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Warm welcome for two books by leading scholars

May 22, 2006

SteveHarris,thumb.JPGTwo books launched in Armidale last week are the work of scholars from The University of New England who are among Australia’s leading experts in their respective disciplines of film studies and American literature.

Dr Neil Rattigan, author of "Strictly Ballroom: A Film for Our Time", and Dr Stephen Harris (pictured here), author of "Gore Vidal’s Historical Novels and the Shaping of American Political Consciousness", are lecturers in UNE’s School of English, Communication and Theatre and members of UNE’s Centre for Australian Language, Literature, Theatre and Screen Studies (CALLTS). Both books received a warm welcome during the celebration of them and their authors at the New England Regional Art Museum (NERAM) last Thursday evening.

Karen Stapleton, English Consultant with the Association of Independent Schools in Sydney, launched "Strictly Ballroom" by describing it as “a highly informative critical analysis” of a film that had “truly iconic status”. She said the book was “a great read” as well as a work of astute criticism, and would be read and enjoyed by academics, students, and film-lovers alike. “He weaves a story as he explores the film,” she continued, “and he had me laughing at times – for example with chapter headings such as ‘Cinderella and Her Reluctant Fella’.”

“Most importantly,” Ms Stapleton concluded, “it raises as many questions as it answers. It brings the film alive, and makes you want to see it again.”

UNE’s Associate Professor Michael Sharkey launched "Gore Vidal’s Historical Novels", calling it “a wonderfully incisive study” that would “open up further democratic vistas in the work of Gore Vidal”. He reminded his audience that Vidal had “one of the finest radical minds America has produced”. “In concentrating his sceptical gaze on crucial events in his country’s history,” he continued, “Vidal alerts us to the lies and concealed truths relating to the ‘facts’ on which national myths are built.”

“Stephen Harris argues most persuasively that Vidal’s fiction has at its heart a darkly comic view of humanity – a view that looks more like pessimism than despair,” Dr Sharkey said. “One of the most illuminating aspects of Stephen’s book is his revelation of Vidal’s refusal to embrace despair, when so much historical evidence of human behaviour would persuade us that barbarism has never been so thinly covered as now by a veneer of civilised illusions.”

In his own remarks, Dr Harris commented further on the importance and relevance of Vidal's work in today's world. "We need satirists," he said.

"Strictly Ballroom" is published by CALLTS, which, together with the New England Writers’ Centre, organised the event at NERAM. The evening included entertainment by ballroom dancers Bethany Baldwin and Benjamin Guest from Duval High School (Year 11) and the choir Con Brio.

"Gore Vidal’s Historical Novels and the Shaping of American Political Consciousness" is published in the United States by The Edwin Mellen Press.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at May 22, 2006 03:18 PM