AustLit

'This volume is dedicated to Deborah Bird Rose (1946—2018) who is deeply missed by many in the extended cultural studies community. Her unforgettable creativity, initially as an anthropologist working with the Yarralin people the Victoria River District, produced Dingo Makes Us Human (1992). In Reports from a Wild Country (2004), Deb took an Indigenous-inspired philosophical turn to consider what decolonisation might look like if it were attentive to Yarralin ontologies. Then, in Wild Dog Dreaming (2011) she turned to fully-consider relations with the more-than-human in a time of extinction. More than explicating or exploring the persistence and power of Indigenous cultures, Deb invited readers to learn from those who have triumphed despite invasion and colonisation. The power of her work makes her reader feel country and be inspired to move our feet differently across land as a ‘nourishing terrain’. Her capacity to evoke and hold out for kinship between human and non-human animals was vital and inspiring. So, it seems fitting that this volume is titled ‘Extinction’ given Deb contributed so much to alerting us to the multiple orders of extinction, be it the silencing of country when its stories were lost or the vulnerabilities of flying foxes. Her blog featured these simple words against a photographic image of a sunset over what looks like desert country: 

‘Deborah Bird Rose

Love at the Edge of Extinction’

(Katrina Schlunke, Chris Healy Extinction)

'It had to be ‘Meaghan’. The title of this edition of Cultural Studies Review is our salute to the work of Meaghan Morris and her lasting influence. That legacy is directly addressed in the collection of written works that emerged from the Meaghan Morris Festival held in 2016 (co-edited by Prudence Black, Stephen Muecke and Catherine Driscoll) but it is also echoed in the essays and reviews that are gathered within, that in their very mix speak to the particular tradition of cultural studies, Australian and otherwise, that Meaghan Morris helped so much to create.' (Introduction)

'This issue includes a special section, guest edited by Liz Conor, that revisits, evaluates and repositions the figure of Xavier Herbert, a controversial Australian novelist and activist.

'Elsewhere in this issue are two essays focused on question of language and culture. Michael Richardson writes about the complex relationships between political speechwriters and speechmakers, while Prithvi Varatharajan is concerned with the public utterances of contemporary Chinese-Australian poet Ouyang Yu, broadcast on Australian public radio. In a different register, Nicole De Brabandere explores the rich materiality of ordinary domestic figurines and dinnerware, while a contrasting sense of interiority pervades Vahideh Aboukazemi’s history of revolutionary Iran. And, as always, our reviews will repay your attention.' (Introduction)

'This issue of Cultural Studies Review features a number of outstanding essays and a special section concerned with ‘Media, Mobilities and Identity in East and Southeast Asia’. Ben Highmore’s essay is a future directed and poetic evocation of a more peripatetic cultural studies. Although he re-stages the serendipity of wandering, Highmore also wants to return to familiar places. The ‘Birmingham’ of this piece is one that he hopes is foreign and unfinished. It’s a compelling exploration because it addresses a need to locate collective resources that might help build emotional and practical bulwarks against instrumentality. It’s also an essay arising from an engagement with everydayness which hopes to explore how that particularity might connect with other imaginaries and open up forms of generality and connection. In this sense, the resonance of peripatetic calls up the non-institutionalised meanderings of activists, non-human actants and the precariat that also enliven cultural studies.' (Chris Healy, Katrina Schlunke, Editorial introduction)

'This is a general edition of Cultural Studies Review in that it has not been organised around a special themed section. Rather, it is a collection of essays on distinctly different topics, each of which push against our habits of thinking about correction and invention. And yet, a subtle theme emerges from these diverse pieces, of movement from one place to another, whether forced by circumstance, freely chosen or imposed. They are essays, too, that pose questions about the durable and unstable nature of cultural configurations and about the contribution of cultural research to a more sustainable future.' (Publication abstract)