AustLit

Henderson argues that the primary concern of Phillips's essay 'The Cultural Cringe' was not the production but the reception of Australian writing and that the essay is 'underpinned by a reception theory that begets a culturally specific hsitory of reading'. His aim is 'to distil that theory, and I will do so by drawing together the history of Phillips's use of the term and his late characterization of it in specific psychoanalytic terms' (127).

'Using anthropological accounts of the rites of passage as a point of departure, this essay argues that the sea voyage is the pivotal moment of threshold in the narrative of colonial expatriation for the young Australian woman. This liminal and interstitial moment is narrated as a pedagogical interlude in both Stead's novel and short story; one that taps into the range of possibilities of femininity, landscape and desire elaborated in the first quarter of For Love Alone.' (156-157)

'This essay seeks to assert the significance of the New Theatre in relation to both its theatrical and political experimentation and innovation. In so doing the essay will re-situate the New Theatre, which will, in turn re-map accepted theatre history. ... The essay will also identify the ways New Theatre encouraged and produced Australian plays when very few companies would consider staging them, as well as its encouragement of female playwrights, whom they employed as writers, well before second wave feminism. Indeed its political and social project was wide-ranging and it has produced plays that dealt with the plight of Aborigines, censorshp, gender inequality, war and fascism long before the advent of identity politics embraced by the New Wave.' (187)