At this juncture, it’s difficult to evaluate the Journal of Controversial Ideas as anything more than a performance of daring by thinkers who want to win the culture wars, and in which the ‘free enquiry on controversial topics’ takes the backseat to political posturing of the most transparent kind.

Who are the ‘climate trolls’, exactly? How do we best to respond to them? Will not feeding them really do the trick?

The casual lit sub-genre is a kind of spiritual twin to ‘quit lit’. Both strands chronicle the challenges of the neoliberal university – quit lit is written from the perspective of scholars who’ve departed the ivory tower (or are in the process of doing so), while casual lit documents the lived experiences of those who are struggling to stay put.

Readers may be familiar with the ‘Sokal squared’ hoax that was revealed a few weeks back. It basically involved a trio of US researchers publishing articles on deliberately outlandish topics – ‘rape culture and queer performativity at urban dog parks’, for example – in prestigious journals. The hoaxers claimed their actions were motivated by a desire to expose what they regard as an unhealthy fixation on ‘academic grievance studies.’

Rosewarne notes that the woman who engages in sex ‘outside of a committed relationship’ may (according to a certain sexist mindset) be thought of as exhibiting a ‘lack of restraint as well as unfeminine greed’. The Other Woman rejects the role of faithful wife, and in doing so, robs another woman of her chance to be a wife.

When published in 1995, Justine Ettler’s debut novel The River Ophelia received a lively critical reception. For some, the book exemplified a genre of gritty, in-ya-face writing then known as ‘grunge lit’, named after the contemporaneous music movement from Seattle (think Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam).

The stereotype of the innocent, asexual child is crude, antiquated – and dangerous. As Steven Angelides has persuasively argued, linking childhood with asexuality ‘misrepresents and simplifies child sexuality, sending children the message that sexual behaviour, for them, is dangerous and wrong’. This link makes it more difficult for children to discuss sex and sexuality, and to report sexual abuse.

One of the key tenets of historical studies is that memory is political. What and how we remember certain events speaks volumes not only about those events, but also about the sociohistorical spaces in which those events played out, as well as the spaces in which the events are remembered. I am most interested in the way that the Beaumont children’s disappearance has been framed as symbolic of national innocence lost.