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"Fashioning the Feminine" is a critical consideration of the roles played by popular culture and schooling in the construction of teenage female identity, and the possibilities that exist for challenges and change to that identity. Much has been written in the past decade about the ways in which popular cultural texts construct and legitimize particular images of femininity and masculinity. At the same time, there has been a recognition of the need for schools to provide classroom space and time for the real lived experiences of students. This book explores a field that is now of major concern to a number of different disciplines - sociology, gender studies, literary theory, socio-linguistics, cultural studies and education studies - and to anyone interested in the relationships between gender, culture and education. "Pam Gilbert is a Senior Lecturer in Education at James Cook University, Townsville. She is particularly interested in issues linking literature, language, gender and schooling practices, and is the author of "Coming out from under, Contemporary Australian women writers, Gender, literacy and the classroom" and "Writing, schooling and deconstruction".Sandra Taylor is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology of Education at Queensland Institute of Technology. She has a special interest in gender and schooling, and in policy issues relating to the education of girls. She is co-author of "Undersanding schooling: an introductory sociology of Australian education" and "Battlers and bluestockings: women's place in Australian education. This book is intended for students and researchers in gender studies. ... Read more

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Locating Asian Australian Cultures is a timely and challenging interdisciplinary compilation that sets a contemporary benchmark for Asian Australian studies and its future directions.

In the dynamic field of diasporic Asian studies, Asian Australian Studies is an emerging and contentious area. While cognisant of issues and critical developments in North America, Europe, and Asia, Asian Australian studies forges its own specific engagements with questions of identity, racialization, and nationalisms in a world of globalized cultures and movements. This book deliberately engages with international perspectives on Asian Australian studies that offer contingent connections and address crucial questions for fields that are rapidly 'de-nationalizing'.

The volume focuses on Asian Australian cultural production and identity, presenting work that interrogates notions of belonging and citizenship, representational politics, and disciplinarity in the academy. The broad-ranging essays examine the politics of Asian Australian art and literature, as well as the area's significant interventions in disciplinary formations nationally and internationally. Other essays discuss the Vietnamese War memorial in Cabramatta, notions of the 'sacrificial Asian' in contemporary films, and Chinatown sites in Australia.

This book will be essential reading not only for researchers in Asian Australian studies but also for those with an interest in Asian diaspora and Australian studies.

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Perhaps it is this element of risk, together with the magnetism of another person's confession of shameful experience, that make us such avid readers of autobiography.

Rosamund Dalziell proposes that shame is the driving force in many Australian autobiographies. Indeed, she suggests that the representation of shame is fundamental to the autobiographical process. Shame seeks concealment-and this, she argues, explains both why this fascinating link has not before been explored and why, when it is pointed out, we immediately know it to be authentic.

The calm clarity of Rosamund Dalziell's writing strengthens her powerful insights and arguments, the most potent of which is that autobiographical confrontion with shame can heal deep wounds, both for writers and for readers. This mature and innovative book will enrich the experience of all readers of autobiography. ... Read more

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Women are rarely if ever mentioned in commentaries upon Australian Christianity and spirituality. Only exceptional women are recognized as authorities on religious matters. Why is this so? Does it matter? Don't people from the same religious tradition share similar experiences of the divine, regardless of their gender?
Rewriting God asks whether women have been writing about the divine and whether their insights are different from those contained in malestream accounts of Australian Christianity and spirituality. An analysis of the writings of popular theologians and religious commentators over the last twenty years suggests that the most popular form of spirituality among Australian theologians is Desert Spirituality. An analysis of women's autobiographical writings, however, suggests that the desert is irrelevant to many women's spiritual experiences. This book, through a close investigation of the fictions of Thea Astley, Elizabeth Jolley and Barbara Hanrahan, attempts to posit alternative forms of women's spirituality and to signal ways in which this spirituality is already being expressed.
From the evidence gathered here, it becomes obvious that traditional expressions of Australian Christianity and spirituality are gender-specific and that they have functioned to deny women's religious experiences and to silence their claims to equality in the sight and service of the divine. It becomes obvious, too, that women have been developing their own forms of religious expression and that these may be expected to supplant gradually withering images of Desert Spirituality. Whether this new imagery will strengthen Australian Christianity or whether it merely marks a decline in the authority of Christianity remains a moot point. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A missed opportunity
This is an interesting book, in parts, but it is also a missed opportunity.

The "big shift" refers to the increasing number of Australians who are moving to live close to the beach.The "third Australian culture" refers to the Australian beach culture which Salt says follows from the first Australian culture, that of "the Bush", and the second Australian culture, which was the move to the suburbs.

The reality is that the Australian beach culture is nearly as old as the bush culture and the shift to the beach has been going on for a long time.The other thing about the shift to the beach is that it is blindingly obvious to anyone who lives in Australia or visits the country, so this is not a great revelation.

There are many reasons why this shift is taking place: changes in outlook, the emergence of lifestyle aspirations, availabilty of land and infrastructure, demographics, affluence and so on.Unfortunately, Salt provides a rear-view mirror account of what has occurred, based on population statistics with little analysis of why it has occurred.This is the great missed opportunity of the book.

Most of the book does not deal with the shift to the beach. The "book" on the Big Shift is contained in the first few chapters.The rest is padding of one form or another. This padding is so obvious that chapters have no logical sequence and there isn't even a conclusion.It's just a jumble of writings.

The author, Bernard Salt, is a consultant who provides demographic-based advice to business.His public presentations are well thought out, professionally presented, logical, informative, useful and (at times) amusing.All the things that most of this book is not.

Let's hope that he is able to bring these attributes to his second book, The Big Picture: Life, Work and Relationships in the 21st Century. ... Read more

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Australian Television Culture offers a comprehensive analysis of the fundamental changes to Australian television during the 1980s and early 1990s. It provides a substantial treatment of the significance of multicultural and Aboriginal initiatives in television. Australian television was transformed during the 1980s. Cross-media ownership and audience-reach regulation redrew the map and business culture of television; leading business entrepreneurs acquired television stations and then sold them in the bust of the late 1980s; and new television services were developed for non-English-speaking and Aboriginal viewers.

Tracing the links between local, regional, national and international television services, Tom O'Regan builds a picture of Australian television. He argues that we are not just an outpost of the US networks, and that we have a distinct television culture of our own. ... Read more

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In 1913 the Australian press displayed a cosmopolitan openness to the culture of the modern world. By 1919, however, Australia had become an inward-looking society bent on keeping the outside world out - a quarantined culture. This book looks at the impact of the First World War on Australian culture, focussing on reactions to modernist art. John Williams argues that the creation of the Anzac legend, the back-to-the-land movement, notions of racial superiority and the mythology of the masculine nation were reactionary and anti-modern. Reflecting this, Australian pioneers of post-impressionism were ignored in favour of more traditional artists. This engaging book outlines the forces - social, economic, cultural, political - which led to the stagnation of Australian culture between the wars. John Williams' original and provocative work will make an important contribution to Australian cultural history. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

An excellent social analysis of Australian sporting culture
Stoddart identified sociological issues facing Australian sport back in the early 1980's, and his prophecies have been seen to come true.This book provides an excellent analyses of issues plaguing major and minorAustralian sports, including how issues such as class, gender, the mediaand corporate sponsorship have contributed to post-modern Australiansporting culture.Very easy to read, making it an excellent book foranyone interested in Australian sports sociology, and especially academics. Highly recommended. ... Read more