University of Wollongong Press Titles

Books listed here are in print and currently available.

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Telephone: 02 4221 8050.

Book trade inquiries should go to the Australian Book Group website's Halstead Page at Halstead Press.
Telephone: 02 92113033

New Release

John Hawke , TOWARDS THE SOURCE: The Symbolist Movement in Australian Literature      

Traces the influence of Symbolist style and principles in Australian poetry and literary movements. Hawke extends work on Christopher Brennan into analysis of the political implications of Vitalism and finds Symbolism carrying through into the Modernist period, as exemplified by A.D. Hope and Judith Wright.
John Hawke completed his doctoral thesis at the University of Sydney and taught theory in the Creative Writing program at Wollongong. He now teaches at Monash University.

Backyard: Culture and Nature in the Suburbs

by Lesley Head with Pat Muir 2007. 192pp. ISBN 9781920831 51 6. rrp AUD $45.

How do we think about our backyards? What do we do for domestic leisure?
What do we want from nature? Cats or birds? Vegies, flowers or native shrubs? Are natives better? What are the ethics of lettuce?

These and many more questions are answered in a study that uses suburban backyards from Sydney, Wollongong and Alice Springs as a window onto Australian environmental attitudes and practices.

Personal discussion with backyarders sits in counterpoint to scholarly mapping of broader historical and social trends.. The book also puts that 'dialogue' into an accessible discussion of current theories about the environment and ideas of nature and change. We are all enmeshed with the non-human world, and there is no easy way of separating out pure wilderness and strict urban functionality. Humans are natural too.

Many of us love our backyards: they're where we spend a lot of time growing up as kids and more time once we retire. Their importance can be seen in TV programs such as 'Gardening Australia', 'Burke's Backyard' or 'Backyard Blitz'. But our backyards are also a cutting edge between nature and culture: a space of boundaries and boundary crossings, and a zone of conflict between 'eco-nazis' and 'stylists'. What is 'homely' to one is 'mess' to another, but both seek a space for relaxation and belonging.

Among its diverse sample, the research identifies both commonality and differences in our environmental positioning. Trees, lawn, cats and native plants provoke a spectrum of responses between love and hate. In comparison, there is much more of a shared ethic when it comes to water and birds.

This book originates in the discipline of geography but has relevance for readers interested in urban studies, sociology, popular culture studies, environmental studies, ecology and planning. It is engagingly written and generously illustrated in a format that will both please on the coffee table and impress in the university library.

Backyard is distributed by Australia Book Group.
Phone: 03 5625 4290
email: book.distribution@elandmark.com.au

Seeking Refuge: asylum seekers and politics in a globalising world

Edited by Jo Coghlan, John Minns & Andrew Wells Foreword by Tom Keneally
2005. 142pp. ISBN 1 920831 50 9. rrp $29.95

In Seeking Refuge eminient contributors such as Carmen Lawrence, Andrew Wells, Sam Pietsch and Tessa Morris-Suzuki examine the refugee issues which challenge us, placing them in an urgently needed factual context.
Refugees speak of their own experience, and episodes from the past illuminate today's debate.

Australian Studies in Knowledge Management

There are very few people involved in the management and operations of organisations, whether in business, government or community spheres, who would not agree that these are turbulent times. It often seems that, as organizations, we are overloaded with information and technology and that we are seeking ways to deal with crisis after crisis, without really knowing what will work or where we are going.

Knowledge management suggests that we step back and take an holistic view of where we are and what it is that we are trying to do. It brings the human voice back into the technological economic-rational view of modern organisations and provides a different picture of organizations that are not mere machines but much more 'organic', where collective knowledge can be mobilised for innovation and growth.

This book brings together the diverse approaches currently seen in knowledge management research and practice relevant to practitioners, academics, students, and all those who want to better understand how the Australian context influences the application of knowledge management.

