Triple J's hottest

A quick overview of the Australian music countdown, Triple J's Hottest 100

Who's the weird mob anyway? Assimilation and authenticity in They're A Weird Mob

As one of the most well-known films about Australia's post-war immigration, Michael Powell's They're A Weird Mob (1966) is also one of the most complex and arguably problematic filmic representations of migrants' experiences. Nevertheless, it remains one of the very few mainstream Australian films from the time that in any way addresses immigration and settlement during this period of post-war nation building. Specifically, the film captures a moment in Australia's post-war history when immigrants were expected to assimilate into an Australian culture and society that was still imagined in terms of its colonial connections to Britain. Critical perspectives of They're A Weird Mob vary from those that decry its assimilationist overtones to those who are able to recognise in the film a form of inclusive 'benign multicultural tolerance'. While the film remains problematic because of its assimilationist message, particularly from a current multiculturalist perspective, it must be appreciated as an important artefact of its era

Bipolar (Un)patriots: national identity, ethnic identity and the 2006 FIFA World Cup

Qualifying for the first time since its World Cup debut in 1974, this international soccer tournament generated an unprecedented level of excitement amongst Australians. Beginning with a pre-tournament friendly with Greece, who did not qualify for the World Cup, Australia faced three countries from which significant numbers had migrated to Australia. Greek Australians, Italian Australians and Croatian Australians faced an interesting choice that heretofore had only been hypothetical: if Australia played Greece/Croatia/Italy in the World Cup, who would you support? The choice is laden with social, cultural and political implications. Discussions about choosing other national teams over the Socceroos should be read in light of recent public debate about national identity and citizenship. In the months preceding the 2006 World Cup, the role of dual citizenship and, by implication, multicultural and transnational Australian identities in contemporary Australian society were questioned and challenged. It is assumed that one’s choice of team also indicates one’s national loyalty, yet is it not also possible that one’s choice of team and one’s choice of country articulates fluid and multiple identities in an increasingly globalised context? Through an analysis of the shifting status of soccer in Australian society in recent years, this paper examines the complex relationship of sport and national identity, and the place of ethnic identification within the multicultural sporting nation

Better off dead?: the creative practice of reviving Ophelia

Various attempts have been made to reclaim Shakespeare’s heroines from tragic fates and patriarchal oppression. Hamlet’s Ophelia has been a particular source of inspiration for writers and filmmakers but, as with many heroines of the tragedies, the greatest challenge for revising Ophelia is rewriting her death, which is the pivotal point of her narrative significance in the original play. Framed within a broader consideration of the feminist project to revive and reclaim Ophelia in the 1990s and beyond, this article considers how treatment of Ophelia’s death in twenty-first century has been the significant narrative turning point for adaptations and appropriations. This focus on her death has either facilitated or compromised her subjectivity and agency. The article concludes with suggestions for the other thematic and technical possibilities afforded to both creative writers and literary scholars engaged in the process of canonical revision

Calvary or limbo? Articulating identity and citizenship in two Italian Australian autobiographical narratives of World War II internment

Almost 5,000 Italians were interned in Australia during World War II, a high proportion of them Queensland residents. Internment was a pivotal experience for the Italian community, both locally and nationally, complicating Italian Australians’ sense of belonging to their adopted country. Through an examination of two migrant autobiographical narratives of internment, Osvaldo Bonutto's A Migrant's Story and Peter Dalseno's Sugar, Tears and Eyeties, this article explores the impact of internment on the experience and articulation of cultural and civic belonging to Australian society. It finds that internment was a ‘trial’ or ‘transitional’ phase for these internees’ personal and civic identities, and that the articulation of these identities and sense of belonging is historically contingent, influenced by the shift from assimilation to multiculturalism in settlement ideology, as well as Italian Australians’ changing place in Australian society throughout the twentieth century

This One Loves That One: Queerbaiting at the Eurovision Song Contest

Most queerbaiting scholarship focuses on drama series, but queerbaiting functions differently in nonnarrative event television like Eurovision. At Eurovision, there are no characters or storylines as such. Even so, producers and performers are able to suggest queer content and meaning in a variety of ways, including the selection of hosts, the scripting of their banter and other interval entertainment, and the deliberate queering of performances

A Commonwealth Princess? The instrumentalization of Meghan Markle’s race to construct her royal persona

