Law Commons^™

A Living Tradition, Rowan Cahill

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

At the recent Historical Materialism Australasia Conference (Sydney, July 2015), the keynote address was delivered by veteran scholars Terry Irving and Raewyn Connell. The subject was their seminal book Class Structure in Australian History (CSAH), the first edition of which was published by Longman Cheshire in 1980, followed by a second edition in 1992. Whilst in print the book sold at least 12,000 copies, a significant figure at the time for an Australian book, still a figure to set a publisher’s lips drooling, and in terms of international academic/scholarly publishing, where print runs of 200 copies struggle to sell, a …

Book Review: The End Of Laissez-Faire? On The Durability Of Embedded Neoliberalism, Timothy Dimuzio

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

On the heels of the global financial crisis, many on the left of the political spectrum anticipated the end of neoliberalism. The financial and economic crisis—global in scope—had supposedly discredited over two decades of neoliberal rule. The massive state interventions required to curtail the worst vagaries of the crisis demonstrated to everyone paying even the remotest attention that deregulated markets are unstable, that bankers cannot be trusted with increasing the money supply and that government intervention could help steer the economy in a more positive direction should politicians be willing. Moreover, the aftermath of the crisis spawned the worldwide Occupy …

Reading Through The Mirror Stage, Luke M. Johnson

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

No abstract provided.

Censorship And Free Speech In Scientific Controversies, Brian Martin

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Many publicly debated issues have implications for health, including smoking, pesticides, food additives, seat belts, fluoridation, vaccination and climate change. Campaigners on such issues use a variety of methods, including presenting evidence and arguments, denigrating opponents, lobbying and organising protests. In some cases, campaigners seek to censor opponents, most commonly on the grounds that their views are false and dangerous. To probe rationales for censorship, recent events in the Australian public debate over vaccination are examined. A citizens' group critical of vaccination has come under heavy attack, with pro-vaccination campaigners and politicians trying to shut down the group and restrict …

Translit As Thought-Events: Cloud Atlas And Storyland, Catherine Mckinnon

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in (and publication of) multi-narration novels that surf time, genre hop and shift geographical location. In 2012, novelist and critic, Dougles Coupland, coined the term 'translit' to describe such novels (11). If we accept Couopland's term, david Mitchell's Cloud Atlas (2003), Steve Amsterdam's Things We Didn't See Coming (2009), Jennette Winterson's The Stone Gods (2007), and Michael Cunningham's, the Hours (1998) and Specimen Day (2005), might all be called translit, so too Virginia Woolf's not so recent Orlando (1928). By choosing to travel across time, space and genre boundaries, what might …

Nonviolence Unbound, Brian Martin

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Rallies, strikes, boycotts, sit-ins — these and other methods of nonviolent action can be used to bring down dictators. Nonviolence Unbound shows how insights into what makes nonviolent action eff ective can be applied to four completely diff erent arenas: defending against verbal abuse, responding to online defamatory pictures, and engaging in the struggles over euthanasia and vaccination. This investigation shows how to analyse options for opposing injustice.

Creation And Preservation: Teaching Colour Theory, Madeleine T. Kelly

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Colour wheels and colour charts run the risk of seeming elementary. My attempt to revitalise these traditional forms of relating colour has opened up a gamut of possible approaches within an undergraduate tertiary context and, here, I will describe a few in view of an archaeological metaphor.

Book Review: The History Of Democracy: A Marxist Interpretation By Brian S. Roper, John Passant

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Brian Roper's book on the history of democracy from a Marxist perspective is an ambitious one. Roper starts with Athens and Rome and then, as capitalism rises, examines the revolutions in England, America and France and after that the 1848 revolutions across Europe. He then looks at the Paris Commune and The Russian Revolution. In doing this, Roper describes three distinct but related forms of democracy - Athenian democracy which was a form of participatory democracy limited to sections of society; liberal representative democracy which, while nominally open to all, is actually limited to operating within narrow propertied confines; and …

Canada And Australia Share A Political Culture Of Conflict, Gregory C. Melleuish

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

In a recent book, political scientist Tom Flanagan argues that the years of minority government in Canada between 2004 and 2011 had a corrosive effect on Canadian politics and political culture. He comments:

After so many years of continuous campaigning, federal politicans are like child soldiers in a war-torn African country; all they know how to do is fire their AK-47s.

This statement, and many other things that Flanagan describes as features of Canadian politics – including increased centralisation of decision-making in the party and the need to be in constant campaign mode – could also be considered to be …

Anti-Zionism In The Courts Is Not Kosher Law, Gregory L. Rose

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

A German court in Wuppertal held last month that an arson attack on a synagogue causing fire damage was not anti-Semitism but political expression. Also in February, five youths who vandalised 300 Jewish graves and a Holocaust monument in Alsace, France, claimed that the action was not motivated by anti-Semitism.

In general, an attack specifically targeting Chinese would be considered anti-Chinese. Only in an exceptional case, it might not be. Why is the exceptional case becoming the rule for Jews, so that targeting Jews as a group is generally not anti-Jewish but “political”?

