The decline of Australian country life is not new - either as a phenomenon or as a popular fear. Contemporary interest in this area is often highlighted in hopeful policy frameworks for the revitalisation of town and countryside. The continuing interaction between our dreams of the Australian countryside and the reality of its decline is the key focus of Struggle Country: The Rural Ideal in Twentieth Century Australia. Linking present concerns to history, this collection of essays looks at how the dreams of progress that captured the imagination of country towns and regions, city politicians and even historians themselves, led to specific positive and negative outcomes in these areas, which in turn influenced how these regions were treated.

Struggle Country: The Rural Ideal in Twentieth Century Australia

History

Australia & Oceania

Monash University Publishing

Fault Lines Exposed intends to understand inequality across Australian cities and towns. Social and economic change in Australia has resulted in the emergence of disparities in advantage and disadvantage between metropolitan communities and regional localities, towns and cities. In 1999 the book Community Opportunity and Vulnerability (Baum et al.) considered the disparities that existed between communities using 1996 census data. This new book, available both online and in print, uses up-to-date data to reanalyse the patterns and consider the important policy issues that arise from the patterns identified. Fault Lines Exposed provides insight into advantage and disadvantage at an aggregate community or locality level. Such insight is necessary to better understand what is happening in society. It helps in the planning of effective solutions to problems that impact not only on individuals and families but also on communities. Each of the chapters outlines the main findings from the typology of advantage and disadvantage. The book concludes with a strong policy orientation, addressing possible options and raising more policy questions. Fault Lines Exposed will be essential reading for academics, researchers, students, policy makers and other professionals working in the areas of geography, sociology, economics and social work.

Fault Lines Exposed: Advantage and Disadvantage Across Australia's Settlement System

O'CONNOR, Kevin

Stimson, Robert

Baum, Scott

In the late 1990s, Carolyn Landon collaborated with Daryl Tonkin to write his memoir of life at Jackson's Track. It was the story of a White man and his Aboriginal family, of family ties, hard work, happiness, betrayal, racial prejudice and ultimately, from Daryl's point of view, tragic dispossession. Since being published in 2000, Jackson's Track has sold more than 60,000 copies. Now, Carolyn Landon has come back to the events of the story to examine them anew. In Jackson's Track Revisited, the voices of Aboriginal people who lived at the Track mingle with those of the White Australians who tried to 'improve' their lives in the 1950s, the era of assimilation. An exploration of the historical factors surrounding Tonkin's story leads to discussion of the Victorian Aborigines Welfare Board, the Victorian Aborigines Advancement League and the policy of assimilation that was so prevalent in mid-twentieth century Australia. This concise book contains many surprises. The new stories take complex twists and turns as Landon explores the motives of all the players - and this involves revisiting Tonkin's own memories. As Landon seeks others' interpretations of events, she also analyses her own changing understandings, uncovering the prejudices she, as interviewer, researcher and historian, has brought to the project. The testimony of one Aboriginal participant is particularly unforeseen and forthright. It shows that the way the Kurnai people see themselves has escaped the constructions White Australians have placed upon them ever since invasion. Finally, Jackson's Track Revisited focuses on the friendship between Landon and Pauline Mullett, daughter of Daryl Tonkin. Mullett leads Landon into her existing culture - a culture which many White people believed no longer existed - helping Landon to find meaning in all the stories.

Jackson's Track Revisited: History, Remembrance and Reconciliation

Landon, Carolyn

Americas

South Pacific Museums: Experiments in Culture is a collection of outstanding analyses of museums in the South Pacific, written by cultural, museum and architectural critics, and historians. A series of snapshots introduce the reader to key museums in the region and longer essays explore these museums in broad terms. Over the last 50 years, museums have been regarded by many scholars and cultural critics as archaic institutions far from the cutting edge of cultural innovation. This judgement is being proved wrong across the globe, with innovative museums staking out new territory. Nowhere is this more striking than in the South Pacific where new and redeveloped institutions have included the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, the National Museum of Australia, the Melbourne Museum, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, the Museum of Sydney, the Gab Titui Cultural Centre in the Torres Strait, the Auckland Museum, the Centre Culturel Tjibaou and the Vanuatu Cultural Centre. South Pacific Museums make sense of these museums as part of the complex field of heritage, where national economies meet global tourism, cities brand themselves, and indigeneity articulates with colonialism. The effect is one of cultural experimentation. Part One, 'New Museums', introduces three different museums in distinctive national contexts - Te Papa, the Centre Culturel Tjibaou and the National Museum of Australia. Essays in this part grapple with the role of these museums in the nation at particular historical moments under specific political pressures. Part Two, 'New Knowledges', documents practices and exhibitions at the point of tension between indigenous and non-indigenous interests in the museum. Part three, 'New Experiences', explores the ways in which museums in the South Pacific are producing that ineffable cultural phenomenon - experience.

