Australian Public Intellectual [API] Network

Network Scholars

Looking for New Opportunities: Sang Ye and the Discourse of Multiculturalism

Tim Kendall
I don’t care what happens, I’m not going back, and no one in Australia can do anything to make me. Just try me: you can boil me in oil, cook me in soy sauce, pop me in a steamer, whatever you’ve got a taste for. Call me a slut if you like. Doesn’t bother me. “You’re a goddamn whore!” Yeah, and what of it! “The East Wind blows, the war drums roll; in today’s world, no one’s scared of anyone else.” Chairman Mao taught us Chinese not even to fear death. So why should I be scared of losing face? Just write it all down and to hell ...
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Network Review of Books

The English in Australia (2004)

Reviewed by Tara Brabazon in the July 2004 issue.
This review of James Jupp's The English in Australia -- quite appropriately -- juts out of the most English city in the country. Perth is the home of more English migrants, as a proportion of population, than any other Australian metropolis. The reviewer of this book shares a surname with the man who founded Empire Day. But these statistics, identities and ancestors only tell part of the story. Englishness moves, morphs and changes. It also re-emerges in unexpected places, particularly in popular culture. While crisp bee-bee-see accents spill from the lips of Austen-inspired heroines and ... read more.

Popular Mechanics (2004)

Reviewed by David Crouch in the April 2005 issue.
Popular Mechanics is the fresh debut work of innovative Brisbane poet, Liam Ferney. It is a collection of well-crafted poems. They counter-balance dashes of popular and literary culture with a delicacy of finely worked detail. The book is broken into four sections whose themes trace trajectories stretching from a John Forbes poem to the tale of 'the cold chicken river murder mystery' and is inflected throughout with the surprising music found in snatches of slang and sounds of everyday speech. A reader encounters surreal juxtapositions of imagery which interact with a refuse of iconic cultural ... read more.

Litigation: Past and Present (2004)

Reviewed by Mark Finnane in the September 2004 issue.
The legendary litigious character of American society is commonly regarded as an example to be avoided in Australia. The collapse of the private medical insurer, United Medical Protection, in 2001 prompted widespread media and political attention in Australia to what was described as a 'litigation crisis'. As Ted Wright and Angela Melville show in their lively treatment of civil litigation trends in this book, such a crisis was likely generated by something other than the trends in personal injury litigation in NSW which drifted downwards in the five years before the 'crisis'. In a phenomenon ... read more.

Moebius Trip: Digressions from India's Highways (2004)

Reviewed by Inez Baranay in the October 2004 issue.
The title tells you that this account of 'Digressions from India's Highways' promises to be self-consciously literary. Moebiustrip is not a foreigner's wide-eyed wandering among the exotic and bizarre otherness of an exceptional nation. Giti Thadani is no stranger to India; she lectures in Delhi and is known for her work on the archaeology of women. Moebiustrip opens with a quotation from the Rig Ved, and two pages of lines of poetry: an image teased by emotion and memory. Enter, the book seems to say, if you are open to an account of a journey that explores states of mind and language as ... read more.

Country (2004)

Reviewed by Libby Robin in the December 2004 issue.
D H Lawrence pre-empted the name but, even so, this book needed to be called Kangaroo. The cover picture of boxing kangaroos on a chilly early morning cannot substitute for a subtitle. Country is not a 'love letter to our great land' -- as the back blurb proclaims -- but rather a celebration of the kangaroo through past, present and future stories. Perhaps this is not the book Flannery's publishers expected? The cataloguing data categories include 'human ecology', 'Aboriginal Australians', 'Australia -- description and travel', and 'Australia -- social life and customs' -- but not a word about ... read more.

India and Australia: Issues and Opportunities (2004)

Reviewed by Utham Kumar Jamadhagni in the October 2004 issue.
In the aftermath of Pokharan II, when Australia and India seemingly explore the possible ways of deepening and widening the scope and potential of a constructive relationship, India and Australia: Issues and Opportunities, edited by well-known scholars D Gopal and Dennis Rumley, attempts to provide a panoramic view of contemporary and future focus areas in this long neglected relation. This book, foreworded by Vice Chancellor, Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), India and Australian High Commissioner to India is the product of a bi-national seminar organised by IGNOU and the ... read more.

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