'Since its inception, The Australasian Journal of Popular Culture has published some of the most exciting new research in the area of popular culture. This has included work on varied aspects of Australasian popular culture, and research by a range of Australasian scholars. While, however, a feature of the journal, this focus on Australasian content and writers has not excluded the inclusion of a wide range of international subject matter and contributing authors. This combination has, indeed, become a signature strength of this journal, and this issue is no exception.' (Introduction)
'Despite the challenges and difficulties involved in crafting a viable living as a professional creative writer, a number of Australian women sustained careers as popular writers in the twentieth century. Some of these worked across multiple genres, media and professional descriptors, maintaining what can be described as portfolio careers. This case study recognizes that the task of writing the lives of such popular writers is important because, in addition to restoring women to the historical record, such narratives make an important contribution towards understanding the production and consumption of popular writing. Margaret Dunn (1919–2011) worked for 70 years as a popular journalist, radio dramatist, cookbook writer and historian in Adelaide, Sydney, New York, New Delhi and Geneva. In addition to outlining the trajectory of her life, this study provides the first profile of her career as a popular writer and of the narratives that she constructed and published for both Australian and international audiences. This will include discussion of the ‘golden age’ of radio and the roles that women played in the production of this media, her bestselling cookbook Mother’s Best Recipes (1974) and how she wrote engaging institutional and family histories that reached mainstream audiences.' (Publication abstract)
'Literature can function as a lens through which social values are mediated. This characteristic acquires particular relevance in the case of children’s and young adult literatures as the world-view of the young readership is especially susceptible to the ideologies articulated in literary works. This article investigates the critical depiction of Australian multicultural society in Alice Pung’s novel Laurinda (2014). By analysing the role of food in both the novel’s plot and its figurative language, the article explores the novel’s illustration of the alienation of Asian minorities that is triggered by instances of overt and casual racism. The tangibility of foodways enables the illustration of how a lack of interaction between distinct social classes and ethnic groups is conducive to an absence of cross-group understanding that contributes towards the conflation of class, cultural and racial differences and prevents the achievement of the multicultural dream.' (Publication abstract)
