Australian Public Intellectual [API] Network

Network Scholars

You Don't Know Jack

Kathryn H Ferguson
Reading newspapers on microfilm is a frustrating business. Sore eyes, a tired back, coughing neighbours and the inevitably mutinous photocopy function all add to the sheer bloody-mindedness of historical newshounds. It all becomes numbingly familiar: quack cures, Ladies’ Auxiliary meetings, discount haberdashery, crime reports, political tomfoolery and society weddings. Inch after gritty inch of type, slowly grating away at patience and expectations. However, perseverance is occasionally rewarded. Such was the case on an otherwise unremarkable Tuesday last summer when, while searching ...
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Network Review of Books

The Wonder Country: Making New Zealand Tourism (2004)

Reviewed by Ian Morrison in the October 2004 issue.
The Wonder Country is in many respects a good book. Margaret McClure is an accomplished researcher and an elegant prose writer. She has absorbed a vast quantity of raw data -- official and personal records, as well as secondary material -- and has crafted a smooth, lucid narrative. The team at AUP have produced a handsome volume, with the right dimensions to do justice to the many beautiful illustrations without distracting from the text. If you want to know about the development of New Zealand's tourism industry, The Wonder Country is a mine of factual information -- pleasingly presented, and ... read more.

All the Iron Night (2004)

Reviewed by Helen Hagemann in the June 2004 issue.
Ross Bolleter's All the Iron Night is an impressive collection. This hardbound volume of forty poems is magnetic, solid and full of strength. The human fabric of home, love, and relationships is deftly conveyed. Strong images and themes of urban and country life and identities abound. His images of an outback landscape sit well with lengthy pieces that expose the saving grace of Zen Buddhism. Forms range from narrative and free verse to haiku and renga. The renga, Old Dog, is a collaborative work with Susan Murphy. Bolleter is a listener as well as a careful observer. He's not ... read more.

Who's Who? Hoaxes, Imposture and Identity Crises in Australian Literature (2004)

Reviewed by Ian Morrison in the September 2005 issue.
Hoaxes are an unusual kind of fraud. Their primary purpose is usually to gain something other than money. Some are perpetrated for laughs, others to make a serious political point. This volume of ALS gathers together a variety of approaches to a diverse group of literary hoaxes. It makes a good companion piece to the second (F-J) volume of the Bibliography of Australian Literature, also recently published by UQP.�� At first glance the odd essay out is Carrie Dawson's 'The Slaughterman of Wagga Wagga: Imposture, National Identity, and the Tichborne Affair'. Dawson uses this -- scarcely ... read more.

Who Wants to Create Australia? (2004)

Reviewed by Mark Mahemoff in the April 2005 issue.
'The best teachers teach more than they know' -- Wendell Berry I think it's important to begin by saying that I have known Martin Harrison for a number of years. He was one of the people who judged me to be a viable candidate for a Masters in Writing at the University of Technology, Sydney, where he teaches. He has been and continues to be a mentor, motivator and friend. When I applied to study at UTS I had self-published a small volume of poetry, mainly because I was frustrated with the treadmill of small magazine publication and wanted to clear the decks for my new work. I was a poet ... read more.

Heart of the Matter: An Introduction to Eighteen South Australian Poets (2004)

Reviewed by Debra Zott in the September 2004 issue.
South Australian poetry is, by some, considered insular. It has been criticised, at least verbally, for its supposedly limited perspective and its failure to break into interstate markets. It has often been said, in literary circles, that only other poets read it, attend performances and book launches, and only other poets buy collections of poetry published by South Australian poets. There is also the oft aired complaint that it is impossible to get poetry reviewed or published in The Advertiser. Such comments give the impression that things are rather bleak for the poetry scene in Adelaide. ... read more.

Not For Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography (2004)

Reviewed by Lisette Kaleveld in the July 2005 issue.
Even for those of us repeatedly reaching for the delete button, the visibility and accessibility of pornography in our everyday lives has increased exponentially. And yet, strangely, any substantial critique of it remains invisible. What is this silence? Is it discomfort? Is it approval? At best our reaction to pornography and prostitution is a snigger. And what can anyone really say in a world where Larry Flynt is a people's hero and a 'Porn star' t-shirt is a liberating statement (Clarke p 157). In our contemporary world, as Elizabeth Wurtzel has said, innocence itself is subversive. Clarke ... read more.

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