Depression and expression: life begins on the other side of despair

This paper has two parts. In Part I, it consists of a letter written by the subject of the &lsquo;case study&rsquo; that forms the basis of Part II. Part I demonstrates how the writer Aliki Pavlou discovered that, in attempting to help a friend face uncomfortable truths in relation to his perception of his mother, she inadvertently was able to voice her own dilemma in relation to her mother that hitherto had been elusive.This paper forms a part of a larger project being researched by Aliki Pavlou, Justin Clemens and me. The study, to be entitled, &quot;In the Heart of Hell: Depression and its Expression,&quot; is one that contends that Literature expresses the ineffable nature of depression in its symbolic mode; that, indeed, literary texts reveal in their concealment. The work therefore argues that &lsquo;depression&rsquo; is expressible.Part II of this paper analyses the response of a depressive to Jean-Paul Sartre&rsquo;s novel Nausea (1964). Beginning with a brief discussion of the role of the &lsquo;mother&rsquo; as psychologically pivotal in some depressives&rsquo; struggle towards well-being, this section analyses a reading of Nausea by a depressive. The objective of this study was to ascertain the extent to which the condition of nausea, as represented in Sartre&rsquo;s novel, expresses the experience of depression. <br /

In dialogue with A.D. Hope: dialogue three: politics and poetics of Australian literature

[Hope was largely responsible for the inclusion of Australian Literature as a separate subject of study in universities. Yet his role in debates on modernism in the Australian context was controversial and he remains one of the main figures who fought for a particular kind of poetry that he saw some modernist methods, experiments, and theories destroying. Dialogue Three aims to hear his side of the story as Hope has become, in many circles, the embodiment of what is euphemistically called &lsquo;the dead white male,&rsquo; a title attributed to him long before his actual death in July 2000. Is it the case that Hope&rsquo;s opposition to &lsquo;free verse&rsquo; or his view that men and women know separate metaphysical worldviews or his poetic focus upon European philosophical and literary traditions are sexist, obsolete, or reactionary?See Dialogue One for details of the following exchange.]<br /

Can art change minds where science can\u27t?

How can art communicate to a sceptical public the current state of climate? Scientists agree human influence is paramount in explaining climate change, but the public at large is not drawn naturally to science education. With this in mind, art&rsquo;s power to target the emotions of an audience could be particularly effective.<br /

In dialogue with A.D. Hope: dialogue one: childhood and adolescence

[Alec Derwent Hope, born in Cooma 1907, won a scholarship to University College, Oxford, after majoring in English and Philosophy at Sydney University, and returned to a life of teaching and writing from the &lsquo;thirties. His pre-eminence in literary culture was underpinned by his appointment as Professor of English at University College, Canberra, the forerunner of the Australian National University. His work in poetry, translations, and criticism provoked intense response, never indifference. His first published volumes were the satirical sequence, Dunciad Minimus : An Heroic Poem (1950), and selection of poems, The Wandering Islands (1955); amongst the final volumes were the autobiographical Chance Encounters (1992) and Selected Poems (1992).Dialogue One was designed to explore what connections can be made between the life of the child and the values engendered in this formative phase and the adult&rsquo;s creative work and view of the world; an exploration shaped by what might be seen as a relentless irony inherent in his poetry and his other scholarly productions and by Hope&rsquo;s view that childhood is a place of the sacred and of secrets that are best protected from the limiting force of definition--somehow best kept suspended between the unconscious and the conscious mind to draw from when enacting a poetic vision of life. To that extent, Dialogue One is an attempt to navigate territory that might be seen as Hope&rsquo;s mindscape and landscape as it emerged in childhood and adolescence.The following exchange comprises selected excerpts from the transcripts of Ann McCulloch&rsquo;s videoed interviews in Melbourne 1988, The Dance of Language: The Life and Work of A.D. Hope, as well as from her many conversations with Hope between 1981 and 1996 in Canberra.]<br /