Legal artifice is being constructed to make …

Submission To The Senate Community Affairs References Committee Inquiry Into Violence, Abuse And Neglect Against People With Disability In Institutional And Residential Settings, Including The Gender And Age Related Dimensions, And The Particular Situation Of Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander People With Disability, And Culturally And Linguistically Diverse People With Disability (26 June), Linda Roslyn Steele

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

This submission is made to the Senate Community Affairs References Committee’s (‘Senate Committee’) inquiry into violence, abuse and neglect against people with disability in institutional and residential settings, including the gender and age related dimensions, and the particular situation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with disability, and culturally and linguistically diverse people with disability (‘the Senate Inquiry’).

Corporate Speak And “Collateral Recruitment”: Surfing The Student Body, Colleen Mcgloin

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

‘‘Corporate speak,’’ the language of neoliberalism, has for so long been integrated into higher education institutions that many academics greet new terms wanly with the tedium of overkill; academic practice is scrutinized and regulated through terms such as performance indicators, benchmarking, service providers, and clients. As part of a discursive field where ideological shifts continue to apply marketized frames of reference as neoliberalism tightens its grip, new terms and phrases are commonplace.

Questioning Law’S Capacity, Fleur Beaupert, Linda Roslyn Steele

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

The past ten years have witnessed an increased public awareness of the marginalisation and discrimination experienced by people with disability in the Australian legal system, and an associated proliferation of law reform reports on disability law.

'Radical Academia: Beyond The Audit Culture Treadmill' By Rowan Cahill And Terry Irving, Rowan Cahill, Terence H. Irving

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

“Marxist scholarship, already on the defensive for political reasons inside university economics faculties, often retreated into scholastic debates over texts or into abstruse mathematical calculations as remote from the real world as those of their mainstream colleagues.” So wrote Chris Harman in Zombie Capitalism: Global Crisis and the Relevance of Marx (Bookmarks Publications, 2009). It was not just in economics that the radicals retreated; it happened in all the social sciences and humanities. And not just because of political timidity; they had been outflanked. Knowledge production had changed in ways that disadvantaged radicals.

'Just A Couple Of Fags': Truman Capote, Gore Vidal, And Celebrity Feud, Guy R. Davidson

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

This article argues that the long-running feud between the two celebrity authors Truman Capote and Gore Vidal indicates a crucial shift in the nature of literary celebrity from the 1940s to the 1970s. At its commencement, the feud was about competition for literary fame and the respective literary talent of the two authors. It thus indicated the seriousness and the prestige that American culture accorded literature and how American literary celebrity differed from other forms of celebrity in its emphasis on what Loren Glass calls 'individual authorial consciousness'. But as the decades passed, literary achievement was increasingly sidelined by entertaining …

Towards A Multilingual National Literature: The Tung Wah Times And The Origins Of Chinese Australian Writing, Huang Zhong, Wenche Ommundsen

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Australian literature has over the last 50 years witnessed the gradual inclusion of writers and texts formerly considered marginal: from a predominantly white, Anglo canon it has come to incorporate more women writers, writers of popular genres, Indigenous writers, and migrant, multicultural or diasporic writers. However, one large and important body of Australian writing has remained excluded from histories and anthologies: literature in languages other than English. Is this the last literary margin? How might it be incorporated into the national canon, and how might it enhance our understanding of the cross-cultural traffic that feeds into the literature of a …

It's Like Going To A Cemetery And Lighting A Candle: Aboriginal Australians, Sorry Business And Social Media, Bronwyn Carlson, Ryan Frazer

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Death and funeral practices are a constant presence in many Aboriginal Australians’ lives— research in some communities found they are eight times more likely to have attended a funeral in the previous 2 years than non- Aboriginal people. This can be explained by two major factors: inordinately high rates of Aboriginal mortality and cultural practices around death (broadly referred to as Sorry Business). Research in other contexts has found traditions once reserved solely for face- to- face interactions are now also taking place online on social media. This paper draws from interviews conducted with Aboriginal social media users from New …

Mobile Encounters: Bicycles, Cars And Australian Settler Colonialism, Georgine W. Clarsen

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

At the turn of the twentieth century bicycles and motorcars constituted a significant break from organic modes of mobility, such as walking, horses and camels. In Australia, such mechanical modes of personal transport were settler imports that generated local meanings and practices as they were integrated into the material, cultural and political conditions of the settler nation-in-the-making. For settlers, new technologies confirmed their racial superiority and reinforced a collective sense of their own modernity. Aboriginal people frequently expressed fear and epistemological confusion when they first encountered the strange vehicles. Contrary to settler investments in Aboriginal people as outside of the …

Men And Gender Equality, Michael G. Flood

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Our world is a deeply unequal one. Systemic inequalities which disadvantage women and advantage men are visible around the globe. Whether on looks at political power and authority, economic resources and decision-making, sexual and family relations, or media and culture, one finds gender inequalities. These are sustained in part by constructions of masculinity-by the cultural meanings associated with being a man, the practices which men adopt, and the collective and institutional organisation of men's lives and relations.

