Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent introduction to Aboriginal art *****
The Kluge-Ruhe collection, housed at the University of Virginia, is among the largest and most diverse Aboriginal art collections outside of Australia.This book, the first published guide to the collection, highlights many of the important works held by the Kluge-Ruhe, covering many Aboriginal cultures and regionswith a strong focus on Arnhem Land and the central desert.Thought provoking essays by many of the top scholars in the field accompany beautiful color images of many sigificant pieces.Unlike many introductions to Aboriginal art, this guide discusses themes in depth, providing solid meaningful analysis which places the art in its social context, rather than the usual 'Bark Painting of a Bird' type annotation, which provides no insight into the culture which produced it.Highly recommended--you will not be disappointed. ... Read more

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In 1959 in Melbourne, seven artists and an art historian came together "to defend and to champion . . . the place of the image in art." The group comprised Charles Blackman, Arthur Boyd, David Boyd, John Brack, John Perceval, Clifton Pugh, and Robert Dickerson, who, as the "Antipodeans," held just one exhibition together at the Victorian Artist's Society in August 1959. Bernard Smith, the only non-painter of the group, drafted "The Antipodean Manifesto" which accompanied the exhibition.

The Antipodeans defended the figurative image against abstraction-and contemporary Australian art as opposed to European modernism. They worried that art was losing its humanistic values, that it was becoming obsessed with abstract decoration at the expense of recognizable signs and symbols, that while making great claims for its spiritual depths, it threatened to alienate a broad cross-section of the public.Forty years later, this volume shows the work of artists from the original Antipodean group in the context of abstract art of the period, and demonstrates that at the end of the century, both the Antipodeans and their abstract antagonists have taken on the status of classics.

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Australian civilization is described in this book with subtlety and irony as a "wildly problematic, discursive and sometimes cranky thing. It can be a sensitive thing. It can still be chauvinistic." The book brings together leading intellectuals who discuss the various dynamics of civilization in the Australian context. They debate openly and honestly the strengths and weaknesses of Australian civilization. The contributors each narrate Australian civilization from monographic viewpoints. Together these monographic views narrate the central concerns of this volume. The production of a master narrative is resisted. But it is equally obvious that in the diversity of approaches--the pluralism of the monographic views--there are recurring important themes. This timely book is concerned with the tremendous changes that have overtaken Australia in the second half of this century. It demonstrates that many time-honored beliefs have been broken up, but argues that this intensely creative period has seen Australia transformed from a provincial inward-looking society with blinkered conceptions of history and self-importance to one of the world's oldest and most successful liberal plural democracies. ... Read more

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An introduction to the basic concepts and skills of textual analysis. From Saussure to Bourdieu, this text presents a range of approaches to the study of communication and culture. It shows how the division between theory and practice can be overcome. ... Read more

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Clear Overview of Contextualised Communication
Schirato and Yell offer a clear and comprehensive overview of communicative practices in the contemporary world.The strength of their text is in bringing together the work of eminent theorists and researchers - among them Pierre Bourdieu, Jean Baudrillard, Ferdinand de Saussure, V.N. Volosinov, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, Gunther Kress, Michael Halliday, M.M. Bakhtin - to explain communication practices within and across various cultures (though it still retains a distinctly Australian flavour).

Through frequent application of theoretical principles to everyday situations and cultural artefacts (such as newspaper articles, images, emails, letters, etc.) as examples, the authors are able to explain some complex ideas in highly accessible ways.The concept of 'cultural literacy' is deployed, relating together various theories, in order to explain the ways in which individuals communicate effectively within cultural contexts.It is this concept of 'context' that is at the centre of all communicative practices, and which shape the manner in which speech, writing and image (among other mediums) are used for meaning making.

In offering a broad overview of theories related to communication and culture, Schirato and Yell provide clear indications for further reading (there are brief, highlighted descriptions of central figures and their work).In acknowledging the limitations of their own work as an examination of communicative practices, therefore only generalisable in a limited sense, the authors nevertheless create a complex and relevant theory of 'cultural literacy' to explain ways in which individuals communicate effectively across various `cultural fields'.

At times, ideas could have been explained in a little more detail and drawn together more tightly into explicit observations (especially after the analysis of example texts), though this would have increased the complexity of the text overall.As adequate compensation, each chapter offers a brief concluding summary, which work well to draw the theories being developed into a cohesive whole.This could have been enhanced further with a more comprehensive concluding chapter, drawing together the ideas of the entire text.

