Academic literature on the topic 'Juli Slattery'

This article aims to explain how the contestation of social spaces in the lives of the plural society at Lasem it processes dynamically. It is a pattern of space contestation that leads to the affirmation and strengthening of identity or a pattern that leads to the fusion of identities. As a consequence, the first pattern creates social friction or conflict. On the contrary, the second pattern is directed towards acculturation and assimilation of culture which can strengthen social harmony. The important finding of this research is that it can be known the real issue, so that problems related to all parties can be found a solution as well as a resolution. This research also proves that social mechanism preparedness is considered urgent to prevent negative excesses (negative things) from the space contestation. So the space contestation that occurs dynamically proves that the plural society in Lasem has found a valuable experience, namely social resilience in facing all possible emergence of social disintegration.Keywords: contestation, space, social mechanisms and an plural society REFERENCE: Abercrombie, Nicholas, at.all., 2010. Kamus Sosiologi, Terj. Dwi Agus M. Yogyakarta: Pustaka Pelajar. Adhyanggono, GM. ad.all., 2009. Budaya Tionghoa Lasem Dalam Peta Tata Pemukiman, Tradisi, Peran Dan Relasi Gender, dalam Angelina Ika Rahutami (Peny.), ”Kekuatan Lokal Sebagai Roh Pembangunan Jawa Tengah”, Semarang: UNIKA Soegijapranata. Amirudin, 2017. Multikulturalisme dalam Produksi Budaya Seni Batik di Lasem, dalam; ”60 Tahun Antropologi Indonesia; Refleksi Kontribusi Antropologi untuk Indonesia”, Jakarta; Pusat Kajian Antropologi, Departemen Antropologi FISIP UI, 2017. Atabik, Ahmad, 2016. Percampuran Budaya Jawa dan Cina: Harmoni dan Toleransi Beragama Masyarakat Lasem, Jurnal: Sabda, Volume 11, Tahun 2016, pp. 1–11. Azra, Azyumardi, 2011. Nasionalisme, Etnisitas, Dan Agama di Indonesia: Perspektif Islam Dan Ketahanan Budaya, dalam Thung Ju Lan dan M. Azzam Manan (Ed.), ”Nasionalisme Dan Ketahanan Budaya di Indonesia”, Jakarta: LIPI & Yayasan Obor Indonesia. BPS. 2012. Data Monografi Kecamatan Lasem Semester II Tahun 2012, Rembang: Pemkab. Rembang. BPS. 2017. Data UPT Pendidikan Kabupaten Rembang Tahun 2017, Rembang: Pemkab. Rembang. BPS Rembang, 2017. Lasem Dalam Angka Tahun 2017, Rembang: Pemkab. Rembang. BPS Rembang, 2018. Lasem Dalam Angka Tahun 2018, Rembang: Pemkab. Rembang. Daradjati, 2013. Geger Pacinan 1740–1743: Persekutuan Tionghoa – Jawa Melawan VOC, Jakarta: Kompas. Hardiman, F. Budi, 2002 “Belajar dari Politik Multikulturalisme”, pengantar Will Kymlicka, ”Kewargaan Kultural”, Jakarta: LP3ES, 2002. Hartono, Samuel & Handinoto, Lasem: Kota Kuno Di Pantai Utara Jawa Yang Bernuasa Cina, artikel dalam: http://fportfolio. petra.ac.id/user_files/81-005/LASEM.pdf, diunduh pada tanggal 02 Agustus 2018, pukul: 14.23 wib. Hefner, Robert, W., 2001, The Politics of Multiculturalism: Pluralism and Citizenship in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, Honolulu: University of Hawai Press. Jary, David & Jary, Yulia, 1991. Collins Dictionary of Sociology, London: Harper Collins Publishers. Khamzah, R.P. 1858. Cerita (Sejarah) Lasem, Katurun/Kajiplak Dening R. Panji Karsono (1920), dalam buku Badra Santi, Rumpakanipun Mpu Santribadra Nurhajarini, Dwi Ratna, ad.all. 2015. Akulturasi Lintas Zaman di Lasem: Perspektif Sejarah dan Budaya (Kurun Niaga – Sekarang), Yogyakarta: BPNB-Yogyakarta. Onghokham, Anti Cina, Kapitalisme Cina dan Gerakan Cina, Jakarta: Komunitas Bambu, 2008. Parekh, Bhikhu, 2012. Rethingking Multiculturalism: Keberagaman Budaya dan Teori Politik, diterjemahkan dari “Rethingking Multiculturalism, Cuktural Diversity dan Political Theory”, Yogyakarta: Kanisius. Pemkab. Rembang, 2012. Monografi Kecamatan Lasem Tahun 2012. Poloma, Margaret M. 2010. Sosiologi Konterporer, Jakarta: Rajawali Press. Purdey, Jemma, 2013. Kekerasan Anti Tionghoa Di Indonesia 1996–1999, Denpasar: Pustaka Larasan. Putra. Ade Yustirandy dan Sartini, 2016. Batik Lasem Sebagai Simbul Akulturasi Nilai-nilai Budaya Jawa-Cina, dalam; Jurnal Jantra Vol. 11, No. 2, Desember 2016. Ritzer, George & Goodman, Douglas J., 2011. Teori Sosiologi Modern, Jakarta: Prenada Media. Saifullah, Ahmad 2008. Makna Spiritual Arsitektur Masjid, paparan makalah SITI Angkatan Ke-4, dipresentasikan pada Kamis, 17 Juli 2008, Tidak Diterbitkan. Slattery, Martin, 2003. Key Ideas in Sociology, Delta Place Cheltenham: Nelson Thomas Ltd. Soekanto, Soejono. 