South Pacific Museums: Experiments in Culture

Reference

The Spirit of Secular Art: A History of the Sacramental Roots of Contemporary Artistic Values explains the spiritual prestige of art. Various theorists have discussed how art has an aura or indefinable magic. This book explains how, when and why it gained its spiritual properties. The idea that all art is somehow spiritual (even though not religious) is often assumed; this book, while narrating the historical trajectory of art in the most accessible language, reveals how the mysteries of religious practice are abstracted and saved through all stages of secularisation in European culture. The Spirit of Secular Art presents a coherent theory defining the sacred basis of Western aesthetics. It evocatively describes the afterlife of the holy from Ancient Greece to the present, and outlines how the mysterious institution of art can be explained in material terms. Unlike other books in the genre, The Spirit of Secular Art radically deconstructs traditional art history in terms of 'prestige' and the value of the non-material. The book functions as: an alternative critical history of art, integrated with the histories of literature and belief; a philosophical essay on the fundamental values of art and religion; and a critique of the spiritual conceits of contemporary aesthetics and art appreciation.

The Spirit of Secular Art: A History of the Sacramental Roots of Contemporary Artistic Values

Arts & Photography

Nelson,Robert

History & Criticism

No Way to Go: Transport and Social Disadvantage in Australian Communities

Urban sprawl and sparse living are pervasive in Australia. Despite high levels of car ownership, many Australians do not have access to a private car for their travel needs. These people, often from marginalised groups in society such as young people, those on low incomes, older people, indigenous Australians and those with disabilities, face difficulties accessing services, facilities and activities. What are the personal and social costs of lack of access to transport on individual and community well-being? How, and to what extent, do poor transport options contribute to disadvantage? No Way to Go is an edited collection of papers that discuss the links between transport disadvantage and social exclusion in Australia. The book begins by exploring the global context for the Australian experience, with a series of papers from international contributors. In the second section, case studies based on recent empirical research examine the situation from the perspectives of different marginalised groups in Australian society. The book concludes by examining the implications for Australian social and transport policy.

Learning Discourses and the Discourses of Learning is an edited collection of papers exploring issues of teaching and learning in academic settings. The key theme of the volume is 'discourses' - especially as these relate to institutional policies, disciplinary practices and students' processes of learning in the academy. Particular attention is paid to the experiences of second-language students studying at Australian universities as well as those learning foreign languages in Australia. Employing a variety of methodologies and theoretical perspectives, the papers in Learning Discourses are unified by a focus on rich and socially situated empirical data. The book addresses issues highly pertinent to the dynamic character of contemporary higher education in Australia, one dominated by trends towards the internationalisation and professionalisation of university programs, and the growing intercultural nature of social and academic interactions. Part one covers issues of discourse and change, exploring processes of discourse acquisition and production in a range of disciplinary contexts, along with the nexus between academic and professional discourses. Part two deals with broader issues of the participation and socialisation of students in second-language-use situations, ranging from macro (social planning and policy) issues to the micro (interpersonal) level. Part three looks at the social mediation of foreign language learning covering a range of tertiary and secondary settings in Australia and has a particular focus on Japanese as a foreign language. This book is intended for academics and students - postgraduate and undergraduate - working in foreign language programs, academic and language support programs, and applied linguistics.