Nevertheless, Schirato and Yell have provided an excellent introduction to communication and cultural theory.Accessible and well supported with evidence, the work of various researchers and theorists is drawn together to create clear and relevant theoretical observations for the modern world.An excellent introduction for anyone interested in cultural studies, communication, literacy studies or just the way that the modern 'information world' is changing the way human beings relate to each other.
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The story of the generation of New Zealand writers who came of age in the 1930s and who deliberately and decisively changed the course of literature is told in this book, shedding important new light on the key participants, such as Allen Curnow, Denis Glover, and Robin Hyde. The movement is traced through small circulation magazines and small press publications from 1932 to 1941. The repudiations and loyalties by which the movement defined itself are explored, including its opposition to the literary establishment and to late Georgian verse, its naming of its precursors and allies from the 1920s, and its choice of overseas models such as the British Moderns and the new American short-story writers for the creation of a new literature. Also covered is the anti-myth the Phoenix and Caxton writers created to oppose the cultural myths supported by the literary establishment and the writers' responses to the worldwide social upheavals of the period-the Depression, the international crises of 1935 to 1939, and World War II. ... Read more

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Australians are often said to be obsessed with sport, and playing and watching sport have long been regarded as national pastimes. This book is an innovative and exciting study of the political, economic, social, and cultural role that sport has played in Australia since European settlement. ... Read more

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In this, the first collection of ecocritical essays devoted to Australian contexts and their writers, Australian and USA scholars (settlers, invaders, temporary visa holders) comment on the transliteration of sea, land and interior through the works of major and minor authors and through their own experience with the bioregion. The littoral zone is the starting point in this fresh approach to reading literature and is organised around the natural environment - rainforest, desert, mountains, coast, islands, Antarctica. There's the beach where sexual and spiritual crises occur; the Wheatbelt area - the most visible clearance line on the planet; desert literature, camel trekking, and the transformation of a salt flat into an inland island. New Age literature that 'appropriates' Aboriginals and their cultures as the healing poultice for an ailing and dispirited West; a re-examination of pastoralism, and "the feet of millions of sheep [. that] have done unspeakable damage to soils"; an inquiry into whether Judith Wright's work can "persuade us to rejoice" in the world; an investigation of the Limestone Plains, home of the bush capital and the bogong moth; of bananas, cane toads and the Great Barrier Reef in tropic Queensland; of national parks and guesthouses where "the mountains meet the sea"; a discursive approach to temperate islands that covers sealing, Soldier Settlement, and sea country pastoral; and finally to Antarctica, where an initial utopian approach gives way to an emphasis on its stark, 'timeless' icescape as a minimalist backdrop for human dramas. The author-terrain is no less grand in its scope: poets, playwrights, novelists, and non-fiction writers are discussed across the broad range of contexts that constitutes the littoral zone known as 'Australia'. ... Read more

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Students familiar with Precy Espiritu's widely usedbeginning language text Let's Speak Ilokano will welcomeIntermediate Ilokano. Each of the twelve lessons consists ofeight major components: reading, vocabulary study, story, questionsfor conversation, grammar notes, writing practice, fluency practice,and culture notes. The text integrates eclectic approaches to languageteaching and learning and encourages active participation bystudents. A variety of classroom activities are included thatchallenge students to delve deeper for a better understanding of whatthey are learning while promoting collaborative and cooperativeinteraction. The author provides numerous exercises for each chapter,offering instructors the maximum amount of flexibility in designinglessons.

Intermediate Ilokano is intended for students with one year of college-level Ilokano but is also appropriate for younger learners at a comparable level. ... Read more

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This book examines race relations in Australia through various media representations over the past 200 years. The early colonial press perpetuated the image of aboriginal people as framed by early explorers, and stereotypes and assumptions still prevail. Print and television news accounts of several key events in recent Australian history are compared and reveal how indigenous sources are excluded from stories about their affairs. Journalists wield extraordinary power in shaping the images of cultures and people, so indigenous people, like those in North America, have turned away from mainstream media and have acquired their own means of cultural production through radio, television, and multimedia. This study concludes with suggestions for addressing media practices to reconcile indigenous and non-indigenous people. ... Read more

