Zeitschriftenartikel zum Thema „Jewish women – Drama“

Between Camouflage and Stereotype: The Portrayal of a Jewish Woman in Gabriela Zapolska’s Drama “Nerwowa awantura” [The Nervous Row] The article is an attempt to analyze Gabriela Zapolska’s drama entitled Nerwowa awantura [The Nervous Row], first published in 2012. The aim of the study is to answer the question whether Zapolska, while adding Peruwianka to other figures of Jewish women in her literary output, succumbed to popular opinions and provided her with stereotypical features. Or, on the contrary, perhaps she created her protagonist in an innovative, unprecedented way? The author is trying to answer the question whether the ideas of emancipation and feminist movements, so close to the writer, an attempt to fight the existing patriarchal order and Victorian bourgeois customs, also resonate in Nerwowa awantura. The analysis shows that there are no figures of Jewish women in Zapolska’s oeuvre who are clearly burdened with stereotypical traits or are completely free of them. However, none of the Jewish female characters created by the playwright is so independent, liberated and able to achieve her goals as Peruwianka, and as a result she can be perceived as a new figure on the literary and theatrical map.

Jewish women played important roles in many aspects of the birth control movement, as activists, consumers, and distributors. Yet just as the legal system was not yet sure what to make of contraception, neither was the American Jewish community. While hundreds of thousands of Jewish women clearly limited their family size, both ambivalence toward birth control and pockets of outright opposition also persisted. This essay briefly examines the developments in the birth control movement during the pivotal year of 1916 in which Jewish women played important roles. The essay then turns to analysis of two Yiddish plays on the topic written that year. Neither play has ever before been translated in full. Because the Yiddish theater was a central American Jewish cultural institution, the production of plays on the subject of birth control in 1916 dramatized the importance of the issue within the American Jewish community. Though the plays quite possibly loom larger in retrospect than they did at the time and are notable more for content than literary merit, they nonetheless provide a critical lens through which to explore the complex relationship between American Jewry and the birth control movement.

This paper probes into the 1964 Israeli performance of Rolf Hochhuth's controversial drama The Representative. Staged by Habima National Theatre under the direction of Avraham Ninio, the majority of the cast engaged in this production comprised European-born Jewish refugees and Holocaust survivors. In its cultural context, the theatrical image of Jewish refugees dressed in Nazi uniforms or, conversely, staging visual, gestural or aural markers of Auschwitz prisoners imbued the drama with political meanings, triggering a debate about agency and forms of social and material participation in the aftermath of calamity. Examining the subterranean world of artists and craftsmen and women whose labour is deliberately obscured from view, I argue that the work of theatre emerges as a creative and generative energy that filters from the staged fiction into the ‘real’ world.

Abstract S. H. Mosenthal’s blockbuster drama Deborah, popularized in the English-speaking world as Leah, The Forsaken, delivered generations of nineteenth-century theatergoers fantasies about Jewish women. This paper explores the rich performance history of this work, offering a new perspective on the role of popular culture in launching distinctly liberal forms of philosemitism.

Abstract This article argues that women and domestic intrigue are prominent within the Herod narrative in Josephus’ Jewish War for a specific rhetorical reason. While the first half of the narrative presents the famous king in encomiastic terms, using him to illustrate Josephus’ contention that Jews generally were content to remain loyal to Rome, the second half of the account subtly presents a rather different thesis. Attention to domestic drama allowed Josephus to suggest that Herod was a man who was unable to control either his own emotions or his turbulent family, and so was unfit to rule. Ultimately for Josephus, the ideal constituency for Judaea is not monarchy (as represented by Herod) but the theocratic reign of priests.

From Al Khet (For the Sins) to On a Heym (Without a Home): Aleksander Marten (1898–1942?), a Filmmaker of Jewish and Polish Sound Cinematography Mordka Matys Tenenbaum (1898–1942?), also known as Aleksander Marten, is one of the least known Yiddish filmmakers. After ending his theatrical career in Germany and Austria, he went on to direct a Yiddish film Al khet (For the Sins) in Warsaw (1936). It was a melodramatic family story which brought him success and recognition both in Poland and in the diaspora, thus becoming the starting point of the so-called “golden age of Jewish cinema.” It was then that, among others, the following films were made: Yiddle with His Fiddle (Yidl mit’n fidl, dir. Joseph Green and Jan Nowina-Przybylski, 1936), The Handshake (Tkies kaf, dir. Henryk Szaro, 1937), The Dybbuk (Der Dibuk, dir. Michał Waszyński, 1937), and A Little Letter to Mother (A brivele der mamen, dir. Green and Leon Trystan, 1938). Marten, however, chose a different path. Following the example of filmmakers who worked both in Polish and Yiddish cinema, i.e., Szaro, Konrad Tom, Trystan, and Waszyński, the next year he decided to try his hand at Polish film, directing a sensational drama What Women Dream Of (O czym marzą kobiety). It bore a close resemblance, almost shot by shot, to the German film Was Frauen träumen (1933). In 1939, his other film Without a Home (On a heym) had its premiere. It was a drama about Jewish immigrants who struggled to adapt to new living conditions in America. It was also the last Yiddish film made in inter-war Poland.

From Al Khet (For the Sins) to On a Heym (Without a Home): Aleksander Marten (1898–1942?), a Filmmaker of Jewish and Polish Sound Cinematography Mordka Matys Tenenbaum (1898–1942?), also known as Aleksander Marten, is one of the least known Yiddish filmmakers. After ending his theatrical career in Germany and Austria, he went on to direct a Yiddish film Al khet (For the Sins) in Warsaw (1936). It was a melodramatic family story which brought him success and recognition both in Poland and in the diaspora, thus becoming the starting point of the so-called “golden age of Jewish cinema.” It was then that, among others, the following films were made: Yiddle with His Fiddle (Yidl mit’n fidl, dir. Joseph Green and Jan Nowina-Przybylski, 1936), The Handshake (Tkies kaf, dir. Henryk Szaro, 1937), The Dybbuk (Der Dibuk, dir. Michał Waszyński, 1937), and A Little Letter to Mother (A brivele der mamen, dir. Green and Leon Trystan, 1938). Marten, however, chose a different path. Following the example of filmmakers who worked both in Polish and Yiddish cinema, i.e., Szaro, Konrad Tom, Trystan, and Waszyński, the next year he decided to try his hand at Polish film, directing a sensational drama What Women Dream Of (O czym marzą kobiety). It bore a close resemblance, almost shot by shot, to the German film Was Frauen träumen (1933). In 1939, his other film Without a Home (On a heym) had its premiere. It was a drama about Jewish immigrants who struggled to adapt to new living conditions in America. It was also the last Yiddish film made in inter-war Poland.

La recepción inicial del drama bíblico Baltasar de Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda no sólo destacaba las virtudes del pueblo judío frente al paganismo de la corte de Babilonia, sino que analizaba el hastío vital del rey tirano. Sin embargo, nuestro proceso de lectura prefiera subrayar la importancia de los personajes femeninos, porque si bien la autora no traiciona las normas de la jerarquía dominante, sí concede una voz diferenciada a la mujer, cuyo modo de actuación se aleja del estereotipo fijado por la cultura oficial. The initial reception of the biblical drama Baltasar by Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda is not only focused on defending the values of the Jewish people against the paganism of the Babylonian court, but also on the tedium vitae of the tyrant king. Nevertheless, our reading process wishes to underline the importance of the female characters, because while the author does not betray the rules of the dominant hierarchy, it does grant a differentiated voice to women, whose characterization move away from the stereotype marked out byofficial culture

In this article Shulamith Lev-Aladgem focuses on The Bride from the Sea, a community performance by three young Israeli-Palestinian mothers, presented in a sand box in a multi-functional kindergarten in Jaffa in 2008. From the beginning of the creative process, the Jewish facilitator and the performers had to struggle to overcome the various barriers erected by the intricate, oppressive daily life of the young Palestinian women. They eventually managed to perform a ‘short, thin performance’, which, despite resembling a misperformance, had an emotional and even exceptional effect on the audience. This performance is examined as a special kind of women-based community theatre, termed here ‘the bare theatre’, to indicate a form that articulates the bare daily life of women trapped between internal and external oppressive power regimes. Shulamith Lev-Aladgem is chair of the Theatre Arts Department at Tel Aviv University, a trained actress, and a community-based theatre practitioner. Her recent publications include Theatre in Co-Communities: Articulating Power (2010) and Standing Front Stage: Resistance, Celebration, and Subversion in Israeli Community-Based Theatre (2010), as well as articles in Research in Drama Education and Israeli Sociology.

Abstract In critical commentary, Czarny piasek [Black sand, 1959], Andrzej Bobkowski's only play, is surrounded by a sense of unease. Read through the lens of his other writings, it is decried as an offshoot of the blinkered ideas he propounded elsewhere. My approach, in contrast, is that of a drama scholar. I propose to read Black Sand as a play in its own right and to examine its tangled skein of dramaturgical and rhetorical strategies. Part a psychological drama on the torment of personal relations, part a nimble satire on a group of immigrants and refugees, and part a kind of romantic comedy in which the heroine, a young Jewish woman, resists her father's attempts to control her sex life, Black Sand is fraught with interpretive challenges. With the usual caveat that no single interpretation is ever fully adequate, I want to open the way for a more nuanced understanding of Black Sand by looking at it from the perspective of Holocaust drama studies.

The Marble Faun (MF), besides being a travelogue account of Rome, is a story about sin, guilt, suffering and abuse; it is also a tale about love and friendship. It is a story about the relationships between four different individuals united by their mutual love of art. The more interesting and convincing woman of the two female characters in the novel is unquestionably Miriam. Miriam is a rebel, an artist, and a compassionate and redemptive figure. Nevertheless, her art has been almost totally neglected, probably because most critics maintained that Miriam is an allegorical character lacking moral development or growth, whose function in the romance is limited to bringing about the Model’s murder and enacting the romance’s moral drama. The aim of this paper is to rectify a long and undeserved history of neglect and award Miriam her due status of Hawthorne's sole genuine artist. Keywords: art, Hawthorne’s female artists, The Marble Faun

The paper addresses the Slovak drama of the 21st century dedicated to the Second World War, the Holocaust, and the Slovak National Uprising. After the “velvet revolution” of 1989, interest in the military and insurgent theme in Slovak art as a whole declined sharply, but as early as in the 21st century playwrights and theaters of Slovakia are increasingly beginning to return to these topics. Many of these plays created in the last twenty years were written in order to actualize public discussions about the period of the Slovak Republic (1939–1945), around the mass deportation of Jews from its territory, around the arization, etc. The main task of these plays` authors is to put serious moral questions before the viewer. For this purpose, the paper focuses on social and historical context in which National Socialism spread in Slovakia. Such are, for example, the works of R. Ballek “Tiso”, P. Rankov “It Happened on the First of September (or Some Other Time)”, A. Gruskova “The Woman Rabbi”, V. Klimachek “The Holocaust”, Y. Yuraneva “The Silent Whip”. One of the most important questions that Slovak writers and society have been asking in recent decades is the question of how and why Slovaks actually joined Nazi Germany during the Second World War, what prompted them to do this.