1985. Karifan Masyarakat Dalam Penegolaan Kseserasian Sosial Ditinjau Dari Segi Hukum, dalam Majalah Bulanan Tahun VII, edisi No. 11/Agustus 1985, pp. 824-830. Suaedy, Ahmad, 2018. Gus Dur, Islam Nusantara, dan Kewarganegaraan Bineka: Penyelesaian Konflik Aceh dan Papua 1999–2001, Jakarta: Gramedia Pustaka Utama. Suryadinata, Leo, 2003. Kebijakan Negara Indonesia terhadap Etnik Tionghoa: Dari Asimilasi ke Multikulturalisme”, Jurnal Antropologi Indonesia, Nomor: 71, Tahun 2003. Suryadinata, Leo, 2010. Akhirya Diakui Agama Konghucu dan Agama Budha di Pasca-Suharto, dalam, ”Setelah Air Mata Kering” (Ed. I. Wibowo & Thung Ju Lan), Jakarta: Gramedia. Slattery, Martin, 2003. Key Ideas in Sociology, Delta Place Cheltenham: Nelson Thomas Ltd. Tan, Charlene, 2014. Educative Tradition and Islamic Schools in Indonesia, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies-14 (2014). Tilaar, H.A.R. 2007. Mengindonesia: Etnisitas dan Identitas Bangsa Indonesia, Jakarta: Rineka Cipta. Tim Peneliti, ”Laporan Survei Nasional”: Kerjasama Wahid Foundation dengan Lembaga Survei Indonesia dan UN Women, Januari 2018. Turner, Jonathan H. dan Alexandra Maryanski, 2010. Fungsionalisme, Yogyakarta: Pustaka Pelajar. Unjiya, M. Akrom, 2008. “Lasem Negeri Dampo Awang: Sejarah Yang Terlupakan“, Yogyakarta: Fokmas, Veeger, K.J., 1985. Realitas Sosial: Refleksi Filsafat Sosial Atas Hubungan Individu-Masyarakat Dalam Cakrawala Sejarah Sosiologi, Jakarta: Gramedia. Wallace, Ruth A. dan Wolf, Alison, 2006. Contemporary Sociological Theory: Expanding The Classical Tradition, -6th ed., Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. Wiroutomo, Paulus, 2012. Integrasi Sosial Masyarakat Indonesia: Teori dan Konsep, dalam Paulus Wiroutomo, ad.all., ”Sistem Sosial Indonesia”, Jakarta: UI Press & Lab-Sosio. Sumber Internet Surat Kabar Harian “Kompas”, edisi; 15 Pebruari 2014. Surat Kabar Harian “Suara Merdeka”, edisi: 23 Oktober 2019. "Said Aqil Singgung Sentimen Agama dan 212 di Depan Anies", sumber; https://www.cnnindo nesia.com/nasional/20191022212949-20-441966/said-aqil-sing gung-sentimen-agama-dan-212-di-depan-anies, diunduh pada tanggal 23 Oktober 2019. Pukul:07.43 wib.

The traditional slatted floor was compared with 2 different solid floor systems: a non-sloped (L) and a 3% one-sided sloped floor (S), combined with a highly frequent (96 times/day) or normal (12 times/day) removal of manure by a scraper. NH3 emissions were measured continuously over 2 separate 2-week periods between 14 March and 4 July 1995. Urease activity on the solid floors was measured as the accumulation of ammoniacal N in a urea solution in contact with the floor surface, expressed as g NH3/msuperscript 2 per h. NH3 emission from L12 was similar to that from the compartment with a slatted floor but S12 decreased NH3 emission by 21%. Increasing the scraping frequency from 12 to 96 times/day decreased NH3 emission (by 5 and 26% in L96 and S96, respectively). During the last testing period, just before removal of the cows, NH3 emission from the compartment with the S12 variant was 30-35 g NH3/h (10 cows). After removal of the cows this level decreased to 3-17 g NH3/h (average: 8.7 g NH3/h). Covering the openings through which the slurry collected by the scraper system was dropped in the pit, reduced emission to 4-10 g NH3/h (average: 5.5 g NH3/h). However, covering only decreased NH3 emission when the inside temperature was higher that outside. Urease activity at\less than or =\10 and approximately 20 degrees C was 0 and 0.04 g NH3/msuperscript 2 per h, respectively. Up to a urease activity of about 2 g NH3/msuperscript 2 per h, NH3 emission increased with increasing urease activity. At higher levels of urease activity the amount of urea on the floor surface or the rate of volatilization of NH3 from a urine puddle or from the slurry pit to the inside air limited the NH3 emission. It is concluded that the slope of the floor had more impact on reducing ammonia emission than increasing the scraping frequency. Solid floors without a slope may not decrease ammonia emission compared with slatted floors.

