Australian Public Intellectual [API] Network

Network Scholars

Sexual Identity and Cultural Identity: A Crash Course

Tony Ayres
When I was fourteen, I used to go to John’s Adult Book Exchange. I was tall for a Chinese, and the craggy Slavic man behind the counter — presumably ‘John’ — never questioned me about my age. My magazine of choice was Australian Gay, a hard-core, cheaply reproduced stick mag. Occasionally, to fill space, they’d print social pages of men in bars with mythical names like ‘Signal’ and ‘the Barracks’. In the privacy of my bedroom, I’d sate my lust over blurred, succulent close ups of the male anatomy, then afterwards study the ...
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Network Review of Books

Ghost Nation: Imagined Space and Australian Visual Culture 1901-1939 (2001)

Reviewed by Denise Whitehouse in the October 2001 issue.
Ghost Nation promises a new reading of imagined space and Australian visual culture, 1901-1939. Its claim to offer a 'persuasive framework for understanding modernism' feeds expectations of new research and insights into an era when the visual culture of the modern media began to compete for control of the public imagination. Disappointingly Ghost Nation does not offer primary research, a rigorous academic framework, or a new definition of visual culture. Rather it is an idiosyncratic re-reading of Australian art history's favourite construct, the conflict between the cultural establishment ... read more.

Conflict, Politics and Crime: Aboriginal Communities and the Police (2001)

Reviewed by Catharine Coleborne in the October 2001 issue.
In a recent documentary by Dennis O'Rourke, Cunnamulla, a young aboriginal woman weeps over the prospect of her teenaged brother going to prison for a third criminal conviction. The boy himself seems resigned to it: there's nothing much to do in Cunnamulla and it was only when he went to Melville, learning about his culture, that he found life remotely interesting. Chris Cunneen's recent book describes how aboriginal people have been criminalised in Australia and how this criminalisation of Indigenous youth and people is part of, and inextricably linked to, a much wider issue: the denial of ... read more.

Night of Warehouses: Poems 1978-2000 (2001)

Reviewed by Tim Metcalf in the August 2002 issue.
The five books from which this selection was made, and the thirty-three pages of new poems, ensure a hearty feast for fans of Oliver and those fascinated by the evolution of poetry in the Antipodes. There is from the outset an emphasis on a 'transtasman' poetic. Set largely in the harbour cities of Auckland and Sydney, the antics of light dominate the images that Oliver so skilfully evokes. From book one he demonstrates an assured and integrated poetic:This time of year the clouds could be happening while the days spin you/me different waysOliver treads precisely, careful not to trip over ... read more.

Living with the Aftermath (2001)

Reviewed by Brad West in the Dec 2001-Jan 2002 issue.
War widows are a complex and fascinating topic of study. They are simultaneously empowered by the sacrifice of their husbands, marginalised by financial dependence, and threatening of cultural norms due to their independence and ambiguous marital status. Living with the Aftermath potently evidences this in examining the connections between war widow identity, grieving, and memory. Where studies of women on the homefront have centred on their participation in the public sphere, Damousi concentrates on the psychological trauma and coping mechanisms of war widows. While these are clearly ... read more.

Love This Life: Lyrics 1978--2001 (2001)

Reviewed by Steve Evans in the October 2001 issue.
Neil Finn has been writing popular songs through various permutations of bands (Split Enz, The Mullanes, Crowded House, Finn) and during his current solo career. His newly published collection of lyrics removes the musical props and gives us a chance to take the words in isolation. In the heyday of Crowded House, Finn was occasionally feted as the new Paul McCartney. There was a sting in the tail of that comparison, perhaps recalled when McCartney's own collection of lyrics and poems, Blackbird Singing: Poems and Lyrics 1965--1999, was released in March. Its editor, Mersey poet, Adrian ... read more.

Sounds from the Stables: A history of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music (2001)

Reviewed by Joanna Besley in the June 2002 issue.
In the introduction to her engaging history of the Sydney Conservatorium, Diane Collins makes a thought-provoking statement: 'Music has been disgracefully neglected in most conventional histories of Australia' she declares, arguing that Australian historical scholarship is 'substantially diminished' by the neglect of 'aural history and culture'. This idea of aural history is intriguing -- what might this history be like and is this account, the first published history of Sydney's Conservatorium, a taste of the aural history that Collins advocates? More than just an historical account of the ... read more.

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