MEANJIN BACK ISSUE

Only Human
Vol. 63, no. 1, 2004

FEATURING: RUPERT MURDOCH, CLEM CHRISTESEN, SUSAN SONTAG, GWEN HARWOOD

REVIEWED: PETER CAREY, PETER BOOTH, GERMAINE GREER

With all eyes fixed on the current controversies surrounding genetics, bio- and bionic technologies, and the recent global turbulence occasioned by war and terrorism, Meanjin fixes its x-ray vision on what it means to be human.

Norman MacKenzie The Man Who Invented Tomorrow
One of H.G. Wells' most eminent biographers reconsiders the novelist in the light of new scientific controversies on the nature and fate of humanity.

Russell Blackford Mutants, Cyborgs, AI & Androids
A cyborg aficionado surveys the range of prospective 'new humans' and 'post-humans' in the new millennium.

Brigid Haines Antipodean Alchemist
'Flying Doctor' pioneer John Flynn believed a vital society was a humane one. Could his career, and his commitment to the Outback, still show us the way?

Julian Burnside Only Human: Only Just
Lawyer and refugee advocate Julian Burnside QC monitors the human cost of Australia 's refugee policy through the voices of asylum seekers in our detention centres. Several of their searing letters to him are directly quoted here.

Brian McFarlane The Heart of Things
While, in many of today's films, humans are seemingly being downsized, one writer finds some specimens that manage to buck the trend.

Susan Sontag/Caroline Brothers Educating the Heart
In a wide-ranging interview, the celebrated American essayist and novelist Susan Sontag reflects on war, memory, art and humanity.

Carla Sari Becoming Oneself
Drawing on her own experience, an Italo-Australian author meditates on the different ways in which humans construct their identities.

Libby Hart Human Remains
On the occasion of the death of her father, a daughter reflects on personal identity, mortality and how to give the past a fitting send-off.

Michael Heyward Chinese Boxes
The author of The Ern Malley Affair salutes Peter Carey's fictional reinvention of the characters involved in the infamous literary hoax.

John Thompson Born Again
Memories of postwar Melbourne and its cultural illuminati.

Tribute to Clem Christesen, founding editor of Meanjin
Writings on his legacy, his period, his friends and rivals, his poetry and fiction. Revealing and hitherto unpublished letters between Clem and the young Rupert Murdoch.

Gregory Kratzmann Who Was Alan Carvosso?
Two newly uncovered poems reveal another facet of the secret life and identities of one of Australia 's greatest poets, Gwen Harwood.

Richard King A Symphony Complete
A new look at Harwood's Collected Poems displays the rich range of voices she employed inher work.

Peter Stewart An Evanescent Sense
The pleasures and disappointments of two recent works by Germaine Greer.

Juan Davila Courbet's Curtain
A contemporary artist's restoration of the emotional evasions of Gustave Courbet's The Origin of the World is a reminder of art's power.

Bernard Smith Is Humanism Dead?
On the fate of humanism in contemporary Australian culture, with particular reference to the work of Peter Booth, recently exhibited at the National gallery of Victoria, and George Gittoes.

Michael Crennan A Classical Case
On the eclectic career of one of early Australia 's leading lawyers, Owen Dixon.

Rachel Buchanan The Powder Room
New Zealand 's popularity as a film location risks dehumanising the landscape.

Fiction by
Annie Condon, Paul Dawson, Wayne McAuley, Paddy O'Reilly

Poetry by
Gwen Harwood, Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Louise Crisp, Paul Hardacre, David Prater, Michael Farrell, Andy Quan, Peter Rose, Brett Dionysus, Claire Gaskin