Previous work on winter shearing has concentrated on lowland ewes in mild conditions. With increased emphasis in hill areas on housing ewes before lambing and resting hill pastures, the possibility of shearing ewes before lambing, rather than in the summer now exists. A review of work with lowland ewes has shown that winter shorn ewes produce lambs with a heavier birthweight (average +0.55kg) and increased liveweight gain (average +15g day-1) (Phillips, 1980), but it is not clear whether these benefits would be obtained with less prolific ewes under hill conditions.The experiment was carried out from February to July 1985. Twenty-two Welsh Mountain ewes were housed 45 days pre-lambing in a fully enclosed but well-ventilated shed with slatted flooring. At 42 days pre-lambing ewes were randomised for weight and age and half the ewes were shorn with a normal comb, and half left unshorn until the summer.Ewes in both treatments were offered and consumed the same level of concentrates (0.25kg ewe-1 day-1 post-shearing increased to 0.5kg ewe-1 day-1 before lambing). Medium quality hay was offered ad-libitum to both treatments. Water intake was measured daily. Ewe liveweight was measured weekly on five occasions between shearing and one week before lambing. Respiration rates of ewes were measured on 4 different occasions at 4 extreme environmental temperatures. Maximum and minimum house temperatures were recorded for the whole of the housed period. Lamb birthweights, liveweight gains and 84 day weights were corrected to male singles using additive correction factors derived from the mean of the flock over the previous two years.

Despite numerous critics describing him as an auteur (i.e. a film-maker who ‘does’ everything and fulfils every production role [Bordwell and Thompson 37] and/or with a signature “world-view” detectable in his/her work [Caughie 10]), Rolf de Heer appears to have declined primary authorship of Dance Me to My Song (1997), his seventh in an oeuvre of twelve feature films. Indeed, the opening credits do not mention his name at all: it is only with the closing credits that the audience learns de Heer has directed the film. Rather, as the film commences, the viewer is informed by the titles that it is “A film by Heather Rose”, thus suggesting that the work is her singular creation. Direct and uncompromising, with its unflattering shots of the lead actor and writer (Heather Rose Slattery, a young woman born with cerebral palsy), the film may be read as a courageous self-portrait which finds the grace, humanity and humour trapped inside Rose’s twisted body. Alternatively, it may be read as yet another example of de Heer’s signature interest in foregrounding a world view which gives voice to marginalised characters such as the disabled or the disadvantaged. For example, the developmentally retarded eponyme of Bad Boy Bubby (1993) is eventually able to make art as a singer in a band and succeeds in creating a happy family with a wife and two kids. The ‘mute’ girl in The Quiet Room (1996) makes herself heard by her squabbling parents through her persistent activism. In Ten Canoes (2006) the Indigenous Australians cast themselves according to kinship ties, not according to the director’s choosing, and tell their story in their own uncolonised language. A cursory glance at the films of Rolf de Heer suggests he is overtly interested in conveying to the audience the often overlooked agency of his unlikely protagonists. In the ultra-competitive world of professional film-making it is rare to see primary authorship ceded by a director so generously. However, the allocation of authorship to a member of a marginalized population re-invigorates questions prompted by Andy Medhurst regarding a film’s “authorship test” (198) and its relationship to a subaltern community wherein he writes that “a biographical approach has more political justification if the project being undertaken is one concerned with the cultural history of a marginalized group” (202-3). Just as films by gay authors about gay characters may have greater credibility, as Medhurst posits, one might wonder would a film by a person with a disability about a character with the same disability be better received? Enabling authorship by an unknown, crippled woman such as Rose rather than a famous, able-bodied male such as de Heer may be cynically regarded as good (show) business in that it is politically correct. This essay therefore asks if the appellation “A film by Heather Rose” is appropriate for Dance Me to My Song. Whose agency in telling the story (or ‘doing’ the film-making), the able bodied Rolf de Heer or the disabled Heather Rose, is reflected in this cinematic production? In other words, whose voice is enabled when an audience receives this film? In attempting to answer these questions it is inevitable that Paul Darke’s concept of the “normality drama” (181) is referred to and questioned, as I argue that Dance Me to My Song makes groundbreaking departures from the conventions of the typical disability narrative. Heather Rose as Auteur Rose plays the film’s heroine, Julia, who like herself has cerebral palsy, a group of non-progressive, chronic disorders resulting from changes produced in the brain during the prenatal stages of life. Although severely affected physically, Rose suffered no intellectual impairment and had acted in Rolf de Heer’s cult hit Bad Boy Bubby five years before, a confidence-building experience that grew into an ongoing fascination with the filmmaking process. Subsequently, working with co-writer Frederick Stahl, she devised the scenario for this film, writing the lead role for herself