Cirrus@Austlit

'In October 2016, the editor of this Special Issue convened the second Australasian Death Studies Network (ADSN) conference in Noosa, Queensland. This event gathered a significant number of scholars and creative practitioners who were interested in exploring the symbolic and representational possibilities of the processes of death and dying. Following on from the first multi-disciplinary conference that established the ADSN the year before, this conference continued discussion and investigation into a range of cultural, humanities and social areas that conduct research into death and dying, including the creative arts, popular culture and health. There was a very strong representation of creative writers and creative writing researchers interested in these topics. These scholars and creative practitioners explored a wide range of topics including: representations of death and dying in literature, visual art and the media, music and various types of popular culture; Gothic representations of death, dying and the undead; and writing about death and dying across cultures and historical periods. Writing about gender, aging and trauma in relation to death and dying were also discussed, as were transgression, murder and crime fiction. The keynote address, ‘A day in the life of a funeral director’, was not only a highlight of the conference, but provided a heady measure of realism to the deliberations.' (Introduction)

'In 1981, the trial of Emily Perry in the Supreme Court of South Australia for the attempted murder of her husband by arsenic poisoning was a legal and media sensation. During her trial, strong circumstantial evidence was produced linking her with the deaths by arsenic poisoning of three other men. This article will explore aspects of the process of writing a true crime narrative in relation to writing about real deaths from a particularly brutal and painful case. It will also examine why the confrontational aspect of original archival material was important for the author to fully appreciate the moral challenge of writing about unsolved murder.'  (Publication abstract)

'In the process of writing my memoir about living with my adoptive parents, I have had to reconstruct their lives through the objects and things that they left behind. Our communication as a family – I was an only child – was fractured, difficult, sometimes non-existent. They kept secrets and spoke little about certain key aspects of their lives so that I knew little about them; this became clear after the death of my adoptive mother in 2001, when I discovered letters, documents, and a series of other objects that not only filled in gaps about their lives, but also told new stories. The photograph has been referred to as a ‘melancholy object’ by both Barthes and Sontag, and discussed as such by Gibson, and there is a photo of my parents in the 1950s, laughing together on their motor-boat, for which this description resonates. It is both my favourite image of them and an impossible contradiction, as I knew them only long after that time, when things had become more difficult, the boat had gone, and with it, seemingly, their happiness. This paper will discuss the use of such objects in the writing of memoir, with reference to my own experience and that of other adoptees in writing memoir.'  (Publication abstract)

'Capital punishment was common practice in the early decades of colonial Australia: the malefactor swinging from the end of a hangman’s noose a well-known sight. Crimes of anti-social behaviour, food and forgery were of central concern to the early colonists, with the criminal act most likely to result in an executioner plying his craft being the stealing of food. The first person hanged in the new colony, for the theft of butter, peas and pork provisions, was young Thomas Barrett, executed one month and one day after the arrival of the First Fleet in New South Wales. Murder quickly followed crimes motivated by greed, hunger, and slovenliness, with punishment for such acts also quickly applied by administrators. Yet, the very brutal murder, in Sydney in August 1803, of Constable Joseph Luker – the first officer of the law to be slain in the pursuit of his duty in Australia – went largely unpunished due to a lack of evidence and a twist of fate. This paper discusses the death of Constable Luker and how his story was written, and offers a brief analysis of the non-death of those considered responsible for such a violent crime in the context of the colony’s punishment systems.'  (Publication abstract)

'The Australian beach has often been considered in academic approaches as a place of binaries – focusing on either the mythic (Fiske, Hodge and Turner 1987) or the ordinary (Morris 1998). An edge to the Australian continent, the liminal space of the beach is one that has received some attention. Using Edward Soja’s (1996) ‘Thirdspace’ concept allows the beach to challenge the space as a liminality and emerge as a more complex beachspace, both mythic and ordinary and more all at once. The Australian beach is a place of significant beauty, while simultaneously a place of risk and danger. Visitors to the space are immediately warned to only swim between the flags, and many beaches are patrolled for the majority of the day all throughout the year. Technology has been employed to identify risk despite the inherent unpredictability of the beach (such as shark sighting technology, weather predictions, and wave cameras), with an aim to provide a safe, everyday space available to all Australians to use. The potential risks of accidental death are high on the beach; however, many representations of death tend to include homicide or suicide. ‘Facing death’ is interested in examining how Australian writers of the beach portray death. Classic texts like Nevil Shute’s On the Beach (1957) are discussed alongside more contemporary texts, including Fiona Capp’s Night Surfing (1996), Tim Winton’s Dirt Music (2001), and Romy Ash’s Floundering (2012). These writers portray death as an inevitability or a continual threat. Films such as Newcastle (2008) represent accidental death in a tight knit local community; in comparison Blackrock (1997) deals with both murder and suicide. This paper illustrates how examining the beach as a more complex space by interrogating Australian writing on the subject allows for an interesting understanding of how death is represented on the Australian beach.' (Publication abstract)

