country matters: sexing the reconciled Republic of Australia

This essay analyses how Australian postcolonial discourses, influenced by both Republicanism and Reconciliation, deploy the trope of woman to signify political change in both feminist and cultural debates about belonging, national legitimacy and sovereignty. I point out that white feminist rejection of the Queen in favour of embracing indigeneity is itself complicit with a history of ‘incorporating’ and assimilating indigeneity – a complicity that is sublimated in favour of a triumphant rejection of Imperial white womanhood. The essay looks at a contemporary Australian novel, media depictions of Paul Keating's ‘embrace’ of Queen Elizabeth II (as a kind of captivity narrative), critical whiteness studies’ ‘rejection’ of the Queen and the misrecognition of Australia's distinct characteristics as a ‘settler culture’ (that incorporates indigeneity) within Australian feminist debates and claims of ‘transgression’ that are made for interracial relationships in Australia.     

Buwumu: Redefining Black Beauty and Emancipating the Hottentot Venus in the Work of Oforiwaa Aduonum

A number of the women who worked in the Lowell textile mills during the mid-nineteenth century wrote of their experiences. The best known of these, The Lowell Offering often idealized the conditions of factory life and failed to reflect the “rights” and “wrongs” of the operatives. However, some of the records pay tribute to the spirit of co‐operation that existed among the women workers.