Issue Details: First known date: 2020... 2020 More Than ‘Rotten Apples’ : Australian Literature and the Possibility of Redemption for Men Who Abuse
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'Popular analyses of gendered violence focus on the need for an individually-focussed approach to the problem which calls for greater responsibility and accountability for individual men. Men who use violence are often viewed as bad apples; or as deviant to the moral codes which are necessary in a moral society. But contemporary Australian authors examine the socio-cultural, political and economic structures that promulgate inequality according to gender, class, age and culture. This inequality manifests in the gendered violence which Christos Tsiolkas, Richard Flanagan, Charlotte Wood, Zoe Morrison and Sofie Laguna portray as a product of neo-liberalism. The men within their fiction are affected by disconnection and individualism within our neo-liberal, patriarchal society. The male protagonists are subjects of, as well as producers of dominant practices of masculinity. Equally, their female characters are not merely passive victims of gendered power as they protest against and challenge the structures that support inequality. Through post-structural analyses which leaves room for contradiction and nuance within characters, these contemporary Australian authors are able to maintain hope for difference and redemption in the lives of men who use violence and abuse, and the women and children who are affected. They consciously avoid separating people in to categories of good or evil, or just and unjust, given that these dichotomies are central to the patriarchal and capitalistic systems of individuality and competition which they critique.' (Publication abstract) 

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    y separately published work icon JASAL Dirt vol. 20 no. 1 2020 19774589 2020 periodical issue 'This issue brings together four different sections, each of which speaks to a different aspect of JASAL and its aims, both as an academic journal and as the main publication of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature. Although primarily a peer-reviewed journal, JASAL has always attempted to reach beyond a strictly academic audience. The journal is open access and so is available to anyone interested in Australian literature, whether or not they are associated with a university library. Similarly, ‘Notes & Furphies’ is a non peer-reviewed section that invites research notes and comments on Australian literature and literary culture from general readers. In this issue we have a fantastically detailed set of notes from independent scholar Alan Thompson on how we might go about mapping the setting of chapter 3 of Joseph Furphy’s Such is Life. Since its first issue in 1994 JASAL has also been the main location for the publication of papers from the ASAL annual conference and ASAL mini-conferences. This issue contains a Special Section, guest edited by Tony Hughes d’Aeth, with a selection of papers from the ASAL’s 2019 annual conference, DIRT, held at the University of Western Australia last July. Finally, JASAL has maintained a commitment to publishing extensive reviews of scholarly works on or related to Australian literature. In this issue we have five reviews of recent works of literary criticism.' (Ellen Smith and Tony Simoes Da Silva : Introduction) 2020
Last amended 30 Jul 2020 10:54:27
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