and then proactively bringing it to de Heer’s attention. Rose wrote of de Heer’s deliberate lack of involvement in the script-writing process: “Rolf didn’t even want to read what we’d done so far, saying he didn’t want to interfere with our process” (de Heer, “Production Notes”). In 2002, aged 36, Rose died and Stahl reports in her obituary an excerpt from her diary: People see me as a person who has to be controlled. But let me tell you something, people. I am not! And I am going to make something real special of my life! I am going to go out there and grab life with both hands!!! I am going to make the most sexy and honest film about disability that has ever been made!! (Stahl, “Standing Room Only”) This proclamation of her ability and ambition in screen-writing is indicative of Rose’s desire to do. In a guest lecture Rose gave further insights into the active intent in writing Dance Me to My Song: I wanted to create a screenplay, but not just another soppy disability film, I wanted to make a hot sexy film, which showed the real world … The message I wanted to convey to an audience was “As people with disabilities, we have the same feelings and desires as others”. (Rose, “ISAAC 2000 Conference Presentation”) Rose went on to explain her strategy for winning over director de Heer: “Rolf was not sure about committing to the movie; I had to pester him really. I decided to invite him to my birthday party. It took a few drinks, but I got him to agree to be the director” (ibid) and with this revelation of her tactical approach her film-making agency is further evidenced. Rose’s proactive innovation is not just evident in her successfully approaching de Heer. Her screenplay serves as a radical exception to films featuring disabled persons, which, according to Paul Darke in 1998, typically involve the disabled protagonist struggling to triumph over the limitations imposed by their disability in their ‘admirable’ attempts to normalize. Such normality dramas are usually characterized by two generic themes: first, that the state of abnormality is nothing other than tragic because of its medical implications; and, second, that the struggle for normality, or some semblance of it in normalization – as represented in the film by the other characters – is unquestionably right owing to its axiomatic supremacy. (187) Darke argues that the so-called normality drama is “unambiguously a negation of ascribing any real social or individual value to the impaired or abnormal” (196), and that such dramas function to reinforce the able-bodied audience’s self image of normality and the notion of the disabled as the inferior Other. Able-bodied characters are typically portrayed positively in the normality drama: “A normality as represented in the decency and support of those characters who exist around, and for, the impaired central character. Thus many of the disabled characters in such narratives are bitter, frustrated and unfulfilled and either antisocial or asocial” (193). Darke then identifies The Elephant Man (David Lynch, 1980) and Born on the Fourth of July (Oliver Stone, 1989) as archetypal films of this genre. Even in films in which seemingly positive images of the disabled are featured, the protagonist is still to be regarded as the abnormal Other, because in comparison to the other characters within that narrative the impaired character is still a comparatively second-class citizen in the world of the film. My Left Foot is, as always, a prime example: Christy Brown may well be a writer, relatively wealthy and happy, but he is not seen as sexual in any way (194). However, Dance Me to My Song defies such generic restrictions: Julia’s temperament is upbeat and cheerful and her disability, rather than appearing tragic, is made to look healthy, not “second class”, in comparison with her physically attractive, able-bodied but deeply unhappy carer, Madelaine (Joey Kennedy). Within the first few minutes of the film we see Madelaine dissatisfied as she stands, inspecting her healthy, toned and naked body in the bathroom mirror, contrasted with vision of Julia’s twisted form, prostrate, pale and naked on the bed. Yet, in due course, it is the able-bodied girl who is shown to be insecure and lacking in character. Madelaine steals Julia’s money and calls her “spastic”. Foul-mouthed and short-tempered, Madelaine perversely positions Julia in her wheelchair to force her to watch as she has perfunctory sex with her latest boyfriend. Madelaine even masquerades as Julia, commandeering her voice synthesizer to give a fraudulently positive account of her on-the-job performance to the employment agency she works for. Madelaine’s “axiomatic supremacy” is thoroughly undermined and in the most striking contrast to the typical normality drama, Julia is unashamedly sexual: she is no Christy Brown. The affective juxtaposition of these two different personalities stems from the internal nature of Madelaine’s problems compared to the external nature of Julia’s problems. Madelaine has an emotional disability rather than a physical disability and several scenes in the film show her reduced to helpless tears. Then one day when Madelaine has left her to her own devices, Julia defiantly wheels herself outside and bumps into - almost literally - handsome, able-bodied Eddie (John Brumpton). Cheerfully determined, Julia wins him over and a lasting friendship is formed. Having seen the joy that sex brings to Madelaine, Julia also wants carnal fulfilment so she telephones Eddie and arranges a date. When Eddie arrives, he reads the text on her voice machine’s screen containing the title line to the film ‘Dance me to my song’ and they