Jessica Brooks Jessica Brooks i(A145118 works by)
Gender: Female
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Works By

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1 Subaltern Cosmopolitanism : The Question of Hospitality in Christos Tsiolkas’ Dead Europe Jessica Brooks , 2015 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 15 no. 3 2015; 'Christos Tsiolkas’ novel Dead Europe (2005) moves beyond the local to discuss the effects of a globalised neo-imperialism and its implications for Australia. Tsiolkas uses a number of spectral metaphors to emphasise the dehumanisation that is the underside of capitalism and to imply that our present is haunted not only by the injustices of a traumatic historical past but also by the injustice that is to come as a result of today’s aggressive neo-imperialisms. As many have recognised, the novel explores a ‘subaltern’ cosmopolitanism of the marginalised and oppressed. Tsiolkas explores the fact that such subaltern cosmopolitanisms reconfigure our experience of alterity under capitalist globalization, in a manner that necessitates a radical reconsideration of our contemporary ethics. As a result the novel raises many ethical questions regarding the global mistreatment of the migrant and asylum seeker. Read through the lens of Derrida’s later political interrogations, we find that Dead Europe considers the ethics of hospitality—what it means to welcome and receive the ‘other’—and explores the economic violence and racial and religious intolerance that is so often behind violations of hospitality. Key to the novel’s exploration of these issues is Tsiolkas’ use of the spectral metaphor of the dead Jewish boy, Elias, who acts as a symbol for the cultural, political, and economic forces that lead to violations of hospitality.' (Publication abstract)
1 Vanessa Berry Ninety 9 Jessica Brooks , 2014 single work review
— Appears in: Long Paddock , vol. 74 no. 3 2014;
— Review of Ninety9 Vanessa Berry , 2013 single work autobiography
1 Ken Kesey, David Ireland and a Portrait of Australian Freedom Jessica Brooks , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: Sydney Studies in English , vol. 37 no. 2011; 'David Ireland's 'The Unknown Industrial Prisoner' was an important novel of its day that has been somewhat forgotten in more recent years. It won the Miles Franklin award in 1971 and created some controversy amongst reviewers regarding its unconventional narrative technique, which had little, if any, Australian precedent. It did, however, have an American precedent in the works of the Beat generation. Foregrounding issues of freedom and individualism, Ireland's novel closely parallels Ken Kesey's 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' (1962), not only in its themes but also through its use of metaphors and character studies. Like Kesey's mental hospital, Ireland's Puroil refinery offers an example in microcosm of society's ills. Ireland's obvious use of 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' suggests that he found in Kesey's work a certain resonance with the Australian experience. Yet the differences between the two novels are more telling. This article explores the possibility that Ireland intentionally wrote an adaptation of Kesey's novel in order to highlight differences between American and Australian cultural attitudes towards freedom and individualism.' (Author's abstract)
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