Weaving textual tapestries: weaving the 'Italian woman-writer' into the social fabric

A tapestry is a fabric in which multicoloured threads are interwoven to produce a pictorial design. The design of a tapestry often seems three-dimensional with layers of interwoven images of people and events from various times past and present. I use the tapastry as a motif or metaphor to describe the bordering and interweaving of my 'multiple lifeworlds' (Cope &amp; Kalantzis 8) as an Italian Australian woman, academic, writer and social activist. Within and between each .of these worlds are points of tension and confluence, questions and emotions that motivate my own research and writing, and motivate my work with young people to articulate their own 'multiple lifeworlds' through writing<br />and art.<br />

Acknowledgement of client diversity and oppression in social work student supervision

An enduring theme of social work literature and education has been the need for workers to recognise and challenge oppressive structures and develop competence in working with diverse client groups. This paper reports the findings of a qualitative research project where student and field educator supervision sessions were recorded, with the view to examining how oppression and diversity were addressed in these sessions. The authors have used the term 'difference' to describe the breach between the student and client experiences. Examples of anti-discriminatory practice were identified in the recordings, however on occasions supervisors had difficulty in assisting students to acknowledge diversity and oppression in supervision. Four factors that related to addressing diversity emerged from the supervision material. These were: the struggle to unmask subtle themes of oppression; the use of questioning to raise student awareness and development of self-knowledge; using student biography to facilitate learning on 'difference'; and field educator use of self-disclosure during discussions on diversity. Successful approaches to anti-oppressive practice and responding to diversity are outlined.<br />

Localisation and William Macewen`s early brain surgery part I: the controversy

Neurosurgery for the removal of brain tumours based on localising signs is usually dated from the 1884 operation by Bennett and Godlee. However, within weeks of that operation claims were made on behalf of William Macewen, the Glasgow surgeon, to have been the real pioneer of such surgery. According to Macewen's protagonists, he had conducted seven similar operations earlier than Bennett and Godlee and, in a notable 1888 address, Macewen described these seven pre-1884 cases and a number of others operated on after 1884. This paper, which is in two parts, contains an evaluation of the claims made for the priority of Macewen's pre-1884 operations. Part I deals mainly with Macewen's work in fields other than brain surgery that are relevant to it and sets out the facts of the controversy. It begins with a brief biography of Macewen, describes his pioneering work in antiseptic and aseptic surgery, his work on osteotomy and bone regeneration, and his use in brain surgery of the knowledge so gained. Part I concludes with an examination of the battle waged in the newspapers between Macewen's and Bennett's and Godlee's supporters, and of previously unpublished correspondence between Macewen himself, David Ferrier and Hughes Bennett. The primary records of the patients on whom Macewen operated, together with other materials relevant to the controversy, are examined in Part II.<br />

Old Tom, new Tom

This presentation will Involve a discussion of Canadian fringe artist Mike Hoolboom's experimental narrative Tom (2002 75 minutes, Digital Video) The presentation will Include a short excerpt and stills from the film Tom is a biography of experimental filmmaker Tom Chomont who tells of his struggle with HIV and Parkinson's disease and disarmingly recounts confronting memories of infanticide, incest, fetishism and death It is how these revelations are innovatively processed through excerpts of Chomont's films, home movies, photos, Images lifted straight form Video Busters, archival and found footage that is so telling it is as If the surface of cinema itself is the body that is being marked and reconstituted and &quot;the personal&quot; forever changed by the Infection of this material Into our psyche.<br /><br />This work is offered as exemplary evidence of the strong link between an experimental non-narrative cinema that flourishes In North America and new media art<br /><br />The presentation will touch on the following areas:<br /><br />&gt; The Innovative marking out of the self In terms relevant to a new media practice.<br />&gt; The correspondence between this film and media theorist Arthur Kroker's Ideas about panic bodies and excremental culture.<br />&gt; An examination of erasure and loss In non-narrative forms.<br />&gt; The historical context of Hoolboom's work as part of a North American experimental tradition and as a shared non-narrative tradition With New Media.<br /><br />The presentation Will conclude With some comments about the relationship between experimental film and new media In this country and how the failure to Identify this relationship constructively here may have contributed to the current &quot;death of the new&quot; The concept of new media and New Australian Will be contrasted to attain some Insight Into the Ideological underpinnings of &quot;Creative Nation&quot;.<br />

The ambivalent practices of reflexivity

Reflexivity involves turning one&rsquo;s reflexive gaze on discourse&mdash;turning language back on itself to see the work it does in constituting the world. The subject/researcher sees simultaneously the object of her or his gaze and the means by which the object (which may include oneself as subject) is being constituted. The consciousness of self that reflexive writing sometimes entails may be seen to slip inadvertently into constituting the very (real) self that seems to contradict a focus on the constitutive power of discourse. This article explores this site of slippage and of ambivalence. In a collective biography on the topic of reflexivity, the authors tell and write stories about reflexivity and in a doubled reflexive arc, examine themselves at work during the workshop. Examining their own memories and reflexive practices, they explore this place of slippage and provide theoretical and practical insight into &quot;what is going on&quot; in reflexive research and writing.<br />