Abstract The 2020 Netflix drama series Unorthodox draws on tropes from a vexed archive of transcultural cinema, in particular Turkish German cinema. Through the frame of the captivity narrative, this essay examines how the series about a young Hasidic Jewish woman who escapes her family and community in Williamsburg, New York, and flees to Berlin presents culturally determined themes of victimhood, oppression, and gendered subjugation. A comparison with Turkish German films, such as 40 Square Meters of Germany (40 Quadratmeter Deutschland, dir. Tevfik Başer, West Germany, 1986) and When We Leave (Die Fremde, dir. Feo Aladağ, Germany, 2010), calls attention to the continuity of the captivity narrative, with its troubling themes, and asks the question of intent. As scholars have indicated in the case of Turkish German cinema, filmmakers have frequently been faced with the task of appealing to German mainstream audiences eager to see their own cultural stereotypes reaffirmed on screen. Rooted in colonialist and Orientalist fantasies, the captivity narrative provided an effective conduit. But what is it still doing in Unorthodox? Close readings of several scenes from the series and engagement with Hortense Spillers's concept of “pornotroping” as well as Hamid Naficy's “housebondage” and Meyda Yeğenoğlu's “unveiling” reveal at once the problems and the possibilities of Unorthodox as it employs and subverts the captivity narrative. The essay concludes with an analysis of place, namely, the Berlin setting of the series, as a historically fraught context that likewise raises questions about intentionality and the role of Germany's past and present.

Background. Modern theatre education in Ukraine is carried out through the extensive teaching system, which also includes different aspects of the training of future directors of the drama theatre. Some hours in academic programmes of institutions of higher theatre education are given for plastic training, which is carried out in the lessons of eurhythmics, stage movement, stage fencing, as well as dance. As for the latter, among the whole complex of disciplines connected with moving, the discipline “Dance” has the most significant value, as choreography today is one of the most demanded expressive means of dramatic performance. In addition, knowledge of the fundamentals of choreography and its history contributes to the comprehensive development of the director’s personality, his aesthetic education, the formation of artistic taste, the ability to orientate both in traditional and innovative requirements to the choreographic component of the drama performance, to obtain a contemporary idea of the mutual influence of different art forms, so, to raise his professional development. The objectives of this study are to substantiate the features of teaching the discipline “Dance” and determine its place in the contemporary education system of the director of the drama theatre. Methods. An analytical method is used to determine the components of the discipline “Dance” in the teaching system of the students of the specialization “Stage director of the Drama Theatre”. With the help of the system approach, the place and functions of each type of choreography have been identified within the discipline “Dance”; its integrity, functional significance and perspective development in the system of theatre education of directors are demonstrated. Results. The results indicate that in the education system of the director of the drama theatre the discipline “Dance” is essential not only because of the active involvement of the choreography in the arsenal of the demanded expressive means of drama performance, but it also contributes to the comprehensive development of the director’s personality and his proficiency enhancement. In view of this, a discipline program should be formed with the basic knowledge of various types of choreography. The basis of the choreographic training should be a system of classical dance, which brings up the naturalness of the movement performance, expressive gesture and laying the foundation for the study of other types of choreography. The purpose of the historical ballroom dance is to master the character of the dance culture of a certain epoch, the ability to wear a corresponding dress, use the accessories. The study of this section should be accompanied by a conversation about the era and its artistic styles, dance fashion, special considerations on the relationship between a man and a woman in a dance. This is necessary for the future unambiguous determination of the plastic component of the theatre performance in the pieces by the playwrights of the past centuries. The folk dance stage adaptation introduces the customs and culture of different peoples. Studying of dances all nationalities does not make sense, because the spectrum of their use in performances of the drama theatre today is rather narrow. It is required to concentrate on the basic movements of Ukrainian, Russian, Gypsy, Spanish, Italian, Hungarian and Jewish dances, partly – Old Slavic. It is necessary to require of the students the correct manner of performance and form a comprehension about relevance of the using of folk dance in the context of the director’s vision of a particular performance. The need for the future director’s awareness in contemporary dance is due to the fact that its means can create the plastic component of almost any show. The task of the teacher is to train basic knowledge to the students with the obligatory requirement of the faithful character of the performance of a particular artistic movement or style, considering what is sought out in the drama theatre: contemporary, jazz, partially – street and club style. The tango, which sometimes appears in dramatic performances, should be singled out separately; it should be studied in the form of social and scenic variants with the addition of movements of contemporary choreography. In class it is expedient to use improvisation, to offer the students to make dance pieces on their own. Significant attention should be paid to the musical accompaniment of the lesson, the explanation of the tempo-based and rhythmic peculiarities of musical compositions, and to teach the students to choose the background music for their own dance works independently. It is advisable to give some classes in the form of lectures, in particular, use video lectures that clearly represent the nature and manner of performing various types of choreography. Students’ individual work should consist in consolidating practical skills, compiling own dance pieces and familiarizing with the history of choreography. The director will later be able to use all the acquired knowledge while working with the choreographer, and in the absence of the latter, he will be able to create the dance language of the performance independently. Conclusions. Thus, the dance is an integral part of the education system of the drama theatre director, especially at the present stage, at the same time, the plastic arts is one of the most important components of the performance. This necessitates the stage director’s awareness in various types of choreography in order to use the acquired knowledge and skills in the creative work. In dance class, it is necessary to form a general idea of each type of dance, its purpose, manner of performance and features of use in the performances of the drama theatre. It is essential to demand musicality and rhythmic performance, the ability to improvise. It is advisable to hold both practical and lecture classes, to assign tasks for the independent work of creative and educational content. Eventually, the stage expressiveness, the sense of form, style, space, time, rhythm in the dance, knowledge of the features of partnership and ensemble are raised with the students; the skills of working with the actors on the choreographic component of the performance and the ability to cooperate with the choreographer are formed.

Before I begin to offer my analysis of what the Encyclopedia of the Reformation tells us about Reformation studies, I should first explain my role in its production. I have been one of six senior editors, responsible for what was loosely termed “social history and popular religion.” Four of the other editors have been in charge of specific geographic areas, and David Steinmetz has been in charge of theology, so I have generally thought of my role as the editor for “other.” That meant “my” articles began with “alchemy” and ended with “women,” including in between entries on such topics as capitalism, death, divorce, drama, Jews, miracles, music, polygamy, printing, science, sexuality, and time. I was in charge of fewer entries than most of my coeditors–102 out of 1200–but more words, as I ended up with nearly all the longest articles. That alone, I think, indicates the clear acceptance of one “new approach,” an approach picked up by the marketing department at Oxford, whose banner head describes the Encyclopedia as “the definitive reference on society in early modern Europe.” It was also noted at a very early editors' meeting, where one of the consulting editors commented—not exactly with dismay, but not exactly with triumph either—“do you realize we've given witchcraft more words than Luther?”

For the first time, a comparative analysis of the novels «Dla og- niska domowego» (in Polish, 1892) by Ukrainian writer Ivan Franko and «O czym się nie mówi» (1909) by Polish writer Gabriela Zapolska was carried out. These works are quite close not only in terms of themes and problems, but also in terms of ideological and artistic approach, interpretation, plot development, plot moves, characters and individual details. In both novels, the action takes place in the heterogeneous ethnic environment of Lviv – mostly Polish, partly Jewish, Austrian and Ukrainian. The «Lviv text» in both works is in many ways similar and at the same time different. The comparative analysis in the article includes other works by Franko (in Ukrainian): the early unfinished poem «Сяся» (the first two chapters and the beginning of the third were written in 1882), the prose dramatic miniature «Чи вдуріла? Сцена» (1904), the story «Між добрими людьми» (1890). Franko in the story «Між добрими людьми», and Zapolska in the story «O czym się nie mówi», revealing the inner world of prostitutes, emphasize their fatalistic perception of their own fate. In the center of Franko’s story «Dla ogniska domowego» is the sociology and anthropology of women’s welfare of the «home» through the organization of illegal prostitution, and at the same time – the dual (ostensible and hidden) attitude of men to the sexual trade. At the center of Zapolska’s story is the sociology and anthropology of prostitution itself: the drama and tragedy of the social position of a legalized prostitute and her mental torment, as well as the dual attitude of men towards prostitutes (using their services and disdain for them), similar to Franko’s story. Franko developed the work as a socio-psychological story and at the same time as a crime story. The genre of social and psychological novel clearly dominates in Zapolska’s work, and only at the end do elements of a criminal novel appear. The driving spring of the plot development in both stories is the leitmotif of faith (trust) and deception. In both works, the woman hides her actions from her husband, deceives him, and he, at first naively trusting, and then filled with suspicions and doubts, tries to find out the truth about her. It is the man in both stories who is the leading character, while the woman or girl is the cause of problems. The coincidences in both works are striking: the scheme of characters, es- pecially the main couple (husband – wife, boyfriend – girlfriend), one leading and other secondary subjects of (de)disguise, the only main character-object, at whom the masks of other characters are directed, conversations-confrontations between a man and a woman, the growing sense of horror in both of them (in the man – before the unexpected discovery of the shocking truth about the woman, and the woman – before exposing her and bringing her to criminal responsibiliity), the stunning disclosure of the secret, the mental torment experienced by the main pair of characters, and, finally, the partial rehabilitation of the lost woman against the background of moral condemnation of «respectable» men and the author’s accusations of hypocritical society of male chauvinism. These coincidences may be caused by Zapolska’s acquaintance with Franko’s story based on the Ukrainian auto-translation published in Lviv in 1897, or on the manuscript of the Polish text, or on the German translation of the Polish text published in 1898 in the supplement to the Berlin Social Democratic newspaper «Vorwärts» (Unterhaltungsblatt der «Vorwärts») under the title «Am häuslichen Herd. Roman von Iwan Franko». Or they can be caused by the typology of independent from each other writer’s thinking, subject to moral, ethical and aesthetic trends of the time. The authors created the stories at about the same time (with a difference of only 16 years) and probably depended in their ideological and artistic searches on similar social circumstances and events in Lviv related to prostitution, and on the poetry of the same literary sources (for example, the drama by H. Ibsen «A Doll’s House» or «Nora»).

In Gender and Jewish Difference, Lisa Lampert proposes that we consider a “hermeneutical woman” alongside the well-documented “hermeneutical Jew” that underpins literary constructions of Christian theology in patristic, medieval, and Renaissance texts (10). The “hermeneutical Jew,” a term coined by Jeremy Cohen, is the originary Christian—the Jew who brought the Christian to “the book” and all its exegetical possibilities but who is incapable of seeing the spirit beyond the letter of the law. The hermeneutical woman is, according to Lampert, the hermeneutical Jew's mate, so to speak; she is another major locus of symbolic projections of the Christian self onto the “other.” Both the hermeneutical Jew and the hermeneutical woman are, as Lampert puts it, “hermeneutically handicapped” (43); they read—the Jew because of his literal-mindedness, the woman because of her feeble-mindedness—with spiritual impediments. They are also, within medieval Christian fiction and drama, profoundly “embodied,” threatening the very foundations of Christian faith—conversion, incarnation, and transubstantiation. According to Lampert, these three tenets of faith, which exist on the border of the body and the spirit, represent ambiguous moments in Christian theology, and they are best captured by “the woman” and “the Jew,” who serve as figures of the spirit subsumed by the body, of transcendence gone awry.

