The sexual body has emerged in contemporary western fiction with an explicitness formerly the preserve of illicit or underground texts, a move which has been celebrated by some cultural critics for the liberatory possibilities it is seen to promise. In this unit students will consider the figuring of the sexual body and the desiring subject in Australian women's writings since the 1970s, particularly in terms of the historical and cultural conditions of their production, including the effects of prevailing discourses concerning liberation and transgression. Students will study texts by Helen Garner, Mary Fallon, Dorothy Porter and Marion Campbell among others.