'When nurses are featured in narratives associated with death and dying, the common stereotype of the good nurse – of mother, or angel of mercy – is often invoked. Although such imaging can be flattering for nurses, whose work might otherwise go unnoticed and unappreciated, this representation is also unrealistic and dehumanising. Darker representations of nurses, and particularly the uncomfortable or profane aspects of nursing work, are not only rare outside of the horror genre, they have also largely escaped examination. Consequently, writers, as well as others including the public and those involved in the practice, teaching and scholarship of nursing, have a limited lexicon with which to describe that large part of nursing work which is situated in the realm of the abject, turbulent and traumatic. This article examines Franco’s film, Chronic (2015), which features a nurse who works in home-based palliative care, and whose character defies stereotypes. Analysing this richly drawn character and what this characterisation reveals about the world in which he operates, provides a case study of writing characters against powerful stereotypes and writing ambiguity.'  (Publication abstract)

'In A Natural History of the Romance Novel (2003), Pamela Regis argues that all romance novels have eight essential elements including one she terms the ‘point of ritual death’. This is a moment when the heroine and hero seem unlikely to overcome the real or imagined obstacles preventing their ‘happily ever after’. While the ‘point of ritual death’ can be literal or metaphorical, romance novels traditionally opt for symbolic forms of death such as illness, failing or unsuccessful relationships, or brushes with real death for the heroine or other characters. Representations of ritual death in Australian rural romance novels appear intense in a conspicuous way. In rural romances, ritual death frequently takes on deeper, darker forms arguably amplified by the rural setting. Death also occurs outside the ritual death scene; the death of a family member may serve as a story’s premise, a murder mystery may be entangled with the romantic plot or life and death may visit the rural characters at any time, especially where multi-generation families are concerned. This paper examines the representation of death in selected contemporary Australian rural romance novels published between 2002 and 2017. This article argues that literal and metaphorical representations of environmental, animal and human deaths appear in rural romances frequently and powerfully in various forms. Many rural romance novels fearlessly conjure existential realities that reinforce death as a vital part of the cycle of life.' (Publication abstract)

'This article discusses response and response-ability to shocking real-world events and images that influence our daily interactions with vulnerable others who we do not know. It argues that response-ability includes an ethical obligation to respond, and to facilitate response-ability for self and others. It takes the witnessing of a young man who died while train-surfing as an example of an event that demands response. The description of this tragic circumstance may be disturbing. The article identifies writing as an ethical response.'  (Publication abstract)

'Rhetoric can serve as a useful tool in the creative writing process, providing insights into the construction of cultural meanings. Using the tools of visual rhetoric, this article explores one Australian funeral company’s use of marketing images that consciously subvert the traditionally gendered depiction of funerals and mourning. The author analysed the company logo and 14 banner images found on the marketing pages of the White Lady Funerals website. Findings from the analysis reveal a new and potent construction of the role of women in the mourning process which both reinforces traditional elements of female visual presentation while actively subverting the dominant symbols of women as passive and prostrate victims of mourning. Equally important, the analysis for this paper serves as a useful tool for the creative writing process.'  (Publication abstract)

Research background

When health professionals care for a family member, it can feel like a blessing, a curse, or both. The health professional may know too much information, resulting in them experiencing greater anxiety than a lay carer. Or, they may be a more effective patient advocate, often knowing what questions to ask, about possible treatment options, and how to navigate the health system. The literature has significant gaps in describing methods that can assist health professionals struggling with blurred roles when they experience the illness and death of a family member.