In July 2005, while European heads of state attended memorials to mark the ten year anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide and court trials continued in The Hague at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Bosnian-American artist Aida Sehovic presented the aftermath of this genocide on a day-to-day level through her art installation in memory of the victims of Srebrenica. Drawing on the Bosnian tradition of coming together for coffee, this installation, ‘Što te Nema?’ (Why are you not here?), comprised a collection of tiny white porcelain cups (‘fildzans’ in Bosnian) arranged in the geographic shape of Srebrenica in the lobby of the United Nations building in New York. It was to represent Europe’s worst mass killing since the Second World War, which took place in July 1995 in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica. Up to 8,000 Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) men and boys were killed when Bosnian Serb troops overran the internationally protected enclave (The Guardian). The cups were gathered from Bosnian families in the United States of America and Bosnia & Herzegovina, and in particular from members of ‘Zene Srebrenice’ (‘the women of Srebrenica’). Each of the 1,705 cups represented one exhumed, identified and re-buried victim of the Srebrenica genocide (1,705 at July 2005). The cups were filled either with coffee or, in the case of victims not yet 18 and therefore not old enough at the time of their death to have participated in the coffee tradition, with sugar cubes. The names and birth dates of the victims were recited on an audio loop. Genocide is the methodical destruction of the existence of a people. It is noted through the ‘UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide’ that genocide has inflicted great losses on humanity throughout history (UNHCHR). Tribunals, such as the ICTY, with their focus on justice, are formal and responsibility-based modes of responding to genocide. Society seeks justice, but raising awareness around genocide through the telling and hearing of the individual story is also required. Responding to genocide and communicating its existence through artistic expression has been a valuable way of bearing witness to such a horrendous and immense crime against humanity. Art can address the gaps in healing and understanding that cannot be addressed through tribunals. From Picasso’s ‘Guernica’, to the children’s pictures triggered by the Rwandan genocide, to the ‘War Rugs’ of Afghanistan and to vast installations such as Peter Eisenman’s recently opened Holocaust memorial in Berlin; art has proved a powerful medium for representing such atrocities and attempting to find healing after genocide. Artworks such as Sehovic’s ‘Što te Nema?’ give insight into the personal experience of genocide while challenging indifference and maintaining memory. For the affected communities, this addresses the impact on individuals; the human cost and the loss of everyday experiences. As Srebrenica survivor Emir Suljagic comments, “when you tell someone that 10,000 people died, they cannot understand or imagine that. What I want to say is that these people were peasants, car mechanics or masons. That they had daughters, mothers, that they leave someone behind; that a lot of people are hurt by this person’s death” (qtd. in Vulliamy). ‘Što te Nema?’ transmits this personal dimension of genocide by using an everyday situation of showing hospitality with family and friends, which is familiar and practised in most cultural experiences, juxtaposed with the loss of a family member who is missing as a result of genocide. This transmits the notion of genocide into the sphere of common experience, attachment and emotion. It acts as an invitation to explore the impact of genocide beyond the impersonal statistics and the aloof legalese of the courtroom drama. Beyond providing a representation of the facts or emotions around genocide, art provides a way of responding to a crime, which, by its nature, is generally difficult to comprehend. Art can offer a mode of giving testimony and providing catharsis about events which are not easily approached or discussed. As Sehovic says of ‘Što te Nema?’ (it) is a way of healing for Bosnians, coming to terms with this terrible thing that happened to us … it is building a bridge of understanding where Bosnian people are coming from, because it is very hard to talk about these things (qtd. in Vermont Quarterly Magazine). For its receiver, genocide art, with all its capacity to arouse our emotions and empathy, transmits something that we cannot see or engage with in the factual reporting of genocide or in a political analysis of the topic. Through art, it is possible to encounter genocide at an individual, personal level. As Mödersheim points out, we seem to need symbolic expressions to help us understand, and deal with the complex nature of events so horrific that reason and emotion fail to grasp their magnitude. To the intellect, many aspects of these experiences are unfathomable, and yet to keep our humanity we need to understand them … where words and explanations fail, we look for images (Mödersheim 18). An artist’s responses to genocide can vary from the need of survivors to create actual depictions of the atrocities, to more abstract portrayals of the emotional response to acts of genocide. Art that is created by survivors or witnesses to the genocide demonstrates a documentation and testament to what has occurred – a symbolic act of transmitting the personal experience of genocide. Artistic responses to genocide by those, such as Sehovic, who did not witness the event first hand, express how genocide “remains deeply felt to the point where we could not say it has ended” (Morris 329). Such art represents the continuation and global repercussions of genocide. The question of what ‘genocide art’ means to the neutral or removed viewer or society is also significant. Art is often associated with pleasure. Issues of mass killing and war are often not the types of topics one wishes to view on a trip to an art gallery. However, art has a more crucial function as a social reflector. It is often the reaction of non-acceptance of such artworks which indicates how society wishes to consider questions of genocide or of war in general. For example, Rayner Hoff’s 1932 war memorial ‘The Crucifixion of Civilisation 1914’ was rejected for display because it was considered too confronting and controversial in its depiction of a naked, tortured female victim of war in a Christ-like pose. As Picasso commented, “painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war for attack and defense against the enemy” (qtd. in Mödersheim 15). In discussing the art that emerged from the Sierra Leone Civil War, Ross notes, “as our stomachs and hearts turn over at such sights, we get a small taste of what the artists felt. Even as we look at the images and experience the horror, disgust and anger that comes with knowing that they really happened, we realise that if these images are to be understood as reports from the field, serving the same function as photojournalism, it means that we have been sheltered from this type of reporting from our own news sources” (Ross 39). Here, art can address the often cursory acknowledgment given to ‘events which happen in faraway places’ and lend an insight into the personal. As Adorno notes, “history in artworks is not something made, and history alone frees the work from being merely something posited or manufactured” (133). Here we see the indivisibility of the genocide (the ‘history’) from the artwork – that what is seen is not mere ‘depiction’ but art’s ability to turn the anonymous statistics or the unknown genocide into the realisation of a brutal annihilation of individual human beings – to bring history to life as it were. What the viewer does after viewing such art is perhaps immaterial; the important thing is that they now know. But why is it important to know and important to remember? It has been argued that genocides which occurred in places like Srebrenica and Rwanda happened because the international community did not know or refused to recognise the events to the point of initially declining to apply the term ‘genocide’ to Srebrenica and settling for the more sanitised term ‘ethnic cleansing’ (Bringa 196). It would be nave and even condescending to argue that ‘Što te Nema?’ or any of the myriad other artistic responses to genocide have the possibility of undoing a genocide such as that which took place in Srebrenica, or even the hope of preventing another genocide. However, it is in transporting genocide into the personal realm that the message is transmitted and ignorance to the event can no longer be claimed. The concept of genocide can be too horrendous and vast to take in; art, whilst making it no less horrific, transmits the message to and confronts the viewer at a more direct and personal level. Such art provokes and provides a starting point for comment and debate. Art also stands as a lasting memorial to those who have lost their lives as a result of genocide and as a reminder to humanity that to ignore, underestimate or forget genocide makes possible its recurrence. References Adorno, Theodor. Aesthetic Theory. Trans. by Robert Hullot-Kentor. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. Bringa, Tone. “Averted Gaze: Genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina 1992-1995.” Annihilating Difference: The Anthropology of Genocide. Ed: Alexander Hinton Laban. London: University of California Press, 2002. 194-225. Kohn, Rachael. “War Memorials, Sublime & Scandalous.” Radio National 14 August 2005. 12 December 2005 http://www.abc.net.au/rn/relig/ark/stories/s1433477.htm>. Mödersheim, Sabine. “Art and War.” Representations of Violence: Art about the Sierra Leone Civil War. Ed. Chris Corcoran, Abu-Hassan Koroma, P.K. Muana. Chicago, 2004. 15-20. Morris, Daniel. “Jewish Artists in New York: The Holocaust Years.” American Jewish History 90.3 (September 2002): 329-331. Ross, Mariama. “Bearing Witness.” Representations of Violence: Art about the Sierra Leone Civil War. Ed. Chris Corcoran, Abu-Hassan Koroma, P.K. Muana. Chicago, 2004. 37-40. The Guardian. “Massacre at Srebrenica: Interactive Guide.” May 2005. 5 November 2005 http://www.guardian.co.uk/flash/0,5860,474564,00.html>. United Nations. “International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.” 10 January 2006 http://www.un.org/icty/>. UNHCHR. “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.” 1951. 3 January 2006 http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/p_genoci.htm>. Vermont Quarterly Magazine. “Cups of Memory.” Winter 2005. 1 December 2005 http://www.uvm.edu/~uvmpr/vq/vqwinter05/aidasehovic.html>. Vulliamy, Ed. “Srebrenica Ten Years On.” June 2005. 10 February 2006 http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict-yugoslavia/srebrenica_2651.jsp>. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Hawkes, Martine. "Transmitting Genocide: Genocide and Art." M/C Journal 9.1 (2006). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0603/09-hawkes.php>. APA Style Hawkes, M. (Mar. 2006) "Transmitting Genocide: Genocide and Art," M/C Journal, 9(1). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0603/09-hawkes.php>.