Alterity And The Maternal In Adoptee Phenomenology, Jane M. Lymer

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

The project that I embark upon in this paper is an enquiry into the role of the maternal body in the development of alterity in the child. I begin by drawing on a previous publication in Parrhesia, where I explore the phenomenology of the maternal-foetal affective relation through the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, outlining how the foetal body schema develops through maternally structured movement while in utero.

The Threatened, Madeleine T. Kelly

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Drawing upon the traditions of natural history illustration, painting and tapestry, this work represents threatened birds of the Illawarra, NSW.

Populism And Criminal Justice Policy: An Australian Case Study Of Non-Punitive Responses To Alcohol-Related Violence, Julia Quilter

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Populism is widely regarded in the literature as a negative and inherently punitive influence on criminal justice policy. This article challenges this view and highlights the ways in which populism can produce forms of citizen engagement in the criminal justice context that are new and progressive. These possibilities are illustrated through a close analysis of the responses to a single instance of ‘random’ fatal violence: the killing of Thomas Kelly in King’s Cross, Sydney, in 2012. This case study shows how a populist campaign powerfully realigned political allegiances to call for, and achieve, real and enduring action from the New …

On The Suppression Of Vaccination Dissent, Brian Martin

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Dissenters from the dominant views about vaccination sometimes are subject to adverse actions, including abusive comment, threats, formal complaints, censorship, and deregistration, a phenomenon that can be called suppression of dissent. Three types of cases are examined: scientists and physicians; a high-profile researcher; and a citizen campaigner. Comparing the methods used in these different types of cases provides a preliminary framework for understanding the dynamics of suppression in terms of vulnerabilities.

The Streisand Effect And Censorship Backfire, Sue Curry Jansen, Brian Martin

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Barbra Streisand's attempt to restrict online views of her residence on a public website had the paradoxical effect of leading to many more views than if she had done nothing. Subsequently, attempts at censorship that end up being counterproductive have been dubbed the "Streisand effect." To better understand the dynamics of the Streisand effect, we examine five tactics used by censors to reduce outrage from their actions: (1) hiding the existence of censorship; (2) devaluing targets of censorship; (3) reinterpreting actions by lying, minimizing consequences, blaming others, and using benign framing; (4) using official channels to give an appearance of …

Anarchist Shaping Of Technology, Brian Martin

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Technology pervades modern life, from cars and computers to paper and clothing. Food might have organic origins but has been processed and transported using a variety of technologies. Even bodies have become technologically manipulated and transformed through hair coloring, glasses, prostheses and plastic surgery. Humans create technology and use it, so it is sensible to say that technology is political in the sense that it involves or embodies the exercise of power. This is an obvious opening for anarchist analysis. Anarchism can be said to involve a rejection of any form of domination, including by the state, capitalism, patriarchy and …

Leaking: Practicalities And Politics, Brian Martin

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

When you want to reveal information in the public interest, consider leaking. To be effective, you need to be very careful and to understand both practical and political aspects.

Social Cognition And Psychopathology: A Critical Overview, Shaun Gallagher, Somogy Varga

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

The philosophical and interdisciplinary debate about the nature of social cognition, and the processes involved, has important implications for psychiatry. On one account, mindreading depends on making theoretical inferences about another person's mental states based on knowledge of folk psychology, the so-called "theory theory" (TT). On a different account, "simulation theory" (ST), mindreading depends on simulating the other's mental states within one's own mental or motor system. A third approach, "interaction theory" (IT), looks to embodied processes (involving movement, gesture, facial expression, vocal intonation, etc.) and the dynamics of intersubjective interactions (joint attention, joint action, and processes not confined to …

Just The Ticket! The Thomas Keneally Papers, Paul Sharrad

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Considers the nature of the archive as a shifting dynamic relative to the time and interest of users, highlighting some of the curiosities in the Keneally collection.

The Asia-Pacific War And The Failed Second Anglo-Japanese Civilian Exchange, 1942-45, Rowena G. Ward

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

The proposed 2nd Anglo-Japanese civilian exchange, originally planned for October 1942, never eventuated partly due to differences in the interpretations of what constitutes a merchant seaman and views on whether the Hague Convention should apply. The failure of the exchange meant that over 3,000 Japanese and British civilian internees as well as another 2,000 or so Japanese and American civilian internees remained in internment camps until at least August 1945. At the heart of the negotiations were 331 Japanese pilots and pearl divers who had been employed in the pearling industry until the outbreak of war. The impasse would impact …

Revisiting A Struggle: Port Kembla, 1938, Rowan Cahill

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Rowan Cahill ruminates on the premiere screening of the documentary film Pig Iron Bob (Why Documentaries: Sandra Pires, Producer and Director) in Wollongong, 21 March 2015