Editor: Elizabeth McMahon
This issue of Australian Humanities Review focuses on the War on Terror, Australia’s role and responsibilities, and the politics of representation.
Target Essays
In ‘Public Opinion and the Democratic Deficit: Australia and the War Against Iraq’ Murray Goot examines tensions between the federal government and public opinion over Australia’s involvement in the war on Iraq.
In ‘August 26, 2001: Two or Three Things Australians Don’t Seem to Want to Know About “Asylum Seekers” …’, Ian Buchanan examines the hysteria around Asylum Seekers to claim: “History will have to record that Australia’s involvement in the ‘War on Terror’ and the ‘War against Iraq’ began on August 26, 2001 when the MV Tampa rescued 433 asylum seekers from the sinking ferryboat, Palapa 1.”
Essays
In a paper given at the University of Sydney Julian Murphet responds to the proposition that ‘September 11 has changed Literary Studies’.
Lainie Jones’ discussion of 9/11 considers how ‘Life Imitates Art: The Chronotope of the Twin Towers in Fact and Fiction’.
Binoy Kampmark’s essay ‘Wars that never take place: Non-events, 9/11 and Wars on Terrorism’ interrogates recent events through Baudrillard’s critiques of the Gulf War and September 11, specifically his designation of ‘events’ and ‘non-events’.
Janie Conway-Herron’s meditative essay ‘Walking Manhattan: Mapping the Heart’ reflects on the imbrications of personal account and master narratives in commemorations of 9/11.
Themed Reviews
Marita Bullock reviews ‘The Devil’s Rope: A Cultural History of Barbed Wire‘ by Alan Krell.
Lyndall Ryan reviews Marilyn Lake’s biography of Faith Bandler, Faith Bandler, Gentle Activist
Non-Themed Reviews
In ‘Camp Excess and Queer Histories of Oz’ David McInnes reviews Robert Reynolds’ From Camp to Queer: Remaking the Australian Homosexualand David Coad’s Gender Trouble Down Under: Australian Masculinities
Bernadette Brennan compares two recent histories of Australian theatre: Michelle Arrow’s Upstaged: Australian women dramatists in the limelight at last, and Julian Meyrick’s See How It Runs: Nimrod and the New Wave.