"The Tragedy of Heterosexuality is an exploration of the so-called 'straight culture.'"--

Ruth Munro, the glamorous wife of a successful author, brutally stabs a man in a flat in Edinburgh's red light district in a seemingly unprovoked attack, leaving him for dead. When the case is investigated it reveals dark secrets from Ruth's past-a past of which Paul, her husband, was blissfully unaware. As Paul struggles to come to terms with the grim reality of his wife's former life, her lawyer tries to piece together enough of Ruth's story to build a defence against an apparently watertight case. Meanwhile a dark angel is rising, gathering strength to deliver his final twisted message. A tale of blackmail, prostitution, murder and revenge, Rod MacDonald's compelling first novel carries on the great tradition of Edinburgh crime thrillers.

This book is the first to examine gender and violence in Australian literature. It argues that literary texts by Australian women writers offer unique ways of understanding the social problem of gendered violence, bringing this often private and suppressed issue into the public sphere. It draws on the international field of violence studies to investigate how Australian women writers challenge the victim paradigm and figure women’s agencies. In doing so, it provides a theoretical context for the increasing number of contemporary literary works by Australian women writers that directly address gendered violence, an issue that has taken on urgent social and political currency. By analysing Australian women’s literary representations of gendered violence, this book rethinks victimhood and agency, particularly from a feminist perspective. One of its major innovations is that it examines mainstream Australian women’s writing alongside that of Indigenous and minoritised women. In doing so it provides insights into the interconnectedness of Australia’s diverse settler, Indigenous and diasporic histories in chapters that examine intimate partner violence, violence against Indigenous women and girls, family violence and violence against children, and the war and political violence.

The chapters presented in this Reader, drawing on recent works, explore and analyse dynamic subject matter such as family, moral values, cultural hybridity, Asian-Australian dialogues, gender and racial stereotypes, the representations of Australianness, Indigenous Australia, imagery and motifs, the variety of Australian national symbols, mythology, traditions, representation or development of outback or suburban and metropolitan spaces in Australian cinema and culture. For a better understanding of the breadth and depth of Australia and its culture, the papers selected in this book also examine the exhibition of the Australian artist's aesthetic experimentation in the various faces of the Australian film industry, and the development and evolution of Australian film theory as part of the institutions of film studies and scholarly practices, using historical, archaeological and textual approaches for a wide variety of primary sources to discuss the trends of cinema and cultural consumption in Australia. In the area of purview, here, are not just commercial Australian films but also developments in new media, shorts, digital, art and documentary cinema in the broad context of globalization and international co-production.

Tightly focused, European in feel, portraits of men and women in distress. A fearless investigation into the fundamental eccentricity of life.

On writing this work, some or maybe none of it I believe in, or feel is the truth. That’s up to the reader to decide, and if the reader relates to any of the subject matter, then I feel I have reached my goal. It is a work trying to bring to the attention of the bias men endure on a daily basis and how women are becoming mostly expectant of better treatment than men in most walks of life, and nothing is questioned, why. Full of hard nosed facts, explaining the level of state interference on a monumental scale, nearly always to the detriment of the average male, also the over used mantra man is bad, woman is good.

This book examines how the cultural context influences the way in which young single women approach courtship, and issues of sexuality and reproductive health.

In recent years, Australian literature has experienced a revival of interest both domestically and internationally. The increasing prominence of work by writers like Christos Tsiolkas, heightened through television and film adaptation, as well as the award of major international prizes to writers like Richard Flanagan, and the development of new, high-profile prizes like the Stella Prize, have all reinvigorated interest in Australian literature both at home and abroad. This Companion emerges as a part of that reinvigoration, considering anew the history and development of Australian literature and its key themes, as well as tracing the transition of the field through those critical debates. It considers works of Australian literature on their own terms, as well as positioning them in their critical and historical context and their ethical and interactive position in the public and private spheres. With an emphasis on literature’s responsibilities, this book claims Australian literary studies as a field uniquely positioned to expose the ways in which literature engages with, produces and is produced by its context, provoking a critical re-evaluation of the concept of the relationship between national literatures, cultures, and histories, and the social function of literary texts.

In recent years there have been substantial changes in approaches to how genders are made and what functions genders fulfill. Most of the scholarly focus in this area has been in the areas of feminist, gay, and lesbian studies, and heterosexual masculinity - which tended to be defined by lack and absence - has not received the critical and scholarly attention these other areas have received. Heterosexual Masculinities rethinks a psychoanalytic tradition that has long thought of masculinity as a sort of brittle defense against femininity, softness, and emotionality. Reflecting current trends in psychoanalytic thinking, this book seeks to understand heterosexual masculinity as fluid, multiple, and emergent. The contributors to this insightful volume take new perspectives on relations between men, men’s positions as fathers in relation to their sons and daughters, the clinical encounter with heterosexual men, the social contexts of masculinity, and the multiplicity of heterosexual masculine subjectivities. What to a previous generation would have appeared as pathological or defensive, we now encounter as forms of masculine subjectivity that include wishes for intimacy, receptivity, and surrender, alongside ambition and the pleasures of "phallic narcissism."