Introduction Australia has embraced Barbie since the doll was launched at the Toy Fair in Melbourne in 1964, with Mattel Australia established in Melbourne in 1969. Barbie was initially sold in Australia with two different hairstyles and 36 separately boxed outfits. As in the US, the initial launch range was soon followed by a constant stream of additional outfits as well as Barbie’s boyfriend Ken and little sister Skipper, pets, and accessories including her dreamhouse and vehicles. Also released were variously themed Barbies (including those representing different careers and nationalities) and a seemingly ever-expanding group of friends (Gerber; Lord, Forever). These product releases were accompanied by marketing, promotion, and prominent placement in toy, department, and other stores that kept the Barbie line in clear sight of Australian consumers (Hosany) and in the forefront of toy sales for many decades (Burnett). This article focusses on a thread of subversion operating alongside the purchase of these Barbie dolls in Australia, when the phenomenon of handmade ‘do-it-yourself’ intersected with the dolls in the second half of the 1960s. Do-It-Yourself ‘Do-it-yourself’ (often expressed as DIY) has been defined as “anything that people did for themselves” (Gelber 283). The history of DIY has been researched in academic disciplines including sociology, cultural studies, musicology, architecture, marketing, and popular culture. This literature charts DIY practice across such domestic production as making clothes, furniture, and toys, growing food, and home improvements including renovating and even building entire houses (Carter; Fletcher) to more externally facing cultural production including music, art, and publications (Spencer). While DIY behaviour can be motivated by such factors as economic necessity or financial benefit, a lack of product availability or its perceived poor quality, and/or a desire for customisation, it can also be linked to the development of personal identity (Wolf and McQuitty; Williams, “A Lifestyle”; Williams, “Re-thinking”). While some mid-century considerations of DIY as a phenomenon were male-focussed (“Do-It”), women and girls were certainly also active at this time in home renovation, house building, and other projects (‘Arona’), as well as more traditionally gendered handicraft activities such as sewing and knitting. Fig. 1: Australian Home Beautiful magazine cover, November 1958, showing a woman physically engaged in home renovation activities. Australia has a long tradition of women crafting (by sewing, knitting, and crocheting, for instance) items of clothing for themselves and their families, as well as homewares such as waggas (utilitarian quilts made of salvaged or other inexpensive materials such as old blankets and grain sacks) and other quilts (Burke; Gero; Kingston; Thomas). This making was also prompted by a range of reasons, including economic or other necessity and/or the pursuit of creative pleasure, personal wellbeing, or political activism (Fletcher; Green; Lord, Vintage). It is unsurprising, then, that many have also turned their hands to making dolls’ clothes from scraps of fabrics, yarns, ribbons, and other domestic materials, as well as creating entire dolls’ houses complete with furniture and other domestic items (Benson). In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, many Australian dolls themselves were handmade, with settlers and migrants importing European traditions of doll-making and clothing with them (Cramer). In the early twentieth century, mass-produced dolls and clothing became more available and accessible, however handmade dolls’ clothes continued to be made and circulated within families (Elvin and Elvin, The Art; Elvin and Elvin, The Australian). An article in the Weekly in 1933 contained instructions for making both cloth dolls and clothes for them (“Home-Made”), with many such articles to follow. While the 1960s saw increased consumer spending in Australia, this research reveals that this handmade, DIY ethos (at least in relation to dolls) continued through this decade, and afterwards (Carter; Wilson). This making is documented in artefacts in museum and private collections and instructions in women’s magazines, newspapers, and other printed materials including commercially produced patterns and kits. The investigation scans bestselling women’s magazine The Australian Women’s Weekly (the Weekly) and other Australian print media from the 1960s that are digitised in the National Library of Australia’s Trove database for evidence of interest in this practice. Do-It-Yourself Barbie Doll Patterns for Barbie clothes appeared in Australian women’s magazines almost immediately after the doll was for sale in Australia, including in the Weekly from 1965. The first feature included patterns for a series of quite elaborate outfits: a casual knitted jumpsuit with hooded jacket, a knitted three-piece suit of skirt, roll-necked jumper and jacket, a crocheted afternoon dress, tied with a ribbon belt and accessorised with a knitted coat and beret, and a crocheted full length evening gown and opera coat (“Glamorous”). A sense of providing the Weekly’s trusted guidance but also a reliance on makers’ individuality was prominent in this article. Although detailed instructions were provided in the feature above, for example, readers were also encouraged to experiment with yarns and decorative elements. Fig. 2: Crocheted and knitted ‘afternoon ensemble’ in “Glamorous Clothes for Teenage Dolls” feature in the Weekly, 1965. Another richly illustrated article published in 1965 focussed on creating high fashion wigs for Barbie at home. The text and photographs guided readers through the process of crafting five differently styled wigs from one synthetic hair piece: a “romantic, dreamy” Jean Shrimpton-style coiffure, deep-fringed Sassoon hairdo, layered urchin cut, low set evening bun, and pair of pigtails (Irvine, “How”). Again, makers were encouraged to express their creativity and individuality in decorating these hairstyles, with suggestions (but not directions) to personalise these styles using ribbons, tiny bows and artificial flowers, coloured pins, seed pearls, and other objects that might be to hand. Fig. 3: Detailed instructions for creating one of the wigs. Three Barbie dolls (identified as ‘teen dolls’ rather than by the brand) were featured on the cover of the Weekly on 5 January 1966, for a story about making dolls’ outfits from handkerchiefs (Irvine, “New”). This was framed as a “novel” way to use the excess of fancy hankies often received at Christmas, promising that the three ensembles could thriftily and cleverly be made from three handkerchiefs in a few hours. The instructions detail how to make a casual two-piece summer outfit accessorised with a headscarf, a smart town ensemble highlighted with flower motifs cut from broderie anglaise, and a lavish evening gown. Readers were assured this would be an engaging, “marvellous fun” as well as creative activity, as each maker needed to individually design each garment in terms of working with the individual features of the handkerchiefs they had, incorporating such elements as floral or other borders, lace edging, and overall patterns such as spots or checks (Irvine, “New”). The long-sleeved evening gown was quite an ambitious project. The gown was not only fashioned from a fine Irish linen, lace-bordered hankie, meaning some of the cutting and sewing required considerable finesse, but the neckline and hemline were then hand-beaded, as were a circlet of tiny pearls to be worn around the doll’s hair. Such delicacy was required for all outfits, with armholes and necklines for Barbie dolls very small, requiring considerable dexterity in cutting, sewing, and finishing. Fig. 4: Cover of The Australian Women’s Weekly of 5 January 1966 featuring three Barbie dolls. Only two issues later, the magazine ran another Barbie-focussed feature, this time about using oddments found around the home to make accessories for Barbie dolls. Again, the activity is promoted as thrifty and creative: “make teen doll outfits and accessories economically—all you need is imagination and a variety of household oddments” (“Turn”). Included in the full coloured article is a ‘hula’ costume made from a short length of green silk fringe and little artificial flowers sewn together, hats fashioned from a bottle top and silk flower decorated with scraps of lace and ribbon, a cardboard surfboard, aluminium foil and ice cream stick skis, and miniature ribbon-wound coat hangers. This article ended with an announcement commonly associated with calls for readers’ recipes: “what clever ideas have you got? … we will award £5 for every idea used” (“Turn”). This was a considerable prize, representing one-third of the average minimum weekly wage for full-time female workers in Australia in 1966 (ABS 320). Fig. 5: Brightly coloured illustrations making the Weekly’s “Turn Oddments into Gay Accessories”, 1966, a joyful read. This story was reinforced with a short ‘behind the scenes’ piece, which revealed the care and energy that went into its production. This reported that, when posing the ‘hulagirl’ on a fountain in Sydney’s Hyde Park, the doll fell in. While her skirt was rescued by drying in front of a fan, the dye from her lei ran and had to be scrubbed off the doll with abrasive sandsoap and the resulting stain then covered up with make-up. After the photographer built the set (inside this time), the shoot was finally completed (“The Doll”). A week later, the Weekly advertised a needlework kit for three new outfits: a beach ensemble of yellow bikini and sundress, red suit with checked blouse, and blue strapless evening gown. The garment components, with indicated gathering, seam, stitching, and cutting lines, were stamped onto a piece of fine cotton. The kit also included directions “simple enough for the young beginner seamstress” (“Teenage Doll’s”). Priced at 8/6 (85¢ in the new decimal currency introduced that year) including postage, this was a considerable saving when compared to the individual Mattel-branded clothing sets which were sold for sums ranging from 13/6 to 33/6 in 1964 (Burnett). Reader demand for these kits was so high that the supplier was overwhelmed and the magazine had to print an apology regarding delays in dispatching orders (“The Weekly”). Fig. 6: Cotton printed with garments to cut out and sew together and resulting outfits from the Weekly’s “Teenage Doll’s Wardrobe” feature, 1966. This was followed by another kit offer later in the year, this time explicitly promoted to both adult and “little girl” needleworkers. Comprising “cut out, ready to sew [material pieces] … and easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions”, this kit made an embroidered white party dress with matching slip and briefs, checked shorts and top set, and long lace and net trimmed taffeta bridesmaid dress and underclothes (“Three”). Again, at $1.60 for the kit (including postage), this was much more economical (and creative) than purchasing such outfits ready-made. Fig. 7: Party dress from “Three Lovely Outfits for Teenage Dolls” article in the Weekly, 1966. Making dolls’ clothes was an educationally sanctioned activity for girls in Australia, with needlecraft and other home economics subjects commonly taught in schools as a means of learning domestic and professionally transferable skills until the curriculum reforms of the 1970s onwards (Campbell; Cramer; Issacs). In Australia in the 1960s, Barbie dolls (and their clothing and furniture) were recommended for girls aged nine-years-old and older (Dyson), while older girls obviously also continued to interact with the dolls. A 1968 article in the Weekly, for example, praised a 13-year-old girl’s efforts in reinterpreting an adult dress pattern that had appeared in the magazine and sewing this for her Barbie (Dunstan; Forde). It was also suggested that the dolls could be used by girls who designed their own clothes but did not have a full-sized dressmaker’s model, with the advice to use a Barbie model to test a miniature of the design before making up a full-sized garment (“Buy”). Making Things for Barbie Dolls By 9 February 1966, the ‘using oddments’ contest had closed and the Weekly filled two pages with readers’ “resourceful” ideas (“Prizewinning”). These used such domestic bits and pieces as string, wire, cord, cotton reels, egg cartons, old socks, toothpicks, dried leaves, and sticky tape to create a range of Barbie accessories including a mob cap from a doily, hair rollers from cut drinking straws and rubber bands, and a suitcase from a plastic soap container with gold foil locks. A party dress and coat were fashioned from an out-of-date man’s tie and a piece of elastic. There was even a pipe cleaner dog and cardboard guitar. A month later, fifty more winning entries were published in a glossy, eight-page colour insert booklet. This included a range of clothing, accessories, and furniture which celebrated that “imagination and ingenuity, rather than dollars and cents” could equip a teen doll “for any occasion” (“50 Things”, 1). Alongside day, casual, and evening outfits, rainwear, underwear, jewellery, hats, sunglasses, footwear, a beauty case, hat boxes, and a shopping trolley and bags, readers submitted a skilfully fashioned record player with records in a stand as well as a barbeque crafted from tiny concrete blocks, sun lounge, and deckchairs. Miniature accessories included a hairdryer and lace tissue holder with tiny tissues and a skindiving set comprising mask, snorkel, and flippers. The wide variety of negligible-cost materials utilised and how these were fashioned for high effect is as interesting as the results are charming. Fig. 8: Cover of insert booklet of the entries of the 50 winners of the Weekly’s making things for Barbie from oddments competition, 1966. That women were eager to learn to