reference in the Australian Junior Encylopaedia to a Mrs Seymour (his grandmother's maiden name) who died at Hog Bay, Kangaroo Island as the 'last ... read more.

American Scoundrel: Murder, Love and Politics in Civil War America (2002)

Reviewed by Daniel Fazio in the October 2002 issue.
Thomas Keneally's American Scoundrel is a biography of Union General Daniel Sickles, one of the most controversial and enigmatic figures of nineteenth century America. Keneally wrote the story of Dan Sickles because it 'served as a mirror of the marital, political, and even military morality of the day, at a time when the most notable political experiment of the new world was under its severest test' (p xii). This entertaining and readable biography illustrates the complexities and contradictions of the enigmatic Dan Sickles, his passion and absolute loyalty to friends, his courage, ... read more.

Good Grief (2002)

Reviewed by Corey McHattan in the January 2003 issue.
Dominique Hecq's poetry collection gets off to a tremendous start with the title poem, 'Good Grief'. Elliptical but powerful, elegant yet natural, it represents a remarkable opening gambit, drawing in the reader and promising great things to come. Unfortunately, the standard is not quite maintained throughout, and in fact the eponymous poem is ultimately revealed to be, by a considerable distance, the best thing here. However, there is still much that is creditable in this, Hecq's debut collection of assorted poetry. It is interesting to speculate on how Hecq's French-speaking background has ... read more.

The Home Crowd (2002)

Reviewed by Loma Bridge in the June 2003 issue.
Will George Fielden, commercial lawyer and narrator of this book, choose the homey crowd in Yorkshire or the cappucino crowd in Fremantle for his final resting place? Torn between two women -- fiancee Vanessa in Fremantle and ex-girlfriend Kate in Soppstone, George manages to conflate his feelings for them with perceptions of place. An atavistic longing to sink into bad weather, England, ruins, small towns, cottages, the moors, Manchester United, and stone walls is set against the glaring light of Fremantle, a good job, an impending wedding, and an inheritance which would enable George and ... read more.

Departures (2002)

Reviewed by Christine Choo in the June 2004 issue.
An Irish Catholic family living in Bathurst gives up one of its sons to the Junior Noviciate of the Order of Saint Francis of Assisi, where he will begin his journey to Holy Orders. It is a proud moment for the family and a proud yet devastating one for young Barry Hayes who has chosen that path at the end of his primary school years. Departures is the memoir of Barry Hayes in which he chronicles his childhood before and his life after that fateful day when he entered the Franciscan Junior Noviciate at Robertson in New South Wales -- a place shrouded in mist and mystery. To readers raised in ... read more.

Mixed Matches: Interracial Marriage in Australia (2002)

Reviewed by Ann Howard in the April 2003 issue.
The cover illustration of June Owen's book is of Barbara Hanrahan's Generations, 1991. It shows happy, unaware, smiling children being carried on symbolic journeys by adults with tears streaming from their eyes. The inside cover is a patchwork of everyday couples, sometimes with children, all smiling contentedly. Living in big cities all my life, used to a cosmopolitan social life, with Hungarian and Japanese daughters--in-law, it did not at first seem unusual to me that the couples were sometimes strikingly physically different. This simple fact has, however often been the cause of deep ... read more.

Need to Contact Us?