share a tender moment. Eddie’s gentleness as he dances Julia to her song (“Kizugu” written by Bernard Huber and John Laidler, as performed by Okapi Guitars) is simultaneously contrasted with the near-date-rapes Madelaine endures in her casual relationships. The conflict between Madeline and Julia is such that it prompts Albert Moran and Errol Vieth to categorize the film as “women’s melodrama”: Dance Me to My Song clearly belongs to the genre of the romance. However, it is also important to recognize it under the mantle of the women’s melodrama … because it has to do with a woman’s feelings and suffering, not so much because of the flow of circumstance but rather because of the wickedness and malevolence of another woman who is her enemy and rival. (198-9) Melodrama is a genre that frequently resorts to depicting disability in which a person condemned by society as disabled struggles to succeed in love: some prime examples include An Affair to Remember (Leo McCarey, 1957) involving a paraplegic woman, and The Piano (Jane Campion, 1993) in which a strong-spirited but mute woman achieves love. The more conventional Hollywood romances typically involve attractive, able-bodied characters. In Dance Me to My Song the melodramatic conflict between the two remarkably different women at first seems dominated by Madelaine, who states: “I know I’m good looking, good in bed ... better off than you, you poor thing” in a stream-of-consciousness delivery in which Julia is constructed as listener rather than converser. Julia is further reduced to the status of sub-human as Madelaine says: “I wish you could eat like a normal person instead of a bloody animal” and her erstwhile boyfriend Trevor says: “She looks like a fuckin’ insect.” Even the benevolent Eddie says: “I don’t like leaving you alone but I guess you’re used to it.” To this the defiant Julia replies; “Please don’t talk about me in front of me like I’m an animal or not there at all.” Eddie is suitably chastised and when he treats her to an over-priced ice-cream the shop assistant says “Poor little thing … She’ll enjoy this, won’t she?” Julia smiles, types the words “Fuck me!”, and promptly drops the ice-cream on the floor. Eddie laughs supportively. “I’ll just get her another one,” says the flustered shop assistant, “and then get her out of here, please!” With striking eloquence, Julia wheels herself out of the shop, her voice machine announcing “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me”, as she departs exultantly. With this bold statement of independence and defiance in the face of patronising condescension, the audience sees Rose’s burgeoning strength of character and agency reflected in the onscreen character she has created. Dance Me to My Song and the films mentioned above are, however, rare exceptions in the many that dare represent disability on the screen at all, compliant as the majority are with Darke’s expectations of the normality drama. Significantly, the usual medical-model nexus in many normality films is ignored in Rose’s screenplay: no medication, hospitals or white laboratory coats are to be seen in Julia’s world. Finally, as I have described elsewhere, Julia is shown joyfully dancing in her wheelchair with Eddie while Madelaine proves her physical inferiority with a ‘dance’ of frustration around her broken-down car (see Starrs, "Dance"). In Rose’s authorial vision, audience’s expectations of yet another film of the normality drama genre are subverted as the disabled protagonist proves superior to her ‘normal’ adversary in their melodramatic rivalry for the sexual favours of an able-bodied love-interest. Rolf de Heer as Auteur De Heer does not like to dwell on the topic of auteurism: in an interview in 2007 he somewhat impatiently states: I don’t go in much for that sort of analysis that in the end is terminology. … Look, I write the damn things, and direct them, and I don’t completely produce them anymore – there are other people. If that makes me an auteur in other people’s terminologies, then fine. (Starrs, "Sounds" 20) De Heer has been described as a “remarkably non-egotistical filmmaker” (Davis “Working together”) which is possibly why he handed ownership of this film to Rose. Of the writer/actor who plied him with drink so he would agree to back her script, de Heer states: It is impossible to overstate the courage of the performance that you see on the screen. … Heather somehow found the means to respond on cue, to maintain the concentration, to move in the desired direction, all the myriad of acting fundamentals that we take for granted as normal things to do in our normal lives. (“Production NHotes”) De Heer’s willingness to shift authorship from director to writer/actor is representative of this film’s groundbreaking promotion of the potential for agency within disability. Rather than being passive and suffering, Rose is able to ‘do.’ As the lead actor she is central to the narrative. As the principle writer she is central to the film’s production. And she does both. But in conflict with this auteurial intent is the temptation to describe Dance Me to My Song as an autobiographical documentary, since it is Rose herself, with her unique and obvious physical handicap, playing the film’s heroine, Julia. In interview, however, De Heer apparently disagrees with this interpretation: Rolf de Heer is quick to point out, though, that the film is not a biography.