Prior to the Sussexes’ departure from their roles as senior royals, there was a significant attempt to construct for the Duchess of Sussex a specific royal persona that can be summarized as the 'Commonwealth Princess'. There were two main purposes to this persona. The first was to use both the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and their popularity to leverage a more modern face to monarchy in the Commonwealth. The second purpose, stemming from this, was to maintain and strengthen contemporary relations with Commonwealth nations. Markle’s biracial identity was an important part of this strategy and persona as it became a means to connect to colonised people of colour

Skirting the issue: finding queer and geopolitical belonging at the Eurovision Song Contest

This article examines how the ideological boundaries of East and West are built, maintained and challenged through the performance of sexual and other politics in the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC). It argues that the contest is a useful prism through which to examine and understand contemporary European debates about sexual politics, and the role that this plays in defining the borders of modern Europe and its conditions of belonging. The contest itself offers an important site for belonging to the European community both to states on the eastern margins and to queer communities throughout Europe. It examines examples of performances that have challenged sexual politics, such as the Finnish entry from 2013, as well as state responses to the queer dimensions of the contest, such as those from Russia and Azerbaijan. It concludes that different states may challenge the ESC rules on political gestures depending on their own status within the European community as well as the extent to which that gesture challenges or reaffirms 'European' ideology

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance

INTRODUCTION Investment in Africa over the past year with regard to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequencing has led to a massive increase in the number of sequences, which, to date, exceeds 100,000 sequences generated to track the pandemic on the continent. These sequences have profoundly affected how public health officials in Africa have navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. RATIONALE We demonstrate how the first 100,000 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from Africa have helped monitor the epidemic on the continent, how genomic surveillance expanded over the course of the pandemic, and how we adapted our sequencing methods to deal with an evolving virus. Finally, we also examine how viral lineages have spread across the continent in a phylogeographic framework to gain insights into the underlying temporal and spatial transmission dynamics for several variants of concern (VOCs). RESULTS Our results indicate that the number of countries in Africa that can sequence the virus within their own borders is growing and that this is coupled with a shorter turnaround time from the time of sampling to sequence submission. Ongoing evolution necessitated the continual updating of primer sets, and, as a result, eight primer sets were designed in tandem with viral evolution and used to ensure effective sequencing of the virus. The pandemic unfolded through multiple waves of infection that were each driven by distinct genetic lineages, with B.1-like ancestral strains associated with the first pandemic wave of infections in 2020. Successive waves on the continent were fueled by different VOCs, with Alpha and Beta cocirculating in distinct spatial patterns during the second wave and Delta and Omicron affecting the whole continent during the third and fourth waves, respectively. Phylogeographic reconstruction points toward distinct differences in viral importation and exportation patterns associated with the Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron variants and subvariants, when considering both Africa versus the rest of the world and viral dissemination within the continent. Our epidemiological and phylogenetic inferences therefore underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic on the continent and highlight key insights and challenges, for instance, recognizing the limitations of low testing proportions. We also highlight the early warning capacity that genomic surveillance in Africa has had for the rest of the world with the detection of new lineages and variants, the most recent being the characterization of various Omicron subvariants. CONCLUSION Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve. This is important not only to help combat SARS-CoV-2 on the continent but also because it can be used as a platform to help address the many emerging and reemerging infectious disease threats in Africa. In particular, capacity building for local sequencing within countries or within the continent should be prioritized because this is generally associated with shorter turnaround times, providing the most benefit to local public health authorities tasked with pandemic response and mitigation and allowing for the fastest reaction to localized outbreaks. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century

A cultural affair to remember: nostalgia, whiteness and migration in Love's Brother

Caught in what one reviewer described as an 'Italo-Australian Brigadoon' (Hall), Love's Brother is largely removed from the socio-political context in which it is set and also that in which it was made. By placing Love's Brother back into this context, this chapter analyses the film's problematic representation of Australia's migrant past and its relationship to current issues regarding migration, memory, race and ethnicity. It focuses upon the political implications of nostalgia in imagining migrant narratives of the past, arguing that this reveals more about current attitudes to migrants and migration. Specifically, it examines how the film 'white-washes' elements of Italian Australian history in order to reflect the ethnic group's current standing in broader Australian society, as well as the possibilities and problems this may hold for newer migrant and refugee communities in contemporary Australia