Current Issue

antiTHESIS Volume 20: Fear
2010

Editorial
The volume you hold in your hands is not merely a journal but a window onto a world crippled by fear. To open the covers is to draw the curtains aside to reveal a landscape whose inhabitants veer from panic to paralysis and back again. Silent citizens wander the streets, tight-lipped for fear that they slightest stray word will incur retribution from those in power. In private spaces, in the safety of their homes, those not in the streets fortify themselves against the outside world. Some worry that their loved ones, their children, will meet a sudden and unspeakable fate; others whose families have met such a fate not struggle to stand and face the day. Some tremble at the thought of impending, inescapable war; others cannot escape the grip of wars long past that persistently trouble the mind. Where the city touches the distant hills, wild beasts stalk the urban fringe. Where the hills descend into valleys, disease has ravaged the land. Where the valleys break apart in gullies and hollows, the degenerate strain of humanity that survives there barely resembles humanity at all. Few who inhabit this world could possibly want to remain here, but so overwhelming is the sense of fear that too few of those who want to flee can summon the courage to run.

Fear is one of the most potent forces affecting us. It is both a survival mechanism and an instrument of manipulation; it can trigger an instinctive flight from danger or an immobilising terror in the face of the unknown; its triumph is the very essence of cowardice while its suppression is the mark of heroism. The writers and artists gathered together in antiTHESIS Volume 20: Fear consider fear in its many manifestations, past and present. Some attempt to expose its machinations, some seek to neutralise its potency, some search for a way to tolerate it, and some endeavour to simply express it. Through fiction and poetry, through visual art and scholarship, they accompany is across the landscape of fear in order to acquaint us with the most unsettling aspect of human experience, taking us on a journey which we would be reluctant to make on our own.

ISSN 1030-3839

2010 Editorial Collective

• Jane Eckett
• Wendy Garden
• Justine Grace
• Nicole Hayes
• Stephen James
• Peta Mayer
• Kasia Pawlikowski
• Miranda Stanyon
• Daniel Wood

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2010 Journal Contents

• Editorial
  an opening statement by the editors, p. 7
• Fear-narratives and the History of the Body
  an essay by Joanna Bourke, p. 8-13
• Disease’s Gifts
  a poem by Joy Ladin, p. 14
• Refloating the Falling Man:
  The Emancipatory Imagery of Philippe Petit’s Highwire Act, Post-9/11
  a research article by Johanna Skibsrud, p. 15-24
• Plague In Absentia: Fear of Bubonic Plague in Eighteenth-century England
  a research article by Myra Valley, p. 25-46
• Sweden
  a short story by Jennifer Thorp, p. 47-53
• Playground Ghosts
  an image by James Raynes, p. 54
• A Little Glass Booth: Auschwitz, Snow White and the Performance of Fear
  a research article by L.J. Maher, p. 55-71
• The Leopard
  a poem by Joy Ladin, p. 72
• Naked Fear: A New Chapter in the History of Anxiety
  a feature article by Robert Nelson, p. 73-90
• Fear Gifts
  an image by Brett Harper, p. 91
• Don’t Expect Too Much From the End of the World!:
  Christoph Schlingensief’s Church of Fear
  a research article by Anna Teresa Scheer, p. 92-111
• Cruci-fiction at Yatala Prison
  a poem by Heather Sladdin Stuart, p. 112-113
• Gracie
  an image by Chavawn Kelly, p. 114-115
• The Fatalists
  a poem by Daniele Pantano, p. 116
• Fear Eats the Artist
  an essay by Christos Tsiolkas, p. 117-120
• Geometry of Fear: A New Dimension in the Work of Three Australian Sculptors:
  Julius Kane, Robert Klippel, and Lenton Parr, 1945-60
  a research article by Jane Eckett, p. 121-139
• Beastie
  a poem by Heather Sladdin Stuart, p. 140
• In Search of the Paper Moon
  an image by Jodi Blokkeerus, p. 141
• Monologue of His Billfold
  a poem by Anna King, p. 142-143
• Before the Operation
  an image by Sue Michael, p. 144
• Performing Autobiographical Documentary: Fear, Shame, and Ethics
  a research article by Kate Nash, p. 145-158
• Today
  a short story by Nicole Hayes, p. 159-164
• Shaky
  a poem by Dennis H. Lee, p. 165
• Doll Awakenings
  an image by Anna Jacobson, p. 166-167
• In the Company of Fear
  an essay by Angela Meyer, p. 168-171
• Ilnor — A Minor Collection of Unnatural History
  an image by Sayraphim Lothian, p. 172
• The Politics of Cowardice:
  Fear, Interest, and Security in Aphra Behn’s The Widdow Ranter
  a research article by Brandon Chua, p. 173-193
• The Relic
  a short story by Russell Helms, p. 194-197
• The Village Mongrels
  a poem by Donna J. Gelagotis Lee, p. 198
• The Abandoned Woman in the Water Closet
  a poem by Donna J. Gelagotis Lee, p. 199
• House of Stones
  a poem by Natasha Carthew, p. 200
• Fear: Its Past, Present, and Future
  a feature article by Joy Damousi, p. 201-213
• Footy Passions by John Cash and Joy Damousi
  a book review by Jonathan Norton, p. 214-216
• The Reader edited by Dion Kagan
  a book review by Daniel Wood, p. 217-219
• Reports of Book’s Death Greatly Exaggerated: Dreaming in Books: The Making
  of the Bibliographic Imagination in the Romantic Age by Andrew Piper
  a book review by Miranda Stanyon, p. 220-222
• The Garden of Paradise: Lyrical Eroticism in Nathalie Djurberg’s Experimentet at the 53rd Biennale di Venezia
  an art exhibition review by Justine Grace, p. 223-225
• Always Historicise!: Anachronistic Production in the Penguin Decades, the ’80s and Anita Brookner’s Latecomers
  a book review by Peta Mayer, 226-231
• Editor and Contributor Biographies, p. 232-234
• Patches Risk Collectors
  an art project by www.patches-is.com.