From Ablation to Undergirding: Review of Stuart Cunningham's In the Vernacular: A Generation of Culture and Controversy

Abstract

I
 have
 always
 learnt
 new
 words
 from
 the
 writings
 and
 public
 speeches
 of
 Stuart
 Cunningham. 
I 
retain 
a 
vivid 
memory, 
from 
1982,
 of 
needing 
to
 look
up 
a 
dictionary
 after
 his
 Australian
 Screen
 Studies
 conference
 presentation
 on
 Roeg’s
 Bad
 Timing (1980), 
in 
order
 to
 find
 out
 exactly
 what 
ablation
 was.
(And 
it
 wasn’t 
pretty.) 
Even
 when
 I
 more 
or 
less
 knew
 the 
word
 in
 question,
 I
had 
never 
had
 the
 experience 
of
 (to
 embroider
 a 
phrase
 from
 Clueless,
1995)
hearing 
it
 used
 in 
a 
coherent 
sentence
 any
 time
 since
 the
 mid
 twentieth
 century:
 gainsay,
 commodious,
 irredentist,
 undergird…