“Not at all; only in the sense that writers use material from their own lives.Madelaine is merely the collection of the worst qualities of the worst carers Heather’s ever had.” Dance Me to My Song could be seen as a dramatised documentary, since it is Rose herself playing Julia, and her physical or surface life is so intense and she is so obviously handicapped. While he understands that response, de Heer draws a comparison with the first films that used black actors instead of white actors in blackface. “I don’t know how it felt emotionally to an audience, I wasn’t there, but I think that is the equivalent”. (Urban) An example of an actor wearing “black-face” to portray a cerebral palsy victim might well be Gus Trikonis’s 1980 film Touched By Love. In this, the disabled girl is unconvincingly played by the pretty, able-bodied actress Diane Lane. The true nature of the character’s disability is hidden and cosmeticized to Hollywood expectations. Compared to that inauthentic film, Rose’s screenwriting and performance in Dance Me to My Song is a self-penned fiction couched in unmediated reality and certainly warrants authorial recognition. Despite his unselfish credit-giving, de Heer’s direction of this remarkable film is nevertheless detectable. His auteur signature is especially evident in his technological employment of sound as I have argued elsewhere (see Starrs, "Awoval"). The first distinctly de Heer influence is the use of a binaural recording device - similar to that used in Bad Boy Bubby (1993) - to convey to the audience the laboured nature of Julia’s breathing and to subjectively align the audience with her point of view. This apparatus provides a disturbing sound bed that is part wheezing, part grunting. There is no escaping Julia’s physically unusual life, from her reliance on others for food, toilet and showering, to the half-strangled sounds emanating from her ineffectual larynx. But de Heer insists that Julia does speak, like Stephen Hawkings, via her Epson RealVoice computerized voice synthesizer, and thus Julia manages to retain her dignity. De Heer has her play this machine like a musical instrument, its neatly modulated feminine tones immediately prompting empathy. Rose Capp notes de Heer’s preoccupation with finding a voice for those minority groups within the population who struggle to be heard, stating: de Heer has been equally consistent in exploring the communicative difficulties underpinning troubled relationships. From the mute young protagonist of The Quiet Room to the aphasic heroine of Dance Me to My Song, De Heer’s films are frequently preoccupied with the profound inadequacy or outright failure of language as a means of communication (21). Certainly, the importance to Julia of her only means of communication, her voice synthesizer, is stressed by de Heer throughout the film. Everybody around her has, to varying degrees, problems in hearing correctly or understanding both what and how Julia communicates with her alien mode of conversing, and she is frequently asked to repeat herself. Even the well-meaning Eddie says: “I don’t know what the machine is trying to say”. But it is ultimately via her voice synthesizer that Julia expresses her indomitable character. When first she meets Eddie, she types: “Please put my voice machine on my chair, STUPID.” She proudly declares ownership of a condom found in the bathroom with “It’s mine!” The callous Madelaine soon realizes Julia’s strength is in her voice machine and withholds access to the device as punishment for if she takes it away then Julia is less demanding for the self-centred carer. Indeed, the film which starts off portraying the physical superiority of Madelaine soon shows us that the carer’s life, for all her able-bodied, free-love ways, is far more miserable than Julia’s. As de Heer has done in many of his other films, a voice has been given to those who might otherwise not be heard through significant decision making in direction. In Rose’s case, this is achieved most obviously via her electric voice synthesizer. I have also suggested elsewhere (see Starrs, "Dance") that de Heer has helped find a second voice for Rose via the language of dance, and in doing so has expanded the audience’s understandings of quality of life for the disabled, as per Mike Oliver’s social model of disability, rather than the more usual medical model of disability. Empowered by her act of courage with Eddie, Julia sacks her uncaring ‘carer’ and the film ends optimistically with Julia and her new man dancing on the front porch. By picturing the couple in long shot and from above, Julia’s joyous dance of triumph is depicted as ordinary, normal and not deserving of close examination. This happy ending is intercut with a shot of Madeline and her broken down car, performing her own frustrated dance and this further emphasizes that she was unable to ‘dance’ (i.e. communicate and compete) with Julia. The disabled performer such as Rose, whether deliberately appropriating a role or passively accepting it, usually struggles to placate two contrasting realities: (s)he is at once invisible in the public world of interhuman relations and simultaneously hyper-visible due to physical Otherness and subsequent instantaneous typecasting. But by the end of Dance Me to My Song, Rose and de Heer have subverted this notion of the disabled performer grappling with the dual roles of invisible victim and hyper-visible victim by depicting Julia as socially and physically adept. She ‘wins the guy’ and dances her victory as de Heer’s inspirational camera looks down at her success like an omniscient and pleased god. Film academic Vivian Sobchack writes of the phenomenology of dance choreography for the disabled and her own experience of waltzing with the maker of her prosthetic leg, Steve, with the comment: “for the moment I did displace focus on my bodily immanence to the transcendent