y separately published work icon Griffith Review periodical issue  
Alternative title: Imagining the Future
Issue Details: First known date: 2016... no. 52 2016 of Griffith Review est. 2003- Griffith Review
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Notes

  •  Only literary material within AustLit's scope individually indexed. Other material in this issue includes:

    To a new Babylon — Brendan Gleeson

    World in motion — Tim Flannery

    Accommodating new perspectives — John Wiseman

    President Kennedy's topper — Antony Funnell

    Future perfect — Richard King

    Living with complexity — Peter Doherty

    Notes from an underground future — Andy Merrifield

     The tale of two cities — Rob Adams

    A new mother tongue — Jane Gleeson-White

    Depending on the final yes — Al Gore

    Up in smoke — Cathy Alexander

    New power, new realities — Kathy Marks

    The final frontier — Leah Kaminsky

    Revolution on wheels — Tony Davis

    An empty house — Siobhan Harvey

    Transforming the bush — Paul Daley

    Persephone's picnic — Kieran Finnane

    A landscape of stories — Nick Gadd

    To everything there is a season... — Libby Robin

Contents

* Contents derived from the 2016 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
The Great Unmapping Project of 2016, Tony Birch , single work short story
'In the time before the bay, before the ice began to slip away, the men and women and the children mapped the land with the soles of their feet, drawing and tracing tracks from the edge of the sea in the south to the mountains behind them in the north, marking Country as they hunted emu and kangaroo, and as they dug for crops. With the melting of the ice the sea came forward, creeping across the land, swallowing many of the tracks, the fresh-water holes, the yam digs and ceremonial sites. The sea was hungry and refused to stop and soon enough the mouth of the river, the 'Birrung', was swallowed and its veins were pushed back toward the mountains. The men and women, witness to their loss, sat and spoke and agreed to call upon Bunjil to act for them. And he did. He came to them with three boulders. One he placed at the edge of the encroaching sea. The other two he placed side-by-side at the submerged mouth of the river that lay now beneath the salted water. Bunjil moved forward and spoke to the sea. He demanded it come no further, that it might lap at the boulder he had placed at its edge, but never swallow it. He then pierced the ground with a line of sticks, separating land from sea and told the sea to come no closer to the land. He also demanded of the sea that as it had taken the heart of the 'Birrung' it would now protect it. He asked that the river bed that lay beneath the salted water remain untouched, and that when the time came, in the 'future', the sea would allow the river to rise again. The sea agreed, but explained to Bunjil that in the 'future' the 'ghosts' would come and they would disturb both the river and the sea. The sea explained that it had moved forward to protect the river, to blanket it before the 'ghosts' arrived. Bunjil himself had been unable to witness this future and thought it may be a trick. But the sea assured him that it was so, and that it would be ready to fight for both itself and the river. Bunjil spoke to the men and women of the 'future' that only the sea knew and assured them that it would act with them...' (Abstract)
(p. 50-54)
De-nazification and Blake's Illustration to Purgatory Canto 9 (lines 64-101)i"Snow is falling white-out", John Kinsella , single work poetry (p. 138-141)
Season of Hope, Chris Womersley , single work short story
'Mr F was short and squat, well dressed, with the sort of small, dry hands you might expect of a bureaucrat. I was horrified to observe a tiny spot of tomato sauce on his striped tie. At least I hoped it was tomato sauce. He entered the hotel room quickly, before the door was even fully open, slipping inside with more agility than I'd expect of someone of his age and build. What we were doing was highly illegal; the appointment had been complicated to organise, and arranged through an intermediary. I'd never met anyone like him before - anyone who did what he did, I mean - and I was anxious. Besides that, I didn't even know his real name, so, without thinking, I stuck out my hand and said, 'You must be the abortionist.'...' (Abstract)
(p. 158-168)
The City Algorithmi"this image is a computer-generated projection of a standard 2040 global", Bruce Petty , single work poetry (p. 177-178)
City Dreaming : Making Peace with Belonging, Graeme Davison , single work criticism

'These words, spoken by an old Aboriginal man to the anthropologist WEH Stanner more than six decades ago, still resonate in the Australian imagination. There is pity in the speaker's words and wistfulness in Stanner's as he recalls them. In following his own road, the white man has missed a better way: the mysterious Aboriginal man's knowledge he called 'Dreaming'. Dreaming, Stanner explains in his famous essay of the same name, is not just a mythical world located in a distant past, but a living force that operates in the here and now. It defies the pervasive binaries of Western thought -present/ past, nature/culture, sacred/profane - testifying instead to a deep 'abidingness' manifest in the intimate relationship between Indigenous people and their land. 'No English words are good enough to give a sense of the link between an Aboriginal group and its homeland,' Stanner later wrote in 'The Dreaming and Other Essays' (Black Inc., 2009). The Dreaming expresses a belonging beyond the white man's ability to understand or attain.' (Publication abstract)

(p. 202-216)
This Essay Is Good for My KPIs: On Bureaucracy and the Politics of Imagination, David Carlin , single work autobiography
'Last December, I was planning to write an essay on the politics of the imagination for this magazine. But then I felt so worn out by worrying about how to urgently cut a lot of money from next year's budget in my corner of the university, as happens every year at this time, while at the same time worrying about how to urgently spend a lot of money from last year's budget, as happens every year at this time, and then too, worrying about whether our fabulous research group (being only a capital-G Group and not a capital-C Centre) might be left out when the new capital-P Platforms come on line, not to mention worrying about whether my staff had exceeded or only met expectations against their objectives, both cascaded and individual, and how I would handle any difficult conversations with them without having been to any of the four free management coaching sessions I was entitled to - in sum, worrying about a myriad such things, big and small - that I gave up. However, refreshed after the Christmas break, I reconsidered. For one reason, such an essay, in such a distinguished outlet, would be good for my KPIs...' (Abstract)
(p. [259]-268)
Triangulation: In Ironbark Country, Inga Simpson , single work autobiography
'Ironbarks, as their name suggests, are tough trees. Their outer covering is thick, rough and deeply furrowed. Dead bark is not shed but accumulates. As it dies, it is infused with kino, a dark red sap or gum. The kino ensures that the bark is impervious to fire and heat, protecting the living tissue within - one of the many adaptations of eucalypts.' (Abstract)
(p. [295]-304)
What Happens Next, Ashley Hay , single work short story
'It was evening when Mia and her mother reached their building. Overhead, the perpetual pale overcast of the sulphur-seeded sky had flared through the terrible red of sunset and was now starting to dim. Annifrid flicked the car's headlights onto a higher beam as she guided it down, down, down to find their bay in the cavernous underground bunker of their building...' (Abstract)
(p. 305-317)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Last amended 21 Mar 2018 11:31:54
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