Naarah Sawers Naarah Sawers i(A109362 works by)
Gender: Female
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Works By

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1 Australian Fairy-tale Films Elizabeth Bullen , Naarah Sawers , 2015 single work criticism
— Appears in: Fairy-Tale Films Beyond Disney : International Perspectives 2015; (p. 233-245) 'In this chapter's first section, we explain why we do not include Aboriginal narratives and, therefore, why we focus on the European fairy-tale tradition's influence in regard to the Australian fairy-tale literature of the 1890s and the films we later discuss. We draw attention to the recurring trope of the "lost child" as a signifier of the anxieties of colonial identity. The centrality of national identity in Australian cinema, complicated by the fluctuating fortunes of the domestic film industry, has also had an impact on the production of fairy-tale films in Australia. We outline these matters in the second section, where we survey a range of fairy-tale films made since the 1970s, asking what makes a fairy-tale film Australian. Finally, we present three studies based on what we identify as the dominant and emergent features of Australian fairy-tale films. Our aim is to be representative, not comprehensive, and to focus on films that are distinctly Australian in flavour. The first study returns to the lost-child figure. The second discusses revisionist fairy-tale films, focusing on how an Australian cultural disposition inflects the "happily ever after" ending. The last study discusses recent developmental short films, which we suggest may herald the birth of uniquely Australian fairy tales.' (pp.233-234)
1 Intra-Active : The Child/Animal in Children's SF Naarah Sawers , 2006 single work criticism
— Appears in: Papers : Explorations into Children's Literature , December vol. 16 no. 2 2006; (p. 23-28) In a close reading of Gillian Rubenstein's Galax-Arena, Sawers examines how children's science fiction novels reflect and mediate the overarching influence of science and biotechnology as an authority on the production of 'new realities' (23). Sawers contends that narratives that engender a particular set of responses to science and its treatment of bodies are fundamentally political and hence, deserve close analysis, particularly as children's bodies are a crucial part of biomedical research. Sawers argues that children's SF is both constitutive of and produced by the biotechnological imaginary and it is through 'literature that challenges the boundaries of science and fiction that the anxieties surrounding the animal-human hybrid are articulated' (27). What needs to be considered and critiqued, says Sawers, is whether such articulations 'simply reinscribe humanist ideology and the division between science and humanities or offer a more responsible engagement with scientific practices' (23).
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