Overland literary journal

Tortured women, guilty men and dead children

Stephen Wright — Fri, 17 May 2013 01:08:02 +0000

The Wallander books, and movies, are part of a whole recent genre of super-popular Swedish detective novels that have all made it onto TV or the cinema screen or both. It’s not just the Swedes of course. For example, the Danish TV series The Killing and the Danish-Swedish collaboration The Bridge both feature a lot of the conventions of Swedish noir: women detectives, the sadistic murder of women, dead or traumatised children, political corruption, numerous plot twists, and a preoccupation with the mental states of women and the paternal identities of men. The Killing and The Bridge both have endings that make the final scene of Hamlet look cheerful. Perhaps Shakespeare had a hunch about Danes.

Seeking fiction from emerging writers

Editorial team — Thu, 16 May 2013 23:38:01 +0000

Overland is seeking fiction from new and emerging writers for a special online edition to be selected by emerging editor, Emily Laidlaw. Submissions close midnight, Monday 3 June.

‘I think those who should feel ashamed are not us’

Dougal McNeill — Thu, 16 May 2013 00:41:50 +0000

I spent a morning at the former ‘comfort women’s’ weekly demonstration outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul one Wednesday during the northern summer of 2008, and have never been sure how to write about the experience. The women gathered under the banner ‘The Wednesday Demonstration for Resolving the Issue of Comfort Women Enslaved for the Japanese Military,’ and, flanked by supporters from trade unions, women’s groups, and international solidarity campaigns, re-iterate a series of very simple demands. An apology, a proper one. Decent compensation. Acknowledgement. Reparation.

The new ultranationalism of Sri Lanka

James Stewart — Tue, 14 May 2013 23:45:54 +0000

There is a problem of ethnic persecution in Sri Lanka. The civil war, which began in 1983, was forged by the persecution of Tamil communities, and when the civil war ended in 2010, it was terminated in violent acts that targeted the ethnic Tamil minority. Few people seem to have learnt anything from this war, and this is illustrated by the persecution of minorities that persists today.

Twitcher

Tony Birch — Tue, 14 May 2013 05:46:49 +0000

The desperate life of the family is in sharp contrast to the shifting economic boom of the town more generally. Despite his youthful age Kenno has left school and is holding down two jobs in a determined effort to support the struggling family. He not only works in a shop during the day, but also helps his alcoholic and depressed father in his cleaning business.

The cost of living

Giovanni Tiso — Tue, 14 May 2013 00:50:19 +0000

While the Commonwealth Bureau set no limits as to the level or sources of income of the surveyed households, the New Zealand survey narrowed the idea of ‘living’ to the that of a nuclear family, neither too rich nor too poor, paying rent and supported by a father in stable employment – and by the father only.

On paid parental leave, the Right and the Left

Stephanie Convery — Mon, 13 May 2013 01:12:47 +0000

The question of whether or not women should have the right to extended paid parental leave and the right to return to work has been, as Eva Cox argued last week in The Conversation, the subject of a long and bitter fight by feminists and the broader Left for decades. What then do we make of an apparently generous paid parental leave policy scheme coming from the Liberal Party? And how should we respond?

Paid maternity leave: time for a rethink

Zoe Dattner — Thu, 09 May 2013 23:38:05 +0000

My feelings are this: that paid maternity leave is a toxic and potentially harmful idea and it’s high time we spoke about it in an inclusive, thoughtful and intelligent manner.

Reply to O’Shea and Razer on cultural politics and the Left

Guy Rundle — Thu, 09 May 2013 00:46:07 +0000

Helen Razer’s broadside against ‘the Left’s’ obsession with symbolic politic – dumb articles on newsreaders, rainbow-painted street crossings – got a strong vote of support when it appeared on Crikey last week. It was difficult not to join in. These mini-debates that flare up around gestures or dumb remarks, frequently related to gender and sexuality, sometimes seem to have become the only thing that resembles politics in a society where, more than perhaps anywhere in the world, the material/economic question has been written out of daily discussion and struggle.

Irony for dinner

Helen Addison-Smith — Wed, 08 May 2013 03:00:14 +0000

I’ve always enjoyed ironic living, even (especially) before it was fashionable. I found it a useful coping strategy that helped me navigate late capitalism, especially in the long stretches of my life when I was broke. It allows me to appreciate the things that are discarded or disregarded by the dominant culture, as ugly, uninteresting, charmless or tasteless.

Saving the Muslim woman, yet again

Sahar Ghumkhor and Yassir Morsi — Tue, 07 May 2013 01:59:30 +0000

There’s been much debate among politicians, university staff and the Muslim community about the gender-segregated seating at a lecture at the University of Melbourne organised by Islamic education group, Hikma Way. Responding to the Australian’s inquiry about the event, Melbourne uni gender studies academic Sheila Jeffreys described it as ‘gender apartheid’ and ‘ritual humiliation’. Opposition leader Tony Abbott responded with the all-too-familiar label, ‘un-Australian’.

Helen Razer, symbolism and the Left

Elizabeth OShea — Mon, 06 May 2013 03:05:17 +0000

Helen Razer’s piece about the failures of the ‘Left’ is a political version of an Escher drawing. Chastising what she sees as vacuous symbolism and disintegration into individuality, Razer appears wholly unaware of the intense irony in calling this out in the exact manner she decries. Her criticism doesn’t take you anywhere; you just end up talking in circles of pithy cynicism.

Warrior making and Anzac Day

Kim Johnston — Fri, 03 May 2013 02:19:12 +0000

On Saturday 27 April, the Canberra Times published an article entitled ‘Push to add soldier to honour roll despite “objections”’. Two days earlier, 35,000 people attended the dawn service at the Australian War Memorial, with other ceremonies around Australia reporting larger crowds than the previous three or four years.

Pity the emerging writer – or not

Stephen Wright — Thu, 02 May 2013 02:00:05 +0000

There are so many implications built into the term ‘emerging writer’, many of them patronising and designed to reinforce a hierarchy of power. There’s a kind of infantilising regard built into the idea.

Clive Palmer and the plutocratic impulse

Guy Rundle — Wed, 01 May 2013 04:26:11 +0000

Ross Perot ran a one-man party, based on his software fortune, in 1992, thus ensuring the election of Bill Clinton. More recently, billionaire financial services broadcaster, Michael Bloomberg simply bought the mayoralty of New York with a massive outspend of his opponent, while Vegas property developer and ultra-zionist Shelton Adelson pumped tens of millions into the one-man crusade of Newt Gingrich (in return, Gingrich’s speeches would veer alarmingly from the structural economic problems of the US to a demand that the country’s Israeli embassy be moved to Jerusalem).