Hecate has from the mid-1970s published work from cross-disciplinary perspectives that contest hegemonic received ideas regarding gender, class, ethnicity and race, and sexualities, and how these things have played out at particular times in particular places. In this issue, Fiona Duthie's article discusses some female characters in Janette Turner Hospital's novels who aim at 'interesting forms of internationalism' and who challenge 'cultural and political systems that seek to enforce division,' so that the can try 'to achieve the truth and justice thy so earnestly desire against the backdrop of the general bleakness.' While this could be said of many fictional female characters in much of the literature of the past decades, the reference her to 'bleakness' seems particularly apposite when 'interpreting the world' in 2016.' (Editorial 4)
Only literary material by or about Australian authors or with Australian themes are individually indexed. Other material in this issue includes:
– Speaking as a Settler Chinese Woman in Aotearoa New Zealand : An 'Utterly Charming Picture of Oriental Womanhood' by Grace Yee
– The Third Body : Cixous' Feminine Trinity by Yael Klangwisan
– Cover : Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox : Red Rain
An investigation of Aileen Palmer's letters to her parents while she was living in London during the Blitz in 1940.
'Over the last thirty years, Janette Turner Hospital has produced an oeuvre of work that is predominantly dark and unsettling. Many societies are presented as rigidly hierarchical and compartmentalized. Status and even identity are most often determined by the accidents of birth and circumstance. Perpetual conflict rages among the various factions and horrendous crimes are committed both globally and domestically against innocent individuals. However, as this article will demonstrate, though thoroughly acknowledging its might, these novels are not entirely resigned to the immutability of the status quo. Throughout her canon, Turner Hospital explores a sublet form of power that belongs principally to women. In the majority of works, at least one woman is able continuously and seamlessly to move from one class, creed or nation to another. Their peregrinations and metamorphoses reveal potentialities for cultural and political systems that seek to enforce division. From The Ivory Swing (1992) to The Claimant (2014), this article traces the means employed to such women to achieve the truth and justice they so earnestly desire set against the backdrop of the general bleakness.' (116)