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Janet Frame's work is notorious for the demands it makes on reader and critic. This collection of nine new essays by international Frame specialists draws on a range of critical frameworks to explore fresh ways of looking at Frame's fiction, poetry, and autobiography. At the same time, the essays plug into the energy of Frame's work to challenge our thinking within and beyond these frameworks. Frameworks offers a unique perspective on Frame studies today, showcasing its major concerns as well as heralding new Frame narratives for the decade ahead. Mindful of preceding Frame criticism, these essays use their contemporary vantage-point to recast seminal questions about the relationship between Janet Frame's work and its critical contexts.Each of the essays makes a case for framing her work in a particular way, but all are characterized by self-reflexivity regarding their own critical practice and the relationship they assume between exegetical framework and Frame's work. Underlying this practice, and contained within the pun of the title, are the elementary-sounding yet fundamental questions of Frame studies: How does Frame's work work? And how do we work with her work? ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Expensive & Inessential
This most recent collection of academic essays on NZ writer Janet Frame is outrageously overpriced, particularly considering the paltry number of contributions. A far better resource and value is the 1993 collection edited by Jeanne Delbaere, with more than twice the number of contributions as well as an expansive bibliography. ... Read more

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This book represents a new way of thinking about Australian cinema by asking where the origins of the new film lie.It begins by tracing the indebtedness of Australian cinema to the classical narrative style of Hollywood filmmaking, with its firm grasp of melodrama. Several films are studied in detail within this framework, including Picnic at Hanging Rock, Blood Oath, The Empty Beach, and Shame.The book continues by comparing the problems faced by "high" British cinema of the 1940s and 1950s with those faced by Australian cinema of the 1970s and the 1980s in the attempts by both countries to establish national film industries.Many parallels are drawn between the responses of British and Australian cinema to the overall dominance of Hollywood, despite the thirty-year gap between these two periods of filmmaking. ... Read more

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The Word, The Pen, and the Pistol explores the relationships between history, power, knowledge, and certain cultural productions such as literature in colonial and postcolonial contexts. Borrowing from the theoretical works of Michel Foucault and Edward Said, the book reveals in the French colonial territory of French Polynesia the complicit relationship between imperialism and colonial texts, between the image of Tahiti as "paradise on earth" and other instruments of management, and between discourses such as the "Noble Savage" and various technologies of discipline and ordering. In particular, the book discusses the role that such men as Buffon, Rousseau, Bouganville, Loti, Gauguin, and Gobineau and institutions such as science, phrenology, scholarship, racism, travel literature, education, and tourism played in creating, supporting, authorizing, disseminating and enforcing certain images of the Polynesian. The book simultaneously details the complex and diverse responses of Maohi people to these romanticized Western discourses and reconstructs the spaces used by them to inscribe their resistance. ... Read more

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Lewis, a young first-time director, is hired by a state-run psychiatric institution to direct a variety show as part of a therapeutic program.As Vietnam War protesters rage outside and the production lurches toward its uncertain conclusion, Lewis and the cast find companionship and empowerment in ideals, as the real world appears rife with confusion.Adapted by the author from his popular play. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Cosi - brilliant
Having both studied this text and performed it on stage I am very familiar with it, and can honestly give it a 5/5 rating. Nowra has written a riotous comedy set in a mad house, obviously exaggerating his characters, but insuch a colourful play this is essential to the comic value. Althoughessentially a comedy the deeper themes of love, fidelity, sanity andcompassion are poignant but not overbearing, so although thereaders/audience has a hell of a fun ride, one still comes away with achanged perspective. The warning from the reviewer above misses the pointof this play somewhat - Nowra's purpose is not to make fun of or mock thepatients, or to highlight their dangerousness; rather it is to show theextent of Lewis' compassionate involvement and 'journey' throughout. Cosiis a extremely funny yet very relevant script which gets my 100% seal ofapproval. Get it!

Cosi not entirely true...
I had to read this book as part of my Senior English course, and knowing more than one mentally ill person - one of whom is currently living in a mental health clinic - I found that Nowra's portrayal of mental illness isnot quite true.Only very rarely does someone suffer so badly from mentalillness that they appear similar to the characters in "Cosi". Nowra's portayal of these patient's has been greatly exaggerated fortheatrical purposes, and I just want people to be aware of that as manypeople I know who have read this book have simply assumed that all mentallyill people deserve to be locked away for fear of them hurting others.Thisis an incorrect assumption.

Madness of this book.
this book is ok, and banned in one country, guess

a learning journey
Cosi offers an opportunity to view life through the eyes of someone different. Lewis is on a journey of discovery; learning about himself his lover and the people around him. Cosi says something to us about the way wetreat others, lies and deception hurt. Love is a universal theme.

Reality is Deceiving
In Cosi, mental patients teach Lewis a lot about life in and out of the walls of the institution, a major theme being that of reality and deception. Lewis is directing a play for the inmates. ... Read more