Tag Archives: Ben Eltham

Jacinda Woodhead (editor), Overland 221 (Spring 2015)

As usual, this Overland is well worth reading. Two articles stand out for me:

• Transgender justice by Eliora Avraham. Noting that the mainstream media’s fascination with transgender didn’t start with Caitlin Jenner (I remember being fascinated by an article on Christine Jorgensen while my mother was under a dryer in a hairdressing salon in the mid 1950s), the essay moves on to a discussion of economic discrimination against trans people, and makes an interesting contribution to the debate about whether calling an event for women, say, ‘Pussy Power’ is oppressive to those trans women who have penises. The essay makes an excellent companion to the recent episode of the Jill Soloway’s TV series Transparent where the Jeffrey Tambor character is shattered to discover that only ‘women who were born women’ are welcome at the Wimmin’s Music Festival. Apart from occasional moments such as the bald characterisation of some disagreers as purveyors of hate speech, the case is argued carefully and respectfully all round.

• Are Australian universities creating good artists? by Lauren Carroll Harris,  an excellent general article on the state of art education under neoliberalism in Australian universities. The writer attended the institution now known as UNSW Art and Design, and perhaps it’s an interesting product of the rivalries and snobberies the permeate the art education scene that she  fails to mention the National Art School in Sydney as a surviving studio-based tertiary art education institution. Likewise, no mention of the recent evisceration of art education in TAFE NSW.

There’s a lot more besides. Sophie Cunningham has another study of urban USA in Gold Rush, about the politics of murals in San Francisco’s Mission District. Stephen Wright’s column On male fear does a nice turn on sexism as a key concept in addressing domestic violence. Alison Croggon’s reliably elegant column defends vulgar language as often less vile than perfectly polite words (an argument that has turned up in the newspapers recently in New South Wales as prosecution of profanity is coming under question). In The excellence criterion, Ben Eltham lays out the arguments against George Brandis’s recent proposed changes to arts funding – proposals not substantially changed by Brandis’s departure from the ministry. Facebook absolution by Laurie Penny makes me seriously consider quitting facebook before it’s too late.

There are the judges’ reports and winners of two short story prizes the Victoria University Short Story Prize and the Story Wine Prize, the winner of the latter, with an 800 word limit, soon to appear on a wine label. I enjoyed all the stories but none of them took me by storm.

There’s Peter Minter’s last selection as poetry editor, with joanne burns (‘fate curves like a recycled / frisbee in search of destiny’) and  John Kinsella (‘I hear no birds at night / through thick concrete /and the lack is critical’) heading the bill.

And there’s a very welcome three-page selection of drawings by Sam Wallman from time spent recently working to support people crossing europe’s borders.

One advantage of being late to write about this issue of Overland is that most if not all of its content is now available online, hence my links