Australian Public Intellectual [API] Network

Network Scholars

The Transcultural Dilemma: Asian Australian Artists in the Asia Debate

Melissa Chiu
In spite of ten years of discussion, debate and exhibitions about Australia’s relationship with Asia — defined largely by cultural exchange as a theme — the contribution of Asian Australian artists to this area has been relatively limited. Looking specifically at exhibitions, it is only in the last couple of years that touring exhibitions such as Rose Crossing (1999), institutional exhibitions such as Transit (1998) and large-scale projects such as the third Asia-Pacific Triennial (1999) have included significant numbers of Asian Australian artists. Reasons for these ...
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Network Review of Books

The Fuss That Never Ended: The Life and Work of Geoffrey Blainey (2003)

Reviewed by Katrina Gulliver in the February 2005 issue.
In this collection of essays Blainey's work is assessed from a variety of angles. The contributors -- all but Morag Fraser are academics -- take disparate approaches to Blainey's legacy as a historian and public intellectual. Stuart Macintyre presents an account of Blainey's impact on the discipline of Australian history. This is thoughtful but concludes by clarifying -- if such clarification were necessary -- that Macintyre does not agree with Blainey's views on Asian immigration and describes Blainey as a 'maverick'. Geoffrey Bolton's 'Tyranny of Distance Revisited' offers a ... read more.

Fine Salt (2003)

Reviewed by John Blahusiak in the November 2003 issue.
Do you know a Jack and Jill couple? I have heard rumours of the existence of the kind of couple -- too perfect. Perhaps married since high school, never been heartbroken, and able to balance home-life and careers with a single mortgage; such a couple might have made its way into your social circle. Or worse still, your friendship group. And there, always ready for the purposes of cross-comparison, they are filtering outward the material image of what ideally constitutes a relationship for our modern times. The destabilising force of such a projection lies in the perception that it was ... read more.

Shadow Lines (2003)

Reviewed by Fiona Probyn in the March 2004 issue.
As I write this review on campus at the University of Sydney (built on the grounds of an Indigenous meeting place), there are media reports of a riot in Redfern between police and Indigenous residents of the 'Block'; a seventeen-year-old Indigenous boy was killed after being impaled on a fence when his bicycle crashed. He thought police were chasing him -- the police say they were blocks away. The media reports it as another event of Indigenous violence, using words like 'rampage' and asking the police officers involved what it was like to be injured. It quickly became a story of whites under ... read more.

America's Pie: Trade and Culture After 9/11 (2003)

Reviewed by Melissa Gregg in the March 2004 issue.
Deceptive in its brevity, this significant text begins with a wry observation. Since 9/11, the Statue of Liberty has been closed 'for security reasons'. The symbol of freedom so treasured in the Home of the Brave is now hidden for fear of attack. In one of many historical insights which suffuse this book, Jock Given's introduction notes the importance of the statue as a gift from the people of France, affirming friendship and shared values between two nations. At the time, the author writes, the gesture symbolised both states' commitment to the ideals of freedom and autonomy enshrined in the ... read more.

In Baghdad: A Reporter's War (2003)

Reviewed by Daniel Fazio in the February 2004 issue.
Paul McGeough's, In Baghdad, is a passionate and incisive daily account of the 2003 Iraq war. McGeough was one of a handful of foreign journalists, and the only Australian, to cover the entire war from Baghdad. Much about this war will remain unknown for a considerable period of time and the repercussions of the conflict remain problematic. The revelations since the end of the war pose many legitimate questions about the real motivations and justifications for why the 'coalition of the willing' went to war in Iraq, and about the integrity and honesty of President Bush and Prime Ministers Blair ... read more.

Reform and Resistance in Aboriginal Education: The Australian Experience (2003)

Reviewed by Jeannie Herbert in the September 2004 issue.
This publication makes a worthwhile contribution to the on-going dilemma confronting many Australian educators -- how to change Aboriginal Australian perspectives regarding the value of mainstream education. In particular this book focuses on 'the most important education issue for Aboriginal people: their relationship to the State school system during the compulsory years of schooling'. (2003:7) While acknowledging the diversity of the Aboriginal experience, hence the complexity of the issues that have impacted upon individual and collective educational experiences, the editors have drawn on ... read more.

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