AustLit

'Also sprach Judith Butler in an interview with David Runciman on Talking Politics, a podcast recorded at the University of Cambridge in the immediate wake of Donald J. Trump’s election to President-elect.1 Among her myriad incisive remarks, the final line in the passage above is illuminating—although not because it is incisive. It offers no cool-headed explanation for Trump’s ascension (that is something Butler does elsewhere in the interview). Instead, it conveys Butler’s desire to avoid facing Trump, an admission as candid as it is non-intellectualised (in the Freudian sense of “intellectualisation”). And it is illuminating precisely because it so straightforward, and acknowledges so openly perhaps what is power’s most frightening and abject dimension: its visual dimension, and particularly the visual image of its “face.”' (Publication abstract)

'Hulbert’s essay draws attention to the many sonic figures in Lindsay’s novel, offering a fresh reading of the precarious fates of the protagonists in this “preeminent weird Antipodean tale.”' (Publication abstract)

'Every summer solstice I play a trick on my mind, I transform the past, I travel back and revamp history, and gazing at granite carvings of Hanuman brings me back to Monkey Forest Road. I imagine a girl standing by the side of a temple with my father eyeing...' (Introduction)

'The modern sonnet is a precarious poetic form. It is best recognised by its number of lines— twelve to fourteen—and its sense of being written “to” a person, animal, natural place, or even an abstract idea. It may or may not be conversational. It may or may not rhyme. It might be an argument, a dedication, or even an individual’s expression of intimacy. It either has its Petrachan-style volta pulled up around its midsection, or, more likely, offers a Shakespearean volta—its last couplet comprising a sting in its tail. Upon reading a modern sonnet, you might have to read it back over to check it is not merely a short poem, and then wonder how exactly you were able to tell the difference.' (Introduction)