Book picks similar to
Rethinking Tragedy by Rita Felski


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everything-phd
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Glass Half Full


Lucy Rocca - 2014
     In April 2011, Lucy Rocca woke up in a hospital bed with no memory of how she had ended up there. After accepting that her drinking had spiralled out of control, she made the decision there and then to never touch alcohol again. However, the early days were a challenge, and Lucy began recording her journey in a blog as a way of helping herself move forward to a happy and sober future. For someone who defined herself by her love of drinking for over twenty years, letting go of the booze crutch was initially a challenge, but over time, Lucy began to realise how much happier she was living alcohol-free. Glass Half Full is the story of her journey from hopelessly devoted wine fiend to sober and truly happy for the first time in her adult life. As the founder of Soberistas.com, Lucy’s blog also provides motivational and inspirational support for those seeking an alcohol-free life.

Hideaway Hall


Jennifer Hayden - 2017
    She has been running from her past ever since. For two decades, she has pushed the bad memories from her mind and struggled to make a life for herself hundreds of miles away from the town of Rocky Point, Washington. When her grandmother dies, Maisy is forced to go home—back to a house where the nightmares all started. Back to a house where evil still lurks and unrest still lingers. Soon Maisy is tossed back in time. Nothing is what it seems. Someone or something is trying to communicate with her. With the help of local firefighter, Cade Rowe, Maisy chooses not to run from the truth this time. As secrets long buried begin to surface, a wave of terror washes over the entire town. Evil spreads. Hideaway Hall is wide awake and it's only a matter of time before everyone who touches it realizes the power of those trapped inside.

Her Outback Secret


Kristy Taylor - 2018
     Sick of being broke, vet nurse Kylie Douglas is intent on selling the outback homestead she inherited so she can get back to her normal life in Brisbane with some cash to burn. She has never really been attracted to the strong silent type, but when she meets Jack she senses there is something different about him.Still grieving for his wife and unborn child, Jack Lawson is intent on buying the outback homestead to keep their memories close. Jack knows he needs to move on with his life, but can he if he has to leave the homestead behind?When the homestead starts to unearth its many secrets, Kylie and Jack's worlds collide as the past comes back to haunt them. Will her grandmother's biggest secret tear both their worlds apart?

Jacques Lacan, Past and Present: A Dialogue


Alain Badiou - 2012
    He explains in depth the tools Lacan gave him to navigate the extremes of his other two philosophical "masters," Jean-Paul Sartre and Louis Althusser. Élisabeth Roudinesco supplements Badiou's experience with her own perspective on the troubled landscape of the French analytic world since Lacan's death—critiquing, for example, the link (or lack thereof) between politics and psychoanalysis in Lacan's work. Their exchange reinvigorates how the the work of a pivotal twentieth-century thinker is perceived.

The Uncanny


Nicholas Royle - 2003
    Much of this importance can be traced back to Freud's extraordinary essay of 1919, 'The Uncanny' (Das Unheimliche). As a ghostly feeling and concept, however, the uncanny has a complex history going back to at least the Enlightenment. Royle offers a detailed account of the emergence of the uncanny, together with a series of close readings of different aspects of the topic. Following a major introductory historical and critical overview, there are chapters on literature, teaching, psychoanalysis, deconstruction, film, the death drive, deja vu, silence, solitude and darkness, the fear of being buried alive, the double, ghosts, cannibalism, telepathy, madness and religion.

Gamer Theory


McKenzie Wark - 2007
    Gamespace is where and how we live today. It is everywhere and nowhere; the main chance, the best shot, the big leagues, the only game in town. In a world thus configured, McKenzie Wark contends, digital computer games are the emergent cultural form of the times. Where others argue obsessively over violence in games, Wark approaches them as a utopian version of the world in which we actually live. Playing against the machine on a game console, we enjoy the only truly level playing field; where we get ahead on our strengths or not at all.Gamer Theory uncovers the significance of games in the gap between the near-perfection of actual games and the highly imperfect gamespace of everyday life in the rat race of free-market society. The book depicts a world becoming an inescapable series of less and less perfect games. This world gives rise to a new persona. In place of the subject or citizen stands the gamer. As all previous such personae had their breviaries and manuals, Gamer Theory seeks to offer guidance for thinking within this new character. Neither a strategy guide nor a cheat sheet for improving one's score or skills, the book is instead a primer in thinking about a world made over as a gamespace, recast as an imperfect copy of the game.

Jacques Lacan: A Feminist Introduction


Elizabeth Grosz - 1990
    Discussing previous attempts to give a feminist reading of his work, she argues for women's autonomy based on an indifference to the Lacanian phallus.

Beneath a Stormy Sky


AnneMarie Brear - 2019
     Louisa Reynolds loses her brother when their ship goes down in a storm off the west coast of Australia. Stranded and alone on a deserted beach she is rescued by a young aboriginal girl, who keeps her alive, and teaches her the ways of the native people. When eventually Louisa stumbles into the nearest town of Albany, she must gather her strength to start again. Befriended by two men, old gentleman George and the dashing Connor, she finds that life is worth living. The unexpected friendship with both Connor and George gives her new joy. She’s invited to stay at George’s sheep station. However, as a single woman in the company of men, she is soon the talk of gossips. Her feelings for Connor intensify, but when she learns more about him, she is shattered by a revelation and it is gentle George who she suddenly marries. Only, settling into station life comes with its own problems when Louisa realises that George has money problems and is close to losing everything. Confronted by a devastating fire and a gang of bushrangers, Louisa feels as though her world is spinning out of control. Can she save the sheep station, and how long can she deny the love she feels for Connor?

