Originally published here On Violence by Natasha Stott Despoja The On Series by Melbourne University Publishing are touted as “little books on big ideas” and feature well known writers and identities covering topics such as Germaine Greer writing about rape, Leigh Sales on doubt and Stan Grant on identity. Natasha Stott Despoja’s contribution to the series, On Violence, focuses…
Image by Sharon Ang from Pixabay Seeking Justice in Cambodia: Human Rights Defenders Speak Out Sue Coffey Melbourne University Publishing Cambodia is a country that has experienced immense suffering due to the Khmer Rouge genocide under the leadership of Pol Pot in the late 1970s, Vietnamese invasion and ongoing socio-political and economic suppression. Modern Cambodia…
Image by faszynelka from Pixabay Radical Heart Shireen Morris Melbourne University Publishing Dr Shireen Morris is a constitutional lawyer and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Melbourne where she focuses on indigenous constitutional recognition. Hailing from Fijian-Indian immigrant parents who made their home in Melbourne, Morris worked for seven years on the Uluru Statement from the…
The Fox Hunt: Four strangers, thirteen days, and one man’s amazing journey to safety Mohammed Al Samawi Scribe Publications Mohammed Al Samawi’s The Fox Hunt starts dramatically on March 22, 2015 in Aden, Yemen. Al Samawi is stuck in the bathroom in his new apartment where he’d fled to escape the constant threats on his life during…
Photo by Steve Johnson from Pexels Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia Edited by Anita Heiss Black Inc. Dr Anita Heiss, Wiradjuri woman and prolific writer with the well-known 2012 memoir Am I Black Enough For You in her back catalogue, has published the anthology Growing up Aboriginal in Australia, a collection of short stories from a diverse number of…
Peggy E Chaudhry (ed), Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017 hb The increased ease with which international trade and commerce occurs across the globe brings with it not only the ability to reach new audiences and markets for goods and services but also the ever-present threat of counterfeiting and illicit trade. This is a comprehensive and well…
Ways of Being Here Rafeif Ismail, Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes, Tinashe Jakwa and Yuot Alaak Margaret River Press Ways of Being Here is a collection of stories by African-Australian writers showcasing a diaspora that receives little attention in contemporary Australian writing. The four writers, Rafeif Ismail, Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes, Tinashe Jakwa, and Yuot Alaak, trace their lineage…
Australia as a Good International Citizen Alison Pert, Federation Press, 2014, $125 ($112.50 for members through Law Books) Can a state be considered to be a good international citizen? Is there a standard to measure the reputation of a state, and if so how does one go about evaluating it in a meaningful way? Australia…
Frances Dolan’s True Relations: Reading, Literature, and Evidence in Seventeenth-Century England is a textual journey into the meaning of ‘true relations’, which refers, in simple terms, to the credible reportage of happenings often backed up with well-intentioned documentation attesting to one account’s worthiness over any other ‘true relation’. Dolan is keenly interested in debates surrounding…
More to the Story: Conversations with Refugees Rosemary Sayer Margaret River Press As the major political parties in Australia shifted into election mode earlier this year, the topic of refugees was almost always one that elicited an emotional response, with questions like ‘who are these people?’, ‘why did they come here?’ and ‘why should we…
