Book reviews

Australian books

D. C. Dunphy, Cliques, Crowds and Gangs: Group Life of Sydney Adolescents, Cheshire, Melbourne, 1969, pp. 170 + xi, $4.50.

A. A. Congalton, Status and Prestige in Australia, Cheshire, Melbourne, 1969, pp. 160 + xvi, $7.50.

B. R. Davidson, Australia Wet or Dry? The Physical and Economic Limits to the Expansion of Irrigation, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1969, pp. 264 + xiv, S3.60 (paperback), $6.60 (hard cover).

Brian Dickey (ed. and intro.), Politics in New South Wales 1856–1900, Problems in Australian History series, Cassell Australia, Melbourne, 1969, pp. 200 + xv, $3.25.

K. L. Needham, Charles Hawker, Forlib Books, Adelaide, 1969, pp. 165 + xiv, $4.85.

Edward St. John, A Time to Speak, Sun Books, Melbourne, 1969, pp. 280, $1.65.

Egon F. Kunz, Blood and Gold: Hungarians in Australia, Cheshire, Melbourne, 1969, pp. 240, $7.50.

H. Throssell (ed.), Ethnic Minorities in Australia: The Welfare of Aborigines and Migrants, Australian Council of Social Service, Sydney, 1968, pp. 184 + viii, $3.75.

Marnie Bassett, Letters from New Guinea 1921, Hawthorn Press, Melbourne, 1969, pp. 159 + x, $5.50.

Ken Turner, House of Review? The New South Wales Legislative Council, 1934–68, Sydney Studies in Politics, No. 8, Sydney University Press, 1969, pp. 164 + viii, $5.00.

Colin A. Hughes, Images and Issues: The Queensland State Elections of 1963 and 1966, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1969, pp. 364, $7.95.

Non‐Australian Books

Miles Copeland, The Came of Nations: The Amorality of Power Politics, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1969, pp. 272, $6.65.

Kenneth N. Waltz, Foreign Policy and Democratic Politics: The American and British Experience, Longmans, London, 1968, pp. 331 +xii, $4.70.     

Burial offerings in intramural tombs at Middle Bronze Age Megiddo

Tel Megiddo is a major type-site for the Middle Bronze in the Levant. During this period a new burial custom appeared in which the dead were interred beneath occupied houses. This tradition is well attested in Area K at the site. Area H, near the palatial complex, revealed a monumental masonry-constructed chamber tomb. This article presents the results of residue analysis conducted on ceramic vessels placed in these tombs as burial offerings. Hundreds of intramural Middle Bronze tombs with ceramic offerings were excavated in the Levant, but this is the first time the content of the vessels is revealed.     

‘It’s Like Biting Your Own Tail’: Pedro Lemebel’s Queer Response to the Challenge of Subversion in Neoliberal Times

Using the methods of textual analysis and in conversation with both Latin American cultural studies and queer studies, the essay examines the ways that Pedro Lemebel’s diverse body of work – ranging from live performances, fiction, non-fictional crónicas, and interviews – engages the limits of subversion in neoliberal times. On the one hand, Lemebel’s work has been routinely framed in terms of its subversion of gendered, sexual, and political norms. On the other hand, scholars and commentators have not deeply engaged the many ways that Lemebel’s own work comments on and represents the challenges of producing subversive cultural productions in a globalized, late capitalist environment in which subversion, including his own, can be undone precisely when it is most celebrated, valued, and commodified. Reading Lemebel’s commentaries and interviews as producing cultural criticism that complements his better-known crónicas’ and performances’ ideological narratives, the essay argues that Lemebel’s oeuvre repeatedly addresses the challenges of performing a delicate dance between resistance and co-optation, given his acknowledged inseparability from the market. Taking Lemebel as a model for this balancing act, the essay ultimately aims to reveal and critique some of the ways that we academics tend to read sexual dissidence as successful subversion without recognizing its complications and limits.     

Modelling and Seismic Response Analysis of Italian Code-Conforming Base-Isolated Buildings

ABSTRACT

This paper reports on results of nonlinear analyses performed within the RINTC project on an RC building isolated with different systems (High Damping Rubber Bearings, High Damping Rubber Bearings and Flat Sliding Bearings, Friction Pendulum System) and designed according to the Italian design code. The seismic response has been evaluated under different seismic input levels of two sites with different hazard and by considering two Limit States: Global Collapse and Usability-Preventing Damage. The influence of seismic stoppers and modelling uncertainties is also evaluated. Results permit to compute the implicit collapse risk and to identify critical aspects of current design procedures.