What happens when sacred sites are destroyed? What are the effects of being dispossessed and of having one’s own existence denied? Desecration of the sacred, of land and of self are themes explored in a group of essay co-edited by Deborah Rose and Peter Read. These studies of PNG, Havana, Sarejevo and parts of Australia bring living beings and the dead into a realm in which violence that refuses life confronts life that refuses obliteration. These essays offer rich and resonating thought.

 

In other essays Marcus Breen ponders cultural criticism and life in the USA, Nicola Evans shows how sensational trials catapult private matters into the public sphere, and Ross Chambers writes a poetic supplement to Peter Cary’s My Life as a Fake. The Provocations section showcases Iain McCalman, making his case for state and popular support for the humanities and social sciences, and Isabelle Stengers on ‘ecology of practices’ as a tool for thinking. In New Writing Jane Messer reflects on the maternal heroine in memoir and fiction.

Published: 2013-08-12

Editorial

Chris Healy, Stephen Muecke

7-8

The Maternal Heroine

Jane Messer

129-141

The Telling Room

Sarah Holland-Batt

151-153

Chedi Gong

Andrew Leggett

154-155

Elephant

Luke Beesley

156-157

Electronic Wallpaper

Brett Farmer

199-202

Uncovering Nudity

Susan Luckman

203-207

History('s) Re-turns

Sara Wills

208-211

Fear of Fantasy

Fiona Giles

217-221

Whose Ethics?

Alan McKee

222-227

The Man of Feeling

Ken Gelder

228-232