Cirrus@Austlit

'Women have long turned to the past to understand their place in the present. Many “great women” of history have served as role models and sources of inspiration –though the specific women celebrated have changed over time.' (Introduction)

'Fifty years ago this week, the first blockbuster of the Australian new wave hit Australian cinemas. Directed by Tim Burstall and starring Graeme Blundell, Alvin Purple was a bawdy sex comedy about an unprepossessing young man who was irresistible to women.' (Introduction)          

'The inner workings of magazines, television stations and newspapers have been rich fodder for film and television for decades.' 

'Mother and Son has long been regarded as one of Australia’s greatest sitcoms. First airing in 1984, the tale of the ageing Maggie Beare and her hapless son, Arthur, was not only very funny, but revealed the pain, frustration and love that underpinned their relationship.'(Introduction)

'The Whitlam government transformed Australia. And yet the scope and scale of the reforms for Australian women are often overlooked.

'The Whitlam government of 1972- 75 appointed a women's advisor to national government - a world first - and reopened the equal pay case. It extended the minimum wage for women, introduced the single mother's benefit and paid maternity leave in the public service, ensured cheap and accessible contraception, funded women's refuges and women's health centres, introduced accessible, no-fault divorce and the Family Court, and much more.

'Women and Whitlam brings together three generations - including Elizabeth Evatt, Eva Cox, Patricia Amphlett, Elizabeth Reid, Tanya Plibersek, Heidi Norman, Blair Williams and Ranuka Tandan - to revisit the Whitlam revolution and to build on it for the future.' (Publication summary) 

'Released in 1991, the memoir Tell Me I’m Here remains a landmark examination of the experience of mental illness in Australia. Journalist Anne Deveson offered a raw and painful account of her eldest son Jonathan’s experience with schizophrenia, her family’s attempts to weather the storms of his illness, and her research into the condition.'

'The 1970s is often characterised as the decade of Australia’s “new nationalism”, expressed most potently in a wave of cultural activity nurtured by government funding. The figure of the ocker was central to this new nationalism, particularly in film. The ocker, a contemporary masculine archetype devoted to beer, sex and swearing, was a star of Australian films such as The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, Alvin Purple, Petersen and Don’s Party. Yet few scholars have considered the ocker in a gendered context, remarkable when we consider that while the ocker films were being produced, the women’s liberation movement was mounting a radical challenge to Australian cultural, social and political norms. What new understandings of 1970s society and culture might result if we read the new nationalist ocker and women’s liberation in the same frame? This article examines the relationship between ocker culture and women’s liberation in the 1970s. It argues that we can read new nationalist popular culture as a site of gendered cultural contest, with a particular focus on feminist responses to ocker culture, including Alvin Purple, and a reading of the film Petersen.' (Publication abstract)

'Dame Enid Lyons, the first woman elected to the House of Representatives, was appointed as a Commissioner of the Australian Broadcasting Commission in 1951. Lyons had already proved to be an adept broadcaster, using radio as part of her campaigns for office, and she was a keen believer in radio’s utility for Australian women. Lyons maintained that radio meant that ‘a woman could do two things at once: cultivate her mind and do her housework’ (1). Women might be largely confined to the private sphere, but radio offered a window on the world beyond, and as Catherine Fisher’s polished, compact study demonstrates, many women broadcasters used radio to build an engaged form of citizenship amongst their listeners in the years between the introduction of radio in the early 1920s and the development of television in the mid-1950s.' (Publication abstract)

'Our writers nominate the TV series keeping them entertained during a time of COVID.

'In our household, watching comedy in the evenings has been a crucial part of our lockdown survival strategy. We powered through a lot of comedy series last year, and watched some more than once. (I’m looking at you, Schitt’s Creek). Stuck in lockdown for the foreseeable future, I suggested we might re-watch those Fountain Gate foxymorons, Kath and Kim, and my 12-year-old daughter’s eyes lit up.' (Introduction)

'The playwright and screenwriter’s widely praised memoir returns to print'

'Acclaimed Australian filmmaker Jennifer Kent’s film The Nightingale has generated intense debate since its premiere at the 2018 Venice Film Festival. Set during the Black War in Van Diemen’s Land in 1825, the film is an unflinching depiction of colonial and sexual violence. Kent told The Saturday Paper that she ‘wanted to tell a story that is relevant to my history and my country’. Her vision of British colonisation, and its consequences for those caught in its wake, taps into a conversation with a strong presence in Australia’s public, political and cultural life over the last three decades. This article critically introduces The Nightingale as an historical film; that is, a film set in the past which offers an interpretation of history. We ask: how does The Nightingale represent the past? How might we situate it within longer traditions of historical representation of frontier conflict, and the convict experience? How did audiences respond to the film? And finally, how might we situate The Nightingale in the moment of its reception? What does it mean to make a film about colonial violence at the same moment as the Uluru statement called for truth-telling about our history?' (Publication abstract)

'The singer and actress best known for her trailblazing feminist anthem I Am Woman has died in Los Angeles, aged 78. She was one of the most famous Australians in the world during the 1970s, and an icon of women’s liberation.'

'There has been a lot happening on Australia’s small screens. Neighbours turned 30. Struggle Street was accused of poverty porn. Pete evangelised Paleo. Gina got litigious. Netflix muscled in. The Bachelor spawned The Bachelorette. Peter Allen’s maraccas were exhumed. The Labor Party ate itself. Anzac was an anti-climax. And so much more...

'Join us as we survey the Australian televisual landscape, and try to make sense of the myriad changes transforming what and how we watch. We’ve come a long way since Bruce Gyngell welcomed us to television in 1956. We now watch on demand and wherever we want, in our lounge rooms and on our devices.

'But some things stay the same. The small screen is still a place for imagining Australia, for better or for worse. Small Screens challenges and celebrates our contemporary TV worlds.' (Publication summary)