Learning Discourses and the Discourses of Learning

Words, Language & Grammar

Orb and Sceptre brings together recent cutting-edge work on British imperialism by Australian researchers closely associated with Norman Etherington, one of Australia's most eminent scholars in this field. Orb and Sceptre reflects the trajectory of British Empire history in the academy over the last forty years. Demands for new nationalist histories for decolonised territories have combined with renewed attention to the role of the periphery in the making and unmaking of empires. This has formed an explosive mix that has blown apart traditional conceptions of Empire and Commonwealth history. The colonial construction of knowledge is a principal theme in Orb and Sceptre. Former colonies and dependencies looked to a fresh generation of historians to write their histories, generally conceived as grand narratives of escape from imperial shackles. At the same time, a new wave of scholars influenced by feminism, neo-Marxism, dependency theory and postcolonialism laid the groundwork for a renaissance in Empire and Commonwealth history. These historians have been rediscovering the links that continue to connect former colonies to their imperial pasts. This book offers: A showcase of new studies in British Imperialism by Australian and international scholars, highlighting cutting-edge approaches and areas of interest from cultural studies to biography and landscape studies, as well as traditional areas such as political history, immigration, and military history; Exciting new research on Australian, Asian and African history; and A bibliography of the works of Norman Etherington. The book is enlivened by a wide range of illustrative material, including photos, drawings and maps. Orb and Sceptre is a festschrift in honour of Norman Etherington, one of Australia's most eminent scholars of imperialism.

Orb and Sceptre: Studies in British Imperialism and Its Legacies, in Honour of Norman Etherington

Europe

Australians in Italy: Contemporary Lives and Impressions

Long before the advent of modern tourism, Australians have travelled to live in Italy, or have undertaken extensive visits there. Indeed they continue to do so in increasing numbers, as women and men find Italian partners; as business people with European interests settle there; as retirees in their thousands seek 'the good life' that Italy - in Ros Pesman's words, this 'culturally endowed place of rebirth' - seems to promise. While many are familiar with celebrated expatriates such as Germaine Greer, Jeffrey Smart, Peter Robb and David Malouf, hundreds of other artists, writers, musicians and intellectuals have made and continue to make a notable contribution to the cultural and intellectual life of both countries. Whilst Australian studies flourishes in Italian universities, Australian academics write distinguished accounts of Italian history covering various eras. Despite this sustained activity, the scholarly and cultural engagement of Australians with Italy is not a well known story. This collection seeks to map the past and present of the Australian love affair with Italy, yielding rich insights into its causes, motivations and transformations. Contributors include former Australian Ambassador to Italy Rory Steele, poet Peter Porter, contemporary artists Euan Heng and Jo-Anne Duggan, as well as distinguished academics and young scholars. Amongst the diverse range of articles and vignettes, Ian Britain writes on Donald Friend's Italian years, Loretta Baldassar explores the phenomenon of reverse migration, and novelist Lisa Clifford reflects on her family ties with Italy. Australians in Italy will appeal to scholars and students of migration and multi-culturalism, Australian Studies and Italian Studies, tourism and travel. It will also delight those interested in Italy and all things Italian - people of Italo-Australian background, armchair and actual travellers, sojourners in Italy, and the general reader.

Australians in Italy: Contemporary Lives and Impressions (Monash Studies in Australian Society)

Australians have always loved a good show, as this new collection of essays demonstrates. The significance of exhibitions goes beyond mere entertainment. From the 1850s to the present, exhibitions have been a marketing tool for Australia's advancements in global trade, migration and tourism. They have also been powerful vehicles for conspicuous consumption, civic progress, social status, and identity - be it local, national or international. This multi-disciplinary collection presents new research on a fascinating variety of exhibitions from nineteenth-century World Fairs to late twentieth-century Expos. Contributors are leading museum professionals and academics from a range of disciplines including art history, the history of design, literary studies, indigenous history, cultural and social history and the history of science. Seize the Day examines the complex role of exhibitions within Australia's cultural, commercial and artistic histories. Exhibitions are dynamic sites for the construction of national identities and international collaborations, the showcasing of collecting and exhibiting practices, and the expression and contestation of race and gender. Detailed case studies explore the many facets of exhibitions - from ethnographic display to artistic competition to intercolonial rivalry - to reveal their politics, personalities and astonishingly rich material culture. As the first book to address the exhibition movement in Australia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Seize the Day will become the standard collection on this topic for years to come.

Seize The Day: Exhibitions: Exhibitions, Australia and the World

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