make these miniature fashions and other items is evidenced by some Country Women’s Association groups holding handicraft classes on making clothes and accessories for Barbie dolls (“CWA”). That they were also eager to share the results with others is revealed in how competitions to dress teenage dolls in handmade outfits rapidly also became prominent features of Australian fetes, fairs, agricultural shows, club events, and other community fundraising activities in the 1960s (“Best”; “Bourke”; “Convent”; “Fierce”; “Frolic”; “Gala”; “Guide”; “Measles”; “Parish”; “Personal”; “Pet”; “Present”, “Purim”; “Successful”; “School Fair”; “School Fair Outstanding”; “School Fete”; “Weather”; Yennora”). Dressing Barbie joined other traditional categories such as those to dress baby, bride, national, and bed dolls (the last those dolls dressed in elaborate costumes designed as furniture decorations rather than toys). The teenage doll category at one primary school fete in rural New South Wales in 1967 was so popular that it attracted 50 entries, with many entries in this and other such competitions submitted by children (“Primary”). As the dolls became more prominent, the categories using them became more imaginative, with prizes for Barbie doll tea parties (“From”), for example. The category of dressing Barbie also became segmented with separate prizes for Barbie bride dolls, both sewn and knitted outfits (“Hobby and Pet”) and day, evening, and sports clothes (“Church”). There is no evidence from the sources surveyed that any of this making concentrated on producing career-focussed outfits for Barbie. Do-It-Yourself Ethos A do-it-yourself ethos was evident across the making discussed above. This refers to the possession of attitudes or philosophies that encourage undertaking activities or projects that involve relying on one’s own skills and resources rather than consuming mass-produced goods or using hired professionals or their services. This draws on, and develops, a sense of self-reliance and independence, and uses and enhances problem-solving skills. Creativity is central in terms of experimentation with new ideas, repurposing materials, or finding unconventional solutions to challenges. While DIY projects are often pursued independently and customised to personal preferences, makers also often collaboratively draw on, and share, expertise and resources (Wilson). It is important to note that the Weekly articles discussed above were not disguised advertorials for Barbie dolls or other Mattel products with, throughout the 1960s, the Barbies illustrated in the magazine referred to as ‘teen dolls’ or ‘teenage dolls’. However, despite this and the clear DIY ethos at work, women in Australia could, and did, make such Barbie-related items as commercial ventures. This included local artisanal dressmaking businesses that swiftly added made-to-measure Barbie doll clothes to their ranges (“Arcade”). Some enterprising women sold outfits and accessories they had made through various non-store venues including at home-based parties (“Hobbies”), in the same way as Tupperware products had been sold in Australia since 1961 (Truu). Other women sought sewing, knitting, or crocheting work specifically for Barbie doll clothes in the ‘Work wanted’ classified advertisements at this time (‘Dolls’). Conclusion This investigation has shown that the introduction of the Barbie doll unleashed more than consumer spending in Australia. Alongside purchases of the branded doll, clothes, and associated merchandise, Australians (mostly, but not exclusively, women and girls) utilised (and developed) their skills in sewing, knitting, crochet, and other crafts to make clothes for Barbie. They also displayed significant creativity and ingenuity in using domestic oddments and scraps to craft fashion accessories ranging from hats and bags to sunglasses as well as furniture and many of the other accoutrements of daily life in the second half of the 1960s in Australia. This making appears to have been prompted by a range of motivations including thrift and the real pleasures gained in crafting these miniature garments and objects. While the reception of these outfits and other items is not recorded in the publications sourced during this research, this scan of the Weekly and other publications revealed that children did love these dolls and value their wardrobes. In a description of the effects of a sudden, severe flood which affected her home south of Cairns in North Queensland, for instance, one woman described how amid the drama and terror, one little girl she knew packed up only “her teenage doll and its clothes” to take with her (Johnstone 9). The emotional connection felt to these dolls and handcrafted clothes and other objects is a rich area for research which is outside the scope of this article. Whether adult production was all ultimately intended to be gifted (or purchased) for children, or whether some was the work of early adult Barbie collectors, is also outside the scope of the research conducted for this project. As most of the evidence for this article was sourced from The Australian Women’s Weekly, a similarly close study of other magazines during the 1960s, and of whether any DIY clothing for Barbie also included career-focussed outfits, would add more information and nuance to these findings. This investigation has also concentrated on what happened in Australia during the second half of the 1960s, rather than in following decades. It has also not examined the DIY phenomenon of salvaging and refurbishing damaged Barbie dolls or otherwise altering and customising their appearance in the Australian context. These topics, as well as a full exploration of how women used Barbie dolls in their own commercial ventures, are all rich fields for further research both in terms of practice in Australia and how they were represented in popular and other media. Alongside the global outpouring of admiration for Barbie as a global icon and the success of the recent live action Barbie movie (Aguirre; Derrick), significant scholarship and other commentary have long criticised what Barbie has presented, and continues to present, to the world in terms of her body shape, race, activities, and career choices (Tulinski), as well as the pollution generated by the production and disposal of these dolls (“Feminist”; Pears). An additional line of what can be identified as resistance to the consumer-focussed commercialism of Barbie, in terms of making her clothes and accessories, seems to be connected to do-it-yourself culture. The exploration of handmade Barbie doll clothes and accessories in this article reveals, however, that what may at first appear to reflect a simple anti-commercial, frugal, ‘make do’ approach is more complex in terms of how it intersects with real people and their activities. 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The brand began, quite literally, as a method for ranchers to identify their cattle. By burning a distinct symbol into the hide of a baby calf, the owner could insure that if it one day wandered off his property or was stolen by a competitor, he’d be able to point to that logo and claim the animal as his rightful property. When the manufacturers of products adopted the brand as a way of guaranteeing the quality of their goods, its function remained pretty much the same. Buying a package of oats with the Quaker label meant the customer could trace back these otherwise generic oats to their source. If there was a problem, he knew where he could turn. More important, if the oats were of satisfactory or superior quality, he knew where he could get them again. Trademarking a brand meant that no one else could call his oats Quaker. Advertising in this innocent age simply meant publicizing the existence of one’s brand. The sole objective was to increase consumers awareness of the product or company that made it. Those who even thought to employ specialists for the exclusive purpose of writing ad copy hired newspaper reporters and travelling salesmen, who knew how to explain the attributes of an item in words that people tended to remember. It wasn’t until 1922 that a preacher and travelling “medicine show” salesman-turned-copywriter named Claude Hopkins decided that advertising should be systematized into a science. His short but groundbreaking book Scientific Advertising proposed that the advertisement is merely a printed extension of the salesman¹s pitch and should follow the same rules. Hopkins believed in using hard descriptions over hype, and text over image: “The more you tell, the more you sell” and “White space is wasted space” were his mantras. Hopkins believed that any illustrations used in an ad should be directly relevant to the product itself, not just a loose or emotional association. He insisted on avoiding “frivolity” at all costs, arguing that “no one ever bought from a clown.” Although some images did appear in advertisements and on packaging as early as the 1800s - the Quaker Oats man showed up in 1877 - these weren¹t consciously crafted to induce psychological states in customers. They were meant just to help people remember one brand over another. How better to recall the brand Quaker than to see a picture of one? It wasn’t until the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, as Americans turned toward movies and television and away from newspapers and radio, that advertisers’ focus shifted away from describing their brands and to creating images for them. During these decades, Midwestern adman Leo Burnett concocted what is often called the Chicago school of advertising, in which lovable characters are used to represent products. Green Giant, which was originally just the Minnesota Valley Canning Company’s code name for an experimental pea, became the Jolly Green Giant in young Burnett’s world of animated characters. He understood that the figure would make a perfect and enticing brand image for an otherwise boring product and could also serve as a mnemonic device for consumers. As he watched his character grow in popularity, Burnett discovered that the mythical figure of a green giant had resonance in many different cultures around the world. It became a kind of archetype and managed to penetrate the psyche in more ways than one. Burnett was responsible for dozens of character-based brand images, including Tony the Tiger, Charlie the Tuna, Morris the Cat, and the Marlboro Man. In each case, the character creates a sense of drama, which engages the audience in the pitch. This was Burnett’s great insight. He still wanted to sell a product based on its attributes, but he knew he had to draw in his audience using characters. Brand images were also based on places, like Hidden Valley Ranch salad dressing, or on recognizable situations, such as the significant childhood memories labelled “Kodak moments” or a mother nurturing her son on a cold day, a defining image for Campbell’s soup. In all these cases, however, the moment, location, or character went only so far as to draw the audience into the ad, after which they would be subjected to a standard pitch: ‘Soup is good food’, or ‘Sorry, Charlie, only the best tuna get to be Starkist’. Burnett saw himself as a homespun Midwesterner who was contributing to American folklore while speaking in the plain language of the people. He took pride in the fact that his ads used words like “ain’t”; not because they had some calculated psychological effect on the audience, but because they communicated in a natural, plainspoken style. As these methods found their way to Madison Avenue and came to be practiced much more self-consciously, Burnett¹s love for American values and his focus on brand attributes were left behind. Branding became much more ethereal and image-based, and ads only occasionally nodded to a product’s attributes. In the 1960s, advertising gurus like David Ogilvy came up with rules about television advertising that would have made Claude Hopkins shudder. “Food in motion” dictated that food should always be shot by a moving camera. “Open with fire” meant that ads should start in a very exciting and captivating way. Ogilvy told his creatives to use supers - text superimposed on the screen to emphasize important phrases and taglines. All these techniques were devised to promote brand image, not the product. Ogilvy didn’t believe consumers could distinguish between products were it not for their images. In Ogilvy on Advertising, he explains that most people cannot tell the difference between their own “favourite” whiskey and the closest two competitors’: ‘Have they tried all three and compared the taste? Don¹t make me laugh. The reality is that these three brands have different images which appeal to different kinds of people. It isn¹t the whiskey they choose, it’s the image. The brand image is ninety percent of what the distiller has to sell.’ (Ogilvy, 1993). Thus, we learned to “trust our car to the man who wears the star” not because Texaco had better gasoline than Shell, but because the company’s advertisers had created a better brand image. While Burnett and his disciples were building brand myths, another school of advertisers was busy learning about its audience. Back in the 1920s, Raymond Rubicam, who eventually founded the agency Young and Rubicam, thought it might be interesting to hire a pollster named Dr. Gallup from Northwestern University to see what could be gleaned about consumers from a little market research. The advertising industry’s version of cultural anthropology, or demographics, was born. Like the public-relations experts who study their target populations in order to manipulate them later, marketers began conducting polls, market surveys, and focus groups on the segments of the population they hoped to influence. And to draw clear, clean lines between demographic groups, researchers must almost always base distinctions on four factors: race, age, sex, and wages. Demographic research is reductionist by design. I once consulted to an FM radio station whose station manager wanted to know, “Who is our listener?” Asking such a question reduces an entire listenership down to one fictional person. It’s possible that no single individual will ever match the “customer profile” meant to apply to all customers, which is why so much targeted marketing often borders on classist, racist, and sexist pandering. Billboards for most menthol cigarettes, for example, picture African-Americans because, according to demographic research, black people prefer them to regular cigarettes. Microsoft chose Rolling Stones songs to launch Windows 95, a product targeted at wealthy baby boomers. “The Women’s Global Challenge” was an advertising-industry-created Olympics for women, with no purpose other than to market to active females. By the 1970s, the two strands of advertising theory - demographic research and brand image - were combined to develop campaigns that work on both levels. To this day, we know to associate Volvos with safety, Dr. Pepper with individuality, and Harley-Davidson with American heritage. Each of these brand images is crafted to appeal to the target consumer’s underlying psychological needs: Volvo ads are aimed at upper-middle-class white parents who fear for their children’s health and security, Dr. Pepper is directed to young nonconformists, and the Harley-Davidson image supports its riders’ self-perception as renegades. Today’s modern (or perhaps postmodern) brands don’t invent a corporate image on their own; they appropriate one from the media itself, such as MetLife did with Snoopy, Butterfinger did with Bart Simpson, or Kmart did by hiring Penny Marshall and Rosie O’Donnell. These mascots were selected because their perceived characteristics match the values of their target consumers - not the products themselves. In the language of today’s marketers, brand images do not reflect on products but on advertisers’ perceptions of their audiences’ psychology. This focus on audience composition and values has become the standard operating procedure in all of broadcasting. When Fox TV executives learned that their animated series “King of the Hill”, about a Texan propane distributor, was not faring well with certain demographics, for example, they took a targeted approach to their character’s rehabilitation. The Brandweek piece on Fox’s ethnic campaign uncomfortably dances around the issue. Hank Hill is the proverbial everyman, and Fox wants viewers to get comfortable with him; especially viewers in New York, where “King of the Hill”’s homespun humor hasn’t quite caught on with the young urbanites. So far this season, the show has pulled in a 10.1 rating/15 share in households nationally, while garnering a 7.9 rating/12 share in New York (Brandweek, 1997) As far as Fox was concerned, while regular people could identify with the network’s new “everyman” character, New Yorkers weren’t buying his middle-American patter. The television show’s ratings proved what TV executives had known all along: that New York City’s Jewish demographic doesn’t see itself as part of the rest of America. Fox’s strategy for “humanizing” the character to those irascible urbanites was to target the group’s ethnographic self-image. Fox put ads for the show on the panels of sidewalk coffee wagons throughout Manhattan, with the tagline “Have a bagel with Hank”. In an appeal to the target market’s well-developed (and well-researched) cynicism, Hank himself is shown saying, “May I suggest you have that with a schmear”. The disarmingly ethnic humor here is meant to underscore the absurdity of a Texas propane salesman using a Jewish insider’s word like “schmear.” In another Upper West Side billboard, Hank’s son appeals to the passing traffic: “Hey yo! Somebody toss me up a knish!” As far as the New York demographic is concerned, these jokes transform the characters from potentially threatening Southern rednecks into loveable hicks bending over backward to appeal to Jewish sensibilities, and doing so with a comic and, most important, nonthreatening inadequacy. Today, the most intensely targeted demographic is the baby - the future consumer. Before an average American child is twenty months old, he can recognize the McDonald’s logo and many other branded icons. Nearly everything a toddler encounters - from Band-Aids to underpants - features the trademarked characters of Disney or other marketing empires. Although this target market may not be in a position to exercise its preferences for many years, it pays for marketers to imprint their brands early. General Motors bought a two-page ad in Sports Illustrated for Kids for its Chevy Venture minivan. Their brand manager rationalized that the eight-to-fourteen-year-old demographic consists of “back-seat consumers” (Leonhardt, 1997). The real intention of target marketing to children and babies, however, goes deeper. The fresh neurons of young brains are valuable mental real estate to admen. By seeding their products and images early, the marketers can do more than just develop brand recognition; they can literally cultivate a demographic’s sensibilities as they are formed. A nine-year-old child who can recognize the Budweiser frogs and recite their slogan (Bud-weis-er) is more likely to start drinking beer than one who can remember only Tony the Tiger yelling, “They¹re great!” (Currently, more children recognize the frogs than Tony.) This indicates a long-term coercive strategy. The abstraction of brand images from the products they represent, combined with an increasing assault on our demographically targeted psychological profiles, led to some justifiable consumer paranoia by the 1970s. Advertising was working on us in ways we couldn’t fully understand, and people began to look for an explanation. In 1973, Wilson Bryan Key, a communications researcher, wrote the first of four books about “subliminal advertising,” in which he accused advertisers of hiding sexual imagery in ice cubes, and psychoactive words like “sex” onto the airbrushed surfaces of fashion photographs. Having worked on many advertising campaigns from start to finish, in close proximity to everyone from copywriters and art directors to printers, I can comfortably put to rest any rumours that major advertising agencies are engaging in subliminal campaigns. How do images that could be interpreted as “sexual” show up in ice cubes or elbows? The final photographs chosen for ads are selected by committee out of hundreds that are actually shot. After hours or days of consideration, the group eventually feels drawn to one or two photos out of the batch. Not surprising, these photos tend to have more evocative compositions and details, but no penises, breasts, or skulls are ever superimposed onto the images. In fact, the man who claims to have developed subliminal persuasion, James Vicary, admitted to Advertising Age in 1984 that he had fabricated his evidence that the technique worked in order to drum up business for his failing research company. But this confession has not assuaged Key and others who relentlessly, perhaps obsessively, continue to pursue those they feel are planting secret visual messages in advertisements. To be fair to Key, advertisers have left themselves open to suspicion by relegating their work to the abstract world of the image and then targeting consumer psychology so deliberately. According to research by the Roper Organization in 1992, fifty-seven percent of American consumers still believe that subliminal advertising is practiced on a regular basis, and only one in twelve think it “almost never” happens. To protect themselves from the techniques they believe are being used against them, the advertising audience has adopted a stance of cynical suspicion. To combat our increasing awareness and suspicion of demographic targeting, marketers have developed a more camouflaged form of categorization based on psychological profiles instead of race and age. Jim Schroer, the executive director of new marketing strategy at Ford explains his abandonment of broad-demographic targeting: ‘It’s smarter to think about emotions and attitudes, which all go under the term: psychographics - those things that can transcend demographic groups.’ (Schroer, 1997) Instead, he now appeals to what he calls “consumers’ images of themselves.” Unlike broad demographics, the psychographic is developed using more narrowly structured qualitative-analysis techniques, like focus groups, in-depth interviews, and even home surveillance. Marketing analysts observe the behaviors of volunteer subjects, ask questions, and try to draw causal links between feelings, self-image, and purchases. A company called Strategic Directions Group provides just such analysis of the human psyche. In their study of the car-buying habits of the forty-plus baby boomers and their elders, they sought to define the main psychological predilections that human beings in this age group have regarding car purchases. Although they began with a demographic subset of the overall population, their analysis led them to segment the group into psychographic types. For example, members of one psychographic segment, called the ³Reliables,² think of driving as a way to get from point A to point B. The “Everyday People” campaign for Toyota is aimed at this group and features people depending on their reliable and efficient little Toyotas. A convertible Saab, on the other hand, appeals to the ³Stylish Fun² category, who like trendy and fun-to-drive imports. One of the company’s commercials shows a woman at a boring party fantasizing herself into an oil painting, where she drives along the canvas in a sporty yellow Saab. Psychographic targeting is more effective than demographic targeting because it reaches for an individual customer more directly - like a fly fisherman who sets bait and jiggles his rod in a prescribed pattern for a particular kind of fish. It’s as if a marketing campaign has singled you out and recognizes your core values and aspirations, without having lumped you into a racial or economic stereotype. It amounts to a game of cat-and-mouse between advertisers and their target psychographic groups. The more effort we expend to escape categorization, the more ruthlessly the marketers pursue us. In some cases, in fact, our psychographic profiles are based more on the extent to which we try to avoid marketers than on our fundamental goals or values. The so-called “Generation X” adopted the anti-chic aesthetic of thrift-store grunge in an effort to find a style that could not be so easily identified and exploited. Grunge was so self-consciously lowbrow and nonaspirational that it seemed, at first, impervious to the hype and glamour normally applied swiftly to any emerging trend. But sure enough, grunge anthems found their way onto the soundtracks of television commercials, and Dodge Neons were hawked by kids in flannel shirts saying “Whatever.” The members of Generation X are putting up a good fight. Having already developed an awareness of how marketers attempt to target their hearts and wallets, they use their insight into programming to resist these attacks. Unlike the adult marketers pursuing them, young people have grown up immersed in the language of advertising and public relations. They speak it like natives. As a result, they are more than aware when a commercial or billboard is targeting them. In conscious defiance of demographic-based pandering, they adopt a stance of self-protective irony‹distancing themselves from the emotional ploys of the advertisers. Lorraine Ketch, the director of planning in charge of Levi¹s trendy Silvertab line, explained, “This audience hates marketing that’s in your face. It eyeballs it a mile away, chews it up and spits it out” (On Advertising, 1998). Chiat/Day, one of the world’s best-known and experimental advertising agencies, found the answer to the crisis was simply to break up the Gen-X demographic into separate “tribes” or subdemographics - and include subtle visual references to each one of them in the ads they produce for the brand. According to Levi’s director of consumer marketing, the campaign meant to communicate, “We really understand them, but we are not trying too hard” (On Advertising, 1998). Probably unintentionally, Ms. Ketch has revealed the new, even more highly abstract plane on which advertising is now being communicated. Instead of creating and marketing a brand image, advertisers are creating marketing campaigns about the advertising itself. Silvertab’s target market is supposed to feel good about being understood, but even better about understanding the way they are being marketed to. The “drama” invented by Leo Burnett and refined by David Ogilvy and others has become a play within a play. The scene itself has shifted. The dramatic action no longer occurs between the audience and the product, the brand, or the brand image, but between the audience and the brand marketers. As audiences gain even more control over the media in which these interactive stories unfold, advertising evolves ever closer to a theatre of the absurd. excerpted from Coercion: Why We Listen to What "They" Say)? Works Cited Ogilvy, David. Ogilvy on Advertising. New York: Vintage, 1983. Brandweek Staff, "Number Crunching, Hollywood Style," Brandweek. October 6, 1997. Leonhardt, David, and Kathleen Kerwin, "Hey Kid, Buy This!" Business Week. June 30, 1997 Schroer, Jim. Quoted in "Why We Kick Tires," by Carol Morgan and Doron Levy. Brandweek. Sept 29, 1997. "On Advertising," The New York Times. August 14, 1998 Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Rushkoff, Douglas. "Coercion " M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0306/06-coercion.php>. APA Style Rushkoff, D. (2003, Jun 19). Coercion . M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 6,< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0306/06-coercion.php>