ensemble of our movement and I really began to waltz” (65). It is easy to imagine Rose’s own, similar feeling of bodily transcendence in the closing shot of Dance Me to My Song as she shows she can ‘dance’ better than her able-bodied rival, content as she is with her self-identity. Conclusion: Validation of the Auteurial OtherRolf de Heer was a well-known film-maker by the time he directed Dance Me to My Song. His films Bad Boy Bubby (1993) and The Quiet Room (1996) had both screened at the Cannes International Film Festival. He was rapidly developing a reputation for non-mainstream representations of marginalised, subaltern populations, a cinematic trajectory that was to be further consolidated by later films privileging the voice of Indigenous Peoples in The Tracker (2002) and Ten Canoes (2006), the latter winning the Special Jury prize at Cannes. His films often feature unlikely protagonists or as Liz Ferrier writes, are “characterised by vulnerable bodies … feminised … none of whom embody hegemonic masculinity” (65): they are the opposite of Hollywood’s hyper-masculine, hard-bodied, controlling heroes. With a nascent politically correct worldview proving popular, de Heer may have considered the assigning of authorship to Rose a marketable idea, her being representative of a marginalized group, which as Andy Medhurst might argue, may be more politically justifiable, as it apparently is with films of gay authorship. However, it must be emphasized that there is no evidence that de Heer’s reticence about claiming authorship of Dance Me to My Song is motivated by pecuniary interests, nor does he seem to have been trying to distance himself from the project through embarrassment or dissatisfaction with the film or its relatively unknown writer/actor. Rather, he seems to be giving credit for authorship where credit is due, for as a result of Rose’s tenacity and agency this film is, in two ways, her creative success. Firstly, it is a rare exception to the disability film genre defined by Paul Darke as the “normality drama” because in the film’s diegesis, Julia is shown triumphing not simply over the limitations of her disability, but over her able-bodied rival in love as well: she ‘dances’ better than the ‘normal’ Madelaine. Secondly, in her gaining possession of the primary credits, and the mantle of the film’s primary author, Rose is shown triumphing over other aspiring able-bodied film-makers in the notoriously competitive film-making industry. Despite being an unpublished and unknown author, the label “A film by Heather Rose” is, I believe, a deserved coup for the woman who set out to make “the most sexy and honest film about disability ever made”. As with de Heer’s other films in which marginalised peoples are given voice, he demonstrates a desire not to subjugate the Other, but to validate and empower him/her. He both acknowledges their authorial voices and credits them as essential beings, and in enabling such subaltern populations to be heard, willingly cedes his privileged position as a successful, white, male, able-bodied film-maker. In the credits of this film he seems to be saying ‘I may be an auteur, but Heather Rose is a no less able auteur’. References Bordwell, David and Kristin Thompson. Film Art: An Introduction, 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993. Capp, Rose. “Alexandra and the de Heer Project.” RealTime + Onscreen 56 (Aug.-Sep. 2003): 21. 6 June 2008 ‹http://www.realtimearts.net/article/issue56/7153›. Caughie, John. “Introduction”. Theories of Authorship. Ed. John Caughie. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981. 9-16. Darke, Paul. “Cinematic Representations of Disability.” The Disability Reader. Ed. Tom Shakespeare. London and New York: Cassell, 1988. 181-198. Davis, Therese. “Working Together: Two Cultures, One Film, Many Canoes.” Senses of Cinema 2006. 6 June 2008 ‹http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/06/41/ten-canoes.html›. De Heer, Rolf. “Production Notes.” Vertigo Productions. Undated. 6 June 2008 ‹http://www.vertigoproductions.com.au/information.php?film_id=10&display=notes›. Ferrier, Liz. “Vulnerable Bodies: Creative Disabilities in Contemporary Australian Film.” Australian Cinema in the 1990s. Ed. Ian Craven. London and Portland: Frank Cass and Co., 2001. 57-78. Medhurst, Andy. “That Special Thrill: Brief Encounter, Homosexuality and Authorship.” Screen 32.2 (1991): 197-208. Moran, Albert, and Errol Veith. Film in Australia: An Introduction. Melbourne: Cambridge UP, 2006. Oliver, Mike. Social Work with Disabled People. Basingstoke: MacMillan, 1983. Rose Slattery, Heather. “ISAAC 2000 Conference Presentation.” Words+ n.d. 6 June 2008 ‹http://www.words-plus.com/website/stories/isaac2000.htm›. Sobchack, Vivian. “‘Choreography for One, Two, and Three Legs’ (A Phenomenological Meditation in Movements).” Topoi 24.1 (2005): 55-66. Stahl, Frederick. “Standing Room Only for a Thunderbolt in a Wheelchair,” Sydney Morning Herald 31 Oct. 2002. 6 June 2008 ‹http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/10/30/1035683471529.html›. Starrs, D. Bruno. “Sounds of Silence: An Interview with Rolf de Heer.” Metro 152 (2007): 18-21. ———. “An avowal of male lack: Sound in Rolf de Heer’s The Old Man Who Read Love Stories (2003).” Metro 156 (2008): 148-153. ———. “Dance Me to My Song (Rolf de Heer 1997): The Story of a Disabled Dancer.” Proceedings Scopic Bodies Dance Studies Research Seminar Series 2007. Ed. Mark Harvey. University of Auckland, 2008 (in press). Urban, Andrew L. “Dance Me to My Song, Rolf de Heer, Australia.” Film Festivals 1988. 6 June 2008. ‹http://www.filmfestivals.com/cannes98/selofus9.htm›.