Embodied women at work in neoliberal times and places

In this article five women explore (female) embodiment in academic work in current workplaces. In a week-long collective biography workshop they produced written memories of themselves in their various workplaces and memories of themselves as children and as students. These memories then became the texts out of which the analysis was generated. The authors examine the constitutive and seductive effects of neoliberal discourses and practices, and in particular, the assembling of academic bodies as particular kinds of working bodies. They use the concept of chiasma, or crossing over, to trouble some aspects of binary thinking about bodies and about the relations between bodies and discourses. They examine the way that we simultaneously resist and appropriate, and are seduced by and appropriated within, neoliberal discourses and practices.<br />

The Buln-Buln and Brolga

Originally published in 1944, this biography of Joseph Furphy was written by Miles Franklin. She tells of his multi-faceted life, from 1843 to 1912, including his days as a bullock-driver, and in Victoria building Furphy carts with his brother; of his friends and philosophy and his hopes for humanity and Australia.<br />

The Go-Betweens

The Go-Betweens recorded six albums that are among the finest work of the 1980s, earning them a reputation as &quot;&quot;the ultimate cult band&quot;&quot; and the lasting esteem of their peers, from R.E.M. to Sleater-Kinney. In 2000 they returned to making records--and received the best reviews of their career. David Nichols relates their story with wit and verve, and since the Go-Betweens had personalities as well as talent, their biography is compelling reading, not just for committed fans but for anyone interested in the current music scene.<br />

Ulster-New Zealand migration and cultural transfers / Brad Patterson

<b>Books</b><br />Medievalism and the Gothic in Australian Culture. Edited by Stephanie Trigg. <br /><br />What If? Australian History as It Might Have Been. Edited by Stuart Macintyre and Sean Scalmer. <br /><br />Disputed Histories: Imagining New Zealand's Pasts. Edited by Tony Ballantyne and Brian Moloughney.<br /><br />The Myth of the Great Depression. By David Potts.<br /><br />Memory, Monuments and Museums: The Past in the Present. Edited by Marilyn Lake. <br /><br />Connected Worlds: History in Transnational Perspective. Edited by Marilyn Lake and Ann Curthoys. <br /><br />Island Ministers: Indigenous Leadership in Nineteenth Century Pacific Islands Christianity. By Raeburn Lange. <br /><br />Texts and Contexts: Reflections in Pacific Islands Historiography. Edited by Doug Munro and Brij V. Lai. <br /><br />Day of Reckoning. By Lachlan Strahan.<br /><br />Appropriated Pasts: Indigenous Peoples and the Colonial Culture of Archaeology. By Ian J. McNiven and Lynette Russell. <br /><br />Recognising Aboriginal Title: The Mabo Case and Indigenous Resistance to English-Settler Colonialism. By Peter H. Russell. <br /><br />Black Glass: Western Australian Courts of Native Affairs 1936-54. By Kate Auty. <br /><br />Edward Eyre, Race and Colonial Governance. By Julie Evans. <br /><br />Gender and Empire. By Angela Woollacott.<br /><br />Uncommon Ground: White Women in Aboriginal History. Edited by Anna Cole, Victoria Haskins and Fiona Paisley.<br /><br />Mixed Relations: Asian-Aboriginal Contact in North Australia. By Regina Ganter, with contributions from Julia Martinez and Gary Lee. <br /><br />Botany Bay: Where Histories Meet. By Maria Nugent.<br /><br />A Man of All Tribes: The Life of Alick Jackomos. By Richard Broome and Corinne Manning. <br /><br />Black Founders: The Unknown Story of Australia's First Black Settlers. By Cassandra Pybus. <br /><br />Over the Mountains of the Sea: Life on the Migrant Ships 1870-1885. By David Hastings. <br /><br />Ulster-New Zealand Migration and Cultural Transfers. Edited by Brad Patterson. <br /><br />From Paesani to Global Italians: Veneto Migrants in Australia. By Loretta Baldassar and Ros Pesman. <br /><br />Ways of Seeing China: From Yellow Peril to Shangrila. By Timothy Kendall. <br /><br />East by South: China in the Australasian Imagination. Edited by Charles Ferrall, Paul Millar and Keren Smith. <br /><br />Arthur Tange: Last of the Mandarins. By Peter Edwards.<br /><br />Kin: A Collective Biography of a Working-Class New Zealand Family. By Melanie Nolan. <br /><br />Ida Leeson A Life: Not a Blue-Stocking Lady. By Sylvia Martin. <br /><br />Will Dyson: Australia's Radical Genius. By Ross McMullin. <br /><br />Francis De Groot: Irish Fascist Australian Legend. By Andrew Moore. <br /><br />South by Northwest: The Magnetic Crusade and the Contest for Antarctica. By Granville Allen Mawer. <br /><br />From Woolloomooloo to 'Eternity': A History of Australian Baptists. 2 vols. Volume 1: Crowing and Australian Church (1831-1914), Volume 2: A National Church in a Global Community (1914-2005). By Ken R. Manley. <br />