Foraminiferida and Ostracoda: from estuarine and shelf environments on the southeastern coast of Australia

This text is intended to cover both an introductory-level and a working manual on Recent Foraminiferida and Ostacoda. It does not assume any prior exposure to taxonomy or ecology of these organisms, it is expected to be useful in geological, environmental and marine science studies.

The text comprises three chapters. The first chapter reviews and outlines the environmental setting of the southeastern coast of Australia, the second chapter is devoted to Recent Foraminiferida and the third chapter discusses the Recent Ostracoda in the estuarine and shelf environments along the coast of New South Wales.

A History of Wollongong

On 12 September 1947, the Government of New South Wales proclaimed the establishment of the City of Greater Wollongong. The new city was an amalgamation of four local government areas, each one of which had a history of occupation by Aborigines dating back 30,000 years, and a history of white settlement for well over a century. White settlers overwhelmed Aboriginal society, and began to make a living by exploiting the land and what was below it. They sowed crops and pasture where rainforest had been, and dug into the escarpment for coal. Large scale manufacturing began about the beginning of the twentieth century, and from 1928 the steelworks dominated Wollongong's economic life. Combined with the rapid influx of immigrants after the Second World War, this had made Wollongong a distinctive city, while at the same time connecting it further with the world outside Australia. This book tells the story of how it happened.

Information Systems and Activity Theory: Tools in Context

Many researchers in the humanities, education and now information systems have found that activity theory provides a worthwhile framework for understanding their field of study. Several of these researchers gathered for an international workshop on Activity Theory and Information Systems at the University of Wollongong, Australia, in December 1996. The papers contained in this book are the result of that workshop and reflect the broad interests of the participants.

The book will strike a chord with practicioners, researchers and students who are currently engaged in information systems. In its pages activity theory is used as an holistic and complete framework to provide a better understanding of complex systems. The authors describe several examples of their own work where activity theory has been applied to strategic information systems. An annotated bibliography gives a comprehensive overview of the literature in this area.

Information Systems and Activity Theory: Volume 2 Theory and Practice

'This second volume extends these ideas with a more in-depth analysis of how, and why, the cultural historical activity theory has been applied to research into Information Systems and related areas. The papers, included in this volume, have been written by participants in a series of four annual workshops, on Activity Theory and Information Systems, held at the University of Wollongong, Australia.' From the Introduction.

Information Systems and Activity Theory: Volume 3 Expanding the Horizon

'This book is the third volume in the series dealing with the use of the Vygotskian based Activity Theory in IS-related research. The papers, included in this series, have been written by participants of a sequence of annual workshops on Activity Theory and Information Systems, held at the University of Wollongong since 1995.' From the Introduction

Luigi Pirandello: The humorous existentialist

Behind the whimsical and highly entertaining short stories, novels and plays of Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936) there lies a serious and provocative philosophy of the comedy and tragedy of human life. What are we to make of the predicament of Mattia Pascal, a young man who runs away from family woes and poverty, wins a fortune at Monte Carlo, and who on the return journey sees a newspaper report of his own death and decides to seize the opportunity of starting life afresh but who ultimately realises the impossibility of this and so returns to his home village where, refusing to take up his old life, he remains 'the late' Mattia Pascal? What are we to understand from the story of the gambler who, overwhelmed by his gambling debts, decides to commit suicide only after he has stayed up to watch his last sunrise, but falls asleep instead? And what do we learn from the disturbing story of the man who realises that his loving wife's perception of him is so different from his own view of himself that he becomes violently jealous of this 'other' man?

Madeleine Cincotta explores the hidden insights of Luigi Pirandello and shows us why Priandello (who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1934) should be recognised as an original and incisive thinker and the only 'humorous' Existentialist.

Zarzuela: The Spanish Lyric Theatre

This exhaustive work is a complete reference guide to Zarzuela, the Spanish Lyric Theatre. Includes history, biographies of composers and librettists, plot synopses, discography, bibliography, chronological tables and a full index of titles.

Zarzuela Website

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