Introduction: Our current obsession with the lives of others “Biography—that is to say, our creative and non-fictional output devoted to recording and interpreting real lives—has enjoyed an extraordinary renaissance in recent years,” writes Nigel Hamilton in Biography: A Brief History (1). Ian Donaldson agrees that biography is back in fashion: “Once neglected within the academy and relegated to the dustier recesses of public bookstores, biography has made a notable return over recent years, emerging, somewhat surprisingly, as a new cultural phenomenon, and a new academic adventure” (23). For over a decade now, commentators having been making similar observations about our obsession with the intimacies of individual people’s lives. In a lecture in 1994, Justin Kaplan asserted the West was “a culture of biography” (qtd. in Salwak 1) and more recent research findings by John Feather and Hazel Woodbridge affirm that “the undiminished human curiosity about other peoples lives is clearly reflected in the popularity of autobiographies and biographies” (218). At least in relation to television, this assertion seems valid. In Australia, as in the USA and the UK, reality and other biographically based television shows have taken over from drama in both the numbers of shows produced and the viewers these shows attract, and these forms are also popular in Canada (see, for instance, Morreale on The Osbournes). In 2007, the program Biography celebrated its twentieth anniversary season to become one of the longest running documentary series on American television; so successful that in 1999 it was spun off into its own eponymous channel (Rak; Dempsey). Premiered in May 1996, Australian Story—which aims to utilise a “personal approach” to biographical storytelling—has won a significant viewership, critical acclaim and professional recognition (ABC). It can also be posited that the real home movies viewers submit to such programs as Australia’s Favourite Home Videos, and “chat” or “confessional” television are further reflections of a general mania for biographical detail (see Douglas), no matter how fragmented, sensationalized, or even inane and cruel. A recent example of the latter, the USA-produced The Moment of Truth, has contestants answering personal questions under polygraph examination and then again in front of an audience including close relatives and friends—the more “truthful” their answers (and often, the more humiliated and/or distressed contestants are willing to be), the more money they can win. Away from television, but offering further evidence of this interest are the growing readerships for personally oriented weblogs and networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook (Grossman), individual profiles and interviews in periodical publications, and the recently widely revived newspaper obituary column (Starck). Adult and community education organisations run short courses on researching and writing auto/biographical forms and, across Western countries, the family history/genealogy sections of many local, state, and national libraries have been upgraded to meet the increasing demand for these services. Academically, journals and e-mail discussion lists have been established on the topics of biography and autobiography, and North American, British, and Australian universities offer undergraduate and postgraduate courses in life writing. The commonly aired wisdom is that published life writing in its many text-based forms (biography, autobiography, memoir, diaries, and collections of personal letters) is enjoying unprecedented popularity. It is our purpose to examine this proposition. Methodological problems There are a number of problems involved in investigating genre popularity, growth, and decline in publishing. Firstly, it is not easy to gain access to detailed statistics, which are usually only available within the industry. Secondly, it is difficult to ascertain how publishing statistics are gathered and what they report (Eliot). There is the question of whether bestselling booklists reflect actual book sales or are manipulated marketing tools (Miller), although the move from surveys of booksellers to electronic reporting at point of sale in new publishing lists such as BookScan will hopefully obviate this problem. Thirdly, some publishing lists categorise by subject and form, some by subject only, and some do not categorise at all. This means that in any analysis of these statistics, a decision has to be made whether to use the publishing list’s system or impose a different mode. If the publishing list is taken at face value, the question arises of whether to use categorisation by form or by subject. Fourthly, there is the bedeviling issue of terminology. Traditionally, there reigned a simple dualism in the terminology applied to forms of telling the true story of an actual life: biography and autobiography. Publishing lists that categorise their books, such as BookScan, have retained it. But with postmodern recognition of the presence of the biographer in a biography and of the presence of other subjects in an autobiography, the dichotomy proves false. There is the further problem of how to categorise memoirs, diaries, and letters. In the academic arena, the term “life writing” has emerged to describe the field as a whole. Within the genre of life writing, there are, however, still recognised sub-genres. Academic definitions vary, but generally a biography is understood to be a scholarly study of a subject who is not the writer; an autobiography is the story of a entire life written by its subject; while a memoir is a segment or particular focus of that life told, again, by its own subject. These terms are, however, often used interchangeably even by significant institutions such the USA Library of Congress, which utilises the term “biography” for all. Different commentators also use differing definitions. Hamilton uses the term “biography” to include all forms of life writing. Donaldson discusses how the term has been co-opted to include biographies of place such as Peter Ackroyd’s London: The Biography (2000) and of things such as Lizzie Collingham’s Curry: A Biography (2005). This reflects, of course, a writing/publishing world in which non-fiction stories of places, creatures, and even foodstuffs are called biographies, presumably in the belief that this will make them more saleable. The situation is further complicated by the emergence of hybrid publishing forms such as, for instance, the “memoir-with-recipes” or “food memoir” (Brien, Rutherford and Williamson). Are such books to be classified as autobiography or put in the “cookery/food & drink” category? We mention in passing the further confusion caused by novels with a subtitle of The Biography such as Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. The fifth methodological problem that needs to be mentioned is the increasing globalisation of the publishing industry, which raises questions about the validity of the majority of studies available (including those cited herein) which are nationally based. Whether book sales reflect what is actually read (and by whom), raises of course another set of questions altogether. Methodology In our exploration, we were fundamentally concerned with two questions. Is life writing as popular as claimed? And, if it is, is this a new phenomenon? To answer these questions, we examined a range of available sources. We began with the non-fiction bestseller lists in Publishers Weekly (a respected American trade magazine aimed at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents that claims to be international in scope) from their inception in 1912 to the present time. We hoped that this data could provide a longitudinal perspective. The term bestseller was coined by Publishers Weekly when it began publishing its lists in 1912; although the first list of popular American books actually appeared in The Bookman (New York) in 1895, based itself on lists appearing in London’s The Bookman since 1891 (Bassett and Walter 206). The Publishers Weekly lists are the best source of longitudinal information as the currently widely cited New York Times listings did not appear till 1942, with the Wall Street Journal a late entry into the field in 1994. We then examined a number of sources of more recent statistics. We looked at the bestseller lists from the USA-based Amazon.com online bookseller; recent research on bestsellers in Britain; and lists from Nielsen BookScan Australia, which claims to tally some 85% or more of books sold in Australia, wherever they are published. In addition to the reservations expressed above, caveats must be aired in relation to these sources. While Publishers Weekly claims to be an international publication, it largely reflects the North American publishing scene and especially that of the USA. Although available internationally, Amazon.com also has its own national sites—such as Amazon.co.uk—not considered here. It also caters to a “specific computer-literate, credit-able clientele” (Gutjahr: 219) and has an unashamedly commercial focus, within which all the information generated must be considered. In our analysis of the material studied, we will use “life writing” as a genre term. When it comes to analysis of the lists, we have broken down the genre of life writing into biography and autobiography, incorporating memoir, letters, and diaries under autobiography. This is consistent with the use of the terminology in BookScan. Although we have broken down the genre in this way, it is the overall picture with regard to life writing that is our concern. It is beyond the scope of this paper to offer a detailed analysis of whether, within life writing, further distinctions should be drawn. Publishers Weekly: 1912 to 2006 1912 saw the first list of the 10 bestselling non-fiction titles in Publishers Weekly. It featured two life writing texts, being headed by an autobiography, The Promised Land by Russian Jewish immigrant Mary Antin, and concluding with Albert Bigelow Paine’s six-volume biography, Mark Twain. The Publishers Weekly lists do not categorise non-fiction titles by either form or subject, so the classifications below are our own with memoir classified as autobiography. In a decade-by-decade tally of these listings, there were 3 biographies and 20 autobiographies in the lists between 1912 and 1919; 24 biographies and 21 autobiographies in the 1920s; 13 biographies and 40 autobiographies in the 1930s; 8 biographies and 46 biographies in the 1940s; 4 biographies and 14 autobiographies in the 1950s; 11 biographies and 13 autobiographies in the 1960s; 6 biographies and 11 autobiographies in the 1970s; 3 biographies and 19 autobiographies in the 1980s; 5 biographies and 17 autobiographies in the 1990s; and 2 biographies and 7 autobiographies from 2000 up until the end of 2006. See Appendix 1 for the relevant titles and authors. Breaking down the most recent figures for 1990–2006, we find a not radically different range of figures and trends across years in the contemporary environment. The validity of looking only at the top ten books sold in any year is, of course, questionable, as are all the issues regarding sources discussed above. But one thing is certain in terms of our inquiry. There is no upwards curve obvious here. If anything, the decade break-down suggests that sales are trending downwards. This is in keeping with the findings of Michael Korda, in his history of twentieth-century bestsellers. He suggests a consistent longitudinal picture across all genres: In every decade, from 1900 to the end of the twentieth century, people have been reliably attracted to the same kind of books […] Certain kinds of popular fiction always do well, as do diet books […] self-help books, celebrity memoirs, sensationalist scientific or religious speculation, stories about pets, medical advice (particularly on the subjects of sex, longevity, and child rearing), folksy wisdom and/or humour, and the American Civil War (xvii). Amazon.com since 2000 The USA-based Amazon.com online bookselling site provides listings of its own top 50 bestsellers since 2000, although only the top 14 bestsellers are recorded for 2001. As fiction and non-fiction are not separated out on these lists and no genre categories are specified, we have again made our own decisions about what books fall into the category of life writing. Generally, we erred on the side of inclusion. (See Appendix 2.) However, when it came to books dealing with political events, we excluded books dealing with specific aspects of political practice/policy. This meant excluding books on, for instance, George Bush’s so-called ‘war on terror,’ of which there were a number of bestsellers listed. In summary, these listings reveal that of the top 364 books sold by Amazon from 2000 to 2007, 46 (or some 12.6%) were, according to our judgment, either biographical or autobiographical texts. This is not far from the 10% of the 1912 Publishers Weekly listing, although, as above, the proportion of bestsellers that can be classified as life writing varied dramatically from year to year, with no discernible pattern of peaks and troughs. This proportion tallied to 4% auto/biographies in 2000, 14% in 2001, 10% in 2002, 18% in 2003 and 2004, 4% in 2005, 14% in 2006 and 20% in 2007. This could suggest a rising trend, although it does not offer any consistent trend data to suggest sales figures may either continue to grow, or fall again, in 2008 or afterwards. Looking at the particular texts in these lists (see Appendix 2) also suggests that there is no general trend in the popularity of life writing in relation to other genres. For instance, in these listings in Amazon.com, life writing texts only rarely figure in the top 10 books sold in any year. So rarely indeed, that from 2001 there were only five in this category. In 2001, John Adams by David McCullough was the best selling book of the year; in 2003, Hillary Clinton’s autobiographical Living History was 7th; in 2004, My Life by Bill Clinton reached number 1; in 2006, Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck: and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman was 9th; and in 2007, Ishmael Beah’s discredited A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier came in at 8th. Apart from McCulloch’s biography of Adams, all the above are autobiographical texts, while the focus on leading political figures is notable. Britain: Feather and Woodbridge