Australian Public Intellectual [API] Network

Network Scholars

Contemporary Anti-Memorials and National Identity in the Victorian Landscape

Sue-Anne Ware
The success of the book Sacred Places: War Memorials in the Australian Landscape1 has marked a resurgence of public interest in Australian memorials. The federal goverment has commissioned a number of new memorials as Australia reflects upon the centenary of its federation.2 Chilla Bulbeck describes the evolution of Australian memorials when she states:To some extent, the recent history of Australian monument construction parallels the reorientation of Australian history from the deeds that won the empire or nation to the activities of ordinary men and women and the history of local ...
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Network Review of Books

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.

Devotion (2006)

Reviewed by Marion May Campbell in the July 2006 issue.
For this elegantly constructed and potent first novel Ffion Murphy chooses cyberspace and the hospital corridor for the literally haunting narrative front, off-setting the potential claustrophobia of these spaces by broadly brushed estuary and beach vistas around Perth, Western Australia. The suburban gothic opens in elegiac mode with a backlit idyll underscored by dread -- the family picnic at Mt Eliza is disrupted by a visitation and a portent of loss. The pregnant body of the young mother, Veronica Peterson, is the site of contestation: the baby son will be reluctant to be born; the husband ... read more.

Sharing Spaces: Indigenous and non-Indigenous Responses to Story, Country and Rights (2006)

Reviewed by Linn Miller in the July 2006 issue.
In regard to sharing stories, spaces and belongings, accounts we are accustomed to hearing in Australia--or want to hear--are often misleadingly simple and one-sided. Sharing Spaces not only succeeds in disclosing and exploring the ground--conceptual, geographical, socio-cultural and political--that connects people to place, past to present and indigenous to settler-Australians, it also acknowledges the complexity of the issues it tackles and respects the multiplicity of their phenomenal expression. Most refreshingly, where and when differing perspectives and understandings exist, and are ... read more.

Beyond Good and Evil? Essays on the Literature and Culture of the Asia-Pacific Region (2006)

Reviewed by Mads Clausen in the May 2006 issue.
Haskell, McKinlay and Rich's Beyond Good and Evil: Essays on the Literature and Culture of the Asia-Pacific Region is borne out of what the authors see as the re-emergence of perilously rigid notions of evil in post-September 11 discourse. The editors see this monolithic conception of evil as 'a theological term of frightening certitude and simplification' particularly evident in the Bush administration's rhetoric, but that it also spills over into other debates about culture and identity, sustaining existing chasms in political and cultural discourse. The collection seeks to query this ... 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.

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.

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