Ashes to Ashes


Tory Palmer - 2020
    In short, everything a young woman could hope for...Oh, who am I kidding? My husband left me, my best friend is an oversexed trust-fund kid, and the silent partner in my business just dropped dead. And, without him, I've got maybe one season before my art gallery goes under.And, as if all that weren't enough, now I have a stalker!When Rachel, my oversexed pixie of a friend, drags me out to the rowdiest biker bar in the county and we find not one but two sexy, capable hunks to keep both my mind and body "busy."But, as my stalker begins to escalate, both of my handsome bikers, Ryder and Tommy, come to my defense.Will the three of us be strong enough to stand against the criminal forces at work, even as they grow in danger and scale? More importantly, will we be strong enough to embrace our hearts' desires?Or will we all end up as nothing but ashes in the end?

Jerilderie Letter


Ned Kelly - 1930
    This is the reverbative document which inspired novelist Peter Carey's highly praised reinvention of the Kelly tale, True History of the Kelly Gang.

I Belong to No One: One woman's true story of family violence, forced adoption and ultimate triumphant survival


Gwen Wilson - 2015
    This is one woman's story of all she lost and how hard she fought to survive.A teenager in the 1970s, Gwen Wilson grew up in Western Sydney. It was a tough childhood. Illegitimate, fatherless - her mother in and out of psychiatric hospitals; it would have been easy for anyone to despair and give up. Yet Gwen had hope. Despite it all, she was a good student, fighting hard for a scholarship and a brighter future.Then she met Colin. Someone to love who would love her back. But that short-lived love wasn't the sanctuary Gwen was looking for. It was the start of a living hell. Rape was just the beginning. By sixteen she was pregnant, her education abandoned. Australian society did not tolerate single mothers; prejudice and discrimination followed her everywhere. In an effort to save her son, Jason, from the illegitimacy and deprivation she'd grown up with, Gwen chose to marry Colin - and too quickly the nightmare of physical abuse, poverty and homelessness seemed inescapable.In 1974, in the dying days of the forced adoption era in Australia, this isolated teenager was compelled to make a decision about her child that would tear her life apart, one she would never truly come to terms with.I Belong to No One is one woman's story of all she lost and how hard she fought to survive and eventually triumph.

Michel Foucault


Sara Mills - 2002
    His radical reworkings of the concepts of power, knowledge, discourse and identity have influenced the widest possible range of theories and impacted upon disciplinary fields from literary studies to anthropology. Aimed at students approaching Foucault's texts for the first time, this volume offers: * an examination of Foucault's contexts* a guide to his key ideas* an overview of responses to his work* practical hints on 'using Foucault'* an annotated guide to his most influential works* suggestions for further reading.Challenging not just what we think but how we think, Foucault's work remains the subject of heated debate. Sara Mills' Michel Foucault offers an introduction to both the ideas and the debate, fully equipping student readers for an encounter with this most influential of thinkers.

The Day After Forever


Erin Skiffington - 1997
    It illustrates the agony surroundingf horrific events and how friendship will always stand strong against the circumstances.Jeff has leukemia. The whole purpose of organising the holiday down to Lake Tarawera was so he could spent the last moments of his life in the same place where his parents died. Yet he cannot help but fall for Courtney - who is shy, pretty, yet secretive. No matter how her friends try to help, she shies away - sheltering her secret from them as best as possible.Eddie is confident, handsome - a regular "babe magnet"; and he is also attracted to Courtney, and concerned about her. he is also the one who knows about Jeff's plight and the seriousness of it. Toni is loud, outgoing... and she knows it. She also knows that if it weren't for her, Eddie would be floating in the clouds somwhere.Skiffington unites these four teenagers to bring loyalty and friendship. As events unfold, Jeff drifts further towards the end of the line, and time begins to run out.A debut novel from a fourteen year old New Zealand writer which will tug on your heart strings and definitely get the waterworks going. This is a summer holiday that you will never forget.

Landscape of Farewell


Alex Miller - 2007
    After the death of his much-loved wife and his recognition that he will never write the great study of history that was to be his life's crowning work, Max believes his life is all but over. Everything changes, though, when his valedictory lecture is challenged by Professor Vita McLelland, a feisty young Australian Aboriginal academic visiting Germany. Their meeting and growing friendship sets Max on a journey that would have seemed unthinkable just a few short weeks earlier.When, at Vita's invitation, Max travels to Australia, he forms a deep friendship with her uncle, Aboriginal elder Dougald Gnapun. It is a friendship that not only gives new meaning and purpose to Max, but which teaches him the profound importance of truth-telling in reconciliation with his own and his country's past.

Of Other Spaces, Heterotopias


Michel Foucault - 1967
    Although not reviewed for publication by the author and thus not part of the official corpus of his work, the manuscript was released into the public domain for an exhibition in Berlin shortly before Michel Foucault's death.