With regard to the British situation, we did not have actual lists and relied on recent analysis. John Feather and Hazel Woodbridge find considerably higher levels for life writing in Britain than above with, from 1998 to 2005, 28% of British published non-fiction comprising autobiography, while 8% of hardback and 5% of paperback non-fiction was biography (2007). Furthermore, although Feather and Woodbridge agree with commentators that life writing is currently popular, they do not agree that this is a growth state, finding the popularity of life writing “essentially unchanged” since their previous study, which covered 1979 to the early 1990s (Feather and Reid). Australia: Nielsen BookScan 2006 and 2007 In the Australian publishing industry, where producing books remains an ‘expensive, risky endeavour which is increasingly market driven’ (Galligan 36) and ‘an inherently complex activity’ (Carter and Galligan 4), the most recent Australian Bureau of Statistics figures reveal that the total numbers of books sold in Australia has remained relatively static over the past decade (130.6 million in the financial year 1995–96 and 128.8 million in 2003–04) (ABS). During this time, however, sales volumes of non-fiction publications have grown markedly, with a trend towards “non-fiction, mass market and predictable” books (Corporall 41) resulting in general non-fiction sales in 2003–2004 outselling general fiction by factors as high as ten depending on the format—hard- or paperback, and trade or mass market paperback (ABS 2005). However, while non-fiction has increased in popularity in Australia, the same does not seem to hold true for life writing. Here, in utilising data for the top 5,000 selling non-fiction books in both 2006 and 2007, we are relying on Nielsen BookScan’s categorisation of texts as either biography or autobiography. In 2006, no works of life writing made the top 10 books sold in Australia. In looking at the top 100 books sold for 2006, in some cases the subjects of these works vary markedly from those extracted from the Amazon.com listings. In Australia in 2006, life writing makes its first appearance at number 14 with convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby’s My Story. This is followed by another My Story at 25, this time by retired Australian army chief, Peter Cosgrove. Jonestown: The Power and Myth of Alan Jones comes in at 34 for the Australian broadcaster’s biographer Chris Masters; the biography, The Innocent Man by John Grisham at 38 and Li Cunxin’s autobiographical Mao’s Last Dancer at 45. Australian Susan Duncan’s memoir of coping with personal loss, Salvation Creek: An Unexpected Life makes 50; bestselling USA travel writer Bill Bryson’s autobiographical memoir of his childhood The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid 69; Mandela: The Authorised Portrait by Rosalind Coward, 79; and Joanne Lees’s memoir of dealing with her kidnapping, the murder of her partner and the justice system in Australia’s Northern Territory, No Turning Back, 89. These books reveal a market preference for autobiographical writing, and an almost even split between Australian and overseas subjects in 2006. 2007 similarly saw no life writing in the top 10. The books in the top 100 sales reveal a downward trend, with fewer titles making this band overall. In 2007, Terri Irwin’s memoir of life with her famous husband, wildlife warrior Steve Irwin, My Steve, came in at number 26; musician Andrew Johns’s memoir of mental illness, The Two of Me, at 37; Ayaan Hirst Ali’s autobiography Infidel at 39; John Grogan’s biography/memoir, Marley and Me: Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog, at 42; Sally Collings’s biography of the inspirational young survivor Sophie Delezio, Sophie’s Journey, at 51; and Elizabeth Gilbert’s hybrid food, self-help and travel memoir, Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything at 82. Mao’s Last Dancer, published the year before, remained in the top 100 in 2007 at 87. When moving to a consideration of the top 5,000 books sold in Australia in 2006, BookScan reveals only 62 books categorised as life writing in the top 1,000, and only 222 in the top 5,000 (with 34 titles between 1,000 and 1,999, 45 between 2,000 and 2,999, 48 between 3,000 and 3,999, and 33 between 4,000 and 5,000). 2007 shows a similar total of 235 life writing texts in the top 5,000 bestselling books (75 titles in the first 1,000, 27 between 1,000 and 1,999, 51 between 2,000 and 2,999, 39 between 3,000 and 3,999, and 43 between 4,000 and 5,000). In both years, 2006 and 2007, life writing thus not only constituted only some 4% of the bestselling 5,000 titles in Australia, it also showed only minimal change between these years and, therefore, no significant growth. Conclusions Our investigation using various instruments that claim to reflect levels of book sales reveals that Western readers’ willingness to purchase published life writing has not changed significantly over the past century. We find no evidence of either a short, or longer, term growth or boom in sales in such books. Instead, it appears that what has been widely heralded as a new golden age of life writing may well be more the result of an expanded understanding of what is included in the genre than an increased interest in it by either book readers or publishers. What recent years do appear to have seen, however, is a significantly increased interest by public commentators, critics, and academics in this genre of writing. We have also discovered that the issue of our current obsession with the lives of others tends to be discussed in academic as well as popular fora as if what applies to one sub-genre or production form applies to another: if biography is popular, then autobiography will also be, and vice versa. If reality television programming is attracting viewers, then readers will be flocking to life writing as well. Our investigation reveals that such propositions are questionable, and that there is significant research to be completed in mapping such audiences against each other. This work has also highlighted the difficulty of separating out the categories of written texts in publishing studies, firstly in terms of determining what falls within the category of life writing as distinct from other forms of non-fiction (the hybrid problem) and, secondly, in terms of separating out the categories within life writing. Although we have continued to use the terms biography and autobiography as sub-genres, we are aware that they are less useful as descriptors than they are often assumed to be. In order to obtain a more complete and accurate picture, publishing categories may need to be agreed upon, redefined and utilised across the publishing industry and within academia. This is of particular importance in the light of the suggestions (from total sales volumes) that the audiences for books are limited, and therefore the rise of one sub-genre may be directly responsible for the fall of another. Bair argues, for example, that in the 1980s and 1990s, the popularity of what she categorises as memoir had direct repercussions on the numbers of birth-to-death biographies that were commissioned, contracted, and published as “sales and marketing staffs conclude[d] that readers don’t want a full-scale life any more” (17). Finally, although we have highlighted the difficulty of using publishing statistics when there is no common understanding as to what such data is reporting, we hope this study shows that the utilisation of such material does add a depth to such enquiries, especially in interrogating the anecdotal evidence that is often quoted as data in publishing and other studies. Appendix 1 Publishers Weekly listings 1990–1999 1990 included two autobiographies, Bo Knows Bo by professional athlete Bo Jackson (with Dick Schaap) and Ronald Reagan’s An America Life: An Autobiography. In 1991, there were further examples of life writing with unimaginative titles, Me: Stories of My Life by Katherine Hepburn, Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography by Kitty Kelley, and Under Fire: An American Story by Oliver North with William Novak; as indeed there were again in 1992 with It Doesn’t Take a Hero: The Autobiography of Norman Schwarzkopf, Sam Walton: Made in America, the autobiography of the founder of Wal-Mart, Diana: Her True Story by Andrew Morton, Every Living Thing, yet another veterinary outpouring from James Herriot, and Truman by David McCullough. In 1993, radio shock-jock Howard Stern was successful with the autobiographical Private Parts, as was Betty Eadie with her detailed recounting of her alleged near-death experience, Embraced by the Light. Eadie’s book remained on the list in 1994 next to Don’t Stand too Close to a Naked Man, comedian Tim Allen’s autobiography. Flag-waving titles continue in 1995 with Colin Powell’s My American Journey, and Miss America, Howard Stern’s follow-up to Private Parts. 1996 saw two autobiographical works, basketball superstar Dennis Rodman’s Bad as I Wanna Be and figure-skater, Ekaterina Gordeeva’s (with EM Swift) My Sergei: A Love Story. In 1997, Diana: Her True Story returns to the top 10, joining Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes and prolific biographer Kitty Kelly’s The Royals, while in 1998, there is only the part-autobiography, part travel-writing A Pirate Looks at Fifty, by musician Jimmy Buffet. There is no biography or autobiography included in either the 1999 or 2000 top 10 lists in Publishers Weekly, nor in that for 2005. In 2001, David McCullough’s biography John Adams and Jack Welch’s business memoir Jack: Straight from the Gut featured. In 2002, Let’s Roll! Lisa Beamer’s tribute to her husband, one of the heroes of 9/11, written with Ken Abraham, joined Rudolph Giuliani’s autobiography, Leadership. 2003 saw Hillary Clinton’s autobiography Living History and Paul Burrell’s memoir of his time as Princess Diana’s butler, A Royal Duty, on the list. In 2004, it was Bill Clinton’s turn with My Life. In 2006, we find John Grisham’s true crime (arguably a biography), The Innocent Man, at the top, Grogan’s Marley and Me at number three, and the autobiographical The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama in fourth place. Appendix 2 Amazon.com listings since 2000 In 2000, there were only two auto/biographies in the top Amazon 50 bestsellers with Lance Armstrong’s It’s Not about the Bike: My Journey Back to Life about his battle with cancer at 20, and Dave Eggers’s self-consciously fictionalised memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius at 32. In 2001, only the top 14 bestsellers were recorded. At number 1 is John Adams by David McCullough and, at 11, Jack: Straight from the Gut by USA golfer Jack Welch. In 2002, Leadership by Rudolph Giuliani was at 12; Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro at 29; Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper by Patricia Cornwell at 42; Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative by David Brock at 48; and Louis Gerstner’s autobiographical Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance: Inside IBM’s Historic Turnaround at 50. In 2003, Living History by Hillary Clinton was 7th; Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson 14th; Dereliction of Duty: The Eyewitness Account of How President Bill Clinton Endangered America’s Long-Term National Security by Robert Patterson 20th; Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer 32nd; Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life by Queen Noor of Jordan 33rd; Kate Remembered, Scott Berg’s biography of Katharine Hepburn, 37th; Who’s your Caddy?: Looping for the Great, Near Great and Reprobates of Golf by Rick Reilly 39th; The Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship about a winning baseball team by David Halberstam 42nd; and Every Second Counts by Lance Armstrong 49th. In 2004, My Life by Bill Clinton was the best selling book of the year; American Soldier by General Tommy Franks was 16th; Kevin Phillips’s American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush 18th; Timothy Russert’s Big Russ and Me: Father and Son. Lessons of Life 20th; Tony Hendra’s Father Joe: The Man who Saved my Soul 23rd; Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton 27th; Cokie Roberts’s Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised our Nation 31st; Kitty Kelley’s The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty 42nd; and Chronicles, Volume 1 by Bob Dylan was 43rd. In 2005, auto/biographical texts were well down the list with only The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion at 45 and The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeanette Walls at 49. In 2006, there was a resurgence of life writing with Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck: and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman at 9; Grisham’s The Innocent Man at 12; Bill Buford’s food memoir Heat: an Amateur’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany at 23; more food writing with Julia Child’s My Life in France at 29; Immaculée Ilibagiza’s Left to Tell: Discovering God amidst the Rwandan Holocaust at 30; CNN anchor Anderson Cooper’s Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters and Survival at 43; and Isabella Hatkoff’s Owen & Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship (between a baby hippo and a giant tortoise) at 44. In 2007, Ishmael Beah’s discredited A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier came in at 8; Walter Isaacson’s Einstein: His Life and Universe 13; Ayaan Hirst Ali’s autobiography of her life in Muslim society, Infidel, 18; The Reagan Diaries 25; Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI 29; Mother Teresa: Come be my Light 36; Clapton: The Autobiography 40; Tina Brown’s The Diana Chronicles 45; Tony Dungy’s Quiet Strength: The Principles, Practices & Priorities of a Winning Life 47; and Daniel Tammet’s Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant at 49. Acknowledgements A sincere thank you to Michael Webster at RMIT for assistance with access to Nielsen BookScan statistics, and to the reviewers of this article for their insightful comments. Any errors are, of course, our own. References Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC). “About Us.” Australian Story 2008. 1 June 2008. ‹http://www.abc.net.au/austory/aboutus.htm>. 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