Identity Anecdotes

`Reading Meaghan Morris is like trekking on a meandering path through dense forests and over steep hills, making us pause at startling finds and taking us through unsurpassed vistas of insight and knowledge. Morris takes no shortcuts and leads us through places that may seem eccentric, but the experience is immensely rewarding for those who appreciate that serious intellectual work today demands addressing hard questions with intense dedication and patience for detail, not the easy way out of premature generalisations and sweeping statements.

Meticulously attentive to the complex nuances and intricacies of what is too easily glossed as cross-cultural communication in the front lines of global intellectual exchange, these essays offer us a unique, writerly perspective on what it takes, socially and textually, to reconcile the requirements of an effective shared discourse cultural studies with the intrinsic heterogeneity of our divergent glocal realities.

Written with the razor-sharp precision, arresting wit and erudite acumen that are quintessential Meaghan Morris, Identity Anecdotes is an awesomely satisfying and enlightening read. It is also testimony to a fearless generosity of spirit that we need more than ever in our increasingly fraught and fractious world' - Ien Ang, University of Western Sydney

"It is an eclectic collection of essays, written between 1998 and 1999, which are all more or less obliquely concerned with questions of Australian culture and history. It offers a virtuosic demonstration of the capacities of theoretically informed cultural and historical criticism."

Meaghan Morris is Professor and Chair of the department of cultural studies at Lingnan University, Hong Kong.

PART ONE: RHETORIC and NATIONALITY Afterthoughts on 'Australianism' Panorama The Live, The Dead and The Living White Panic or Mad Max and the Sublime Beyond Assimilation Aboriginality, Media History and Public Memory PART TWO: TRANSLATION IN CULTURAL THEORY The Man in the Mirror David Harvey's 'Condition' of Postmodernity A Way of Inhabiting A Culture Paul Willemen's Looks and Frictions An Ethics of Uncertainty Naoki Sakai's Translation and Subjectivity Crazy Talk Is Not Enough Deleuze and Guattari at Muriel's Wedding PART THREE: INSTITUTIONALLY SPEAKING Sticks and Stones and Stereotypes The Scully Protocol ('The Truth Is Out There...') 'Please Explain?' Ignorance, Poverty and the Past Uncle Billy, Tina Turner and Me