(In memory of Chris Newell)With its title 'able', this issue called for articles and essays which explore ability from a disability perspective, rather than disability from an able-ist perspective. One take on the title 'able', is that it invites a fresh perspective on disability, with a focus on abilities and productivities (defined differently, in non-able-ist terms), rather than lack and aberrance. This affirmation of abilities is characteristic of many of the articles and essays in this issue, particularly in the narrative accounts of lived experience. Another take on 'able' evident in these articles is the critique of able-ist assumptions and discourses. Some writers, such as Campbell, Goggin and Wolbring, overtly address the value of insights offered through disability to deconstruct the ‘able-ist’ perspectives which dominate and limit our social worlds, even within disability studies. Campbell provides an overview of scholarship on disablism and able-ism: ‘Disablism’ works as "a set of assumptions (conscious or unconscious) and practices that promote the differential or unequal treatment of people because of actual or presumed disabilities". While Campbell acknowledges the importance of disability studies with its various critiques of the practices and production of disablism, "specifically … examining those attitudes and barriers that contribute to the subordination of people with disabilities in liberal society", she also identifies an ‘able-ist project’ within disability studies, which can serve to reinscribe the able-ist perspective and assumptions. Campbell argues: "the challenge then is to reverse, to invert this traditional approach, to shift our gaze and concentrate on what the study of disability tells us about the production, operation and maintenance of ableism."Goggin also calls for this inverted approach, with scrutiny of the under-examined category ‘able’: If we think of the impact and significance of “whiteness”, as a way to open up space for how to critically think about and change concepts of race; or of “masculinity” as a project for thinking about gender and sexuality — we can see that this interrogation of the unmarked category of “able” and “ability” is much needed. Goggin notes that while disability has been subject to critique and examination (like the all too conspicuous and scrutinised disabled bodies), there has been surprisingly little critique of ability: "nor have we witnessed a thoroughgoing recognition of unmarked, yet powerful operations of ability in our lives and thought". Wolbring also contends that “there is a pressing need for society to deal with ableism in all of its forms and its consequences”. Through his discussion of categories of ‘able’ and ‘ableism’, he identifies a dominant discourse around ‘species-typical’ versus ‘sub-species-typical, defined from the dominant ‘able-ist’ perspective. This discourse has a long history and is linked to the discourse around health, disease and medicine. This is … a model that classifies disabled people as having an intrinsic defect, an impairment that leads to ‘subnormal’ functioning. He insists on the importance of work within Disability Studies which questions that medical model and explores the issue of ‘who defines whom’ as sub-species typical. Many of the articles published here recognise the interdependence of such categories of ‘abled’ and ‘disabled’, drawing attention to the work they perform – usually naturalised and invisible – in producing ‘common sense’ understandings of human value and performance. The able-ist perspective produces disability in terms of lack and deviance from the human norm (which Wolbring calls ‘species typical’). This able-ist production of disability – with its sense of lack and revulsion for the aberrant body/mind – is a powerful undercurrent informing our understanding of human agency. It underpins legitimising discourses which define humanity, particularly modernist discourses of medicine and technology which address the ‘improvement’ of human lives and promise to eradicate disability. It is also crucial to the meaning of so many media narratives, since such narratives, whether in news, documentary or film/tv drama, are predominantly about dilemmas of human agency, of people’s ability or failure to act, to overcome setbacks and limitations. The notion of agency – which drives or impedes the narrative and its resolution – is just as prevalent in media narratives which include people with disability, even those narratives which celebrate their outstanding achievements (in spite of disability). The disability becomes the impediment that must be overcome or be transcended. This more general pattern is represented in emblematic form in many Hollywood action narratives: sometimes the ‘villain’ who impedes the hero’s path is ‘disabled’, or the hero must overcome some disability within themselves (often figured as a temporary disability – such as Superman’s disablement with exposure to kryptonite). While such media stories offer extremes of the ability/disability paradigm, the categories inform our wider debates and understandings of human performance and value. Human agency and the improvement or enablement of this agency – configured in conventional ‘able-ist’ terms – is key to narratives in medical science, technology and innovation, education, as well as in literature and culture, and media narratives which define and interact with our understandings of human activities and performance. Several articles in this issue examine the relationship between technology and innovation, and the able-ist project of modernity and its positioning of people with disability. Goggin addresses the relationship between technology, innovation and disability, calling for a reversal of mainstream logic which sees technology as something which ameliorates disability and improves the lives of people with disability. He points to the work of writers who demonstrate the vital role of people with disability as users of technology, to inform design in the innovation process, and improve the lives of all users of technology. In this context the 'disability perspective' helps break through the limitations of the able-ist perspective. In their article “iTunes Is Pretty (Useless) When You’re Blind”, Kate Ellis and Mike Kent critically examine the promise of digital technology “to open up the world to people with disabilities”, showing the limitations of iPods and iTunes for many people with disabilities (in particular the difficulties for users of screen readers and Braille tablets). They focus on the way that technologies and innovations designed to improve access for people with disabilities “actually enhance access for all users”. They draw on the example of the Lectopia lecture recording and distribution system which has enhanced the educational outcomes for all students where it has been adopted. This resonates with Goggin’s piece on technology and innovation, and the benefits of converging the perspective of the disabled user, with the ‘user’ as considered in technology design. In her article on photographer William Yang’s photographic portraits of his friend Allen dying of AIDS, Catalina Florescu addresses the history of medicine and its role in perpetuating ‘able-ist’ evaluations of disability. In the nineteenth century, how much was medicine responsible for defining ugly as ill, deformed, and getting old, versus beautiful as healthy, and then, for the sake of the community’s health, firmly promoting these ideas? Furthermore, with the rise of photographic art, medicine was able to manipulate and control these ideas even more efficiently. She quotes Deborah Lupton, “the new technology of photography that developed from the mid-nineteenth century became a valuable strategy in the documentation of patterns of disease and illness, and the construction of the sites of dirtiness and contagion”. This emphasis on the historical role of technology in managing and defining, and potentially redefining, understandings of ability and disability, is similar to the scrutiny of technologies that occurs throughout other articles and essays in this issue, including those essays by McDonald, Wain and Place, which address the lived experience of disability. Human agency is also a central theme in cultural and media studies: the modern impulse to bring about social change through critique, depends on a belief in human agency and in the ability to generate change and address social inequalities. The recognition of the role of culture, language and representation, in the contested domain of (unequal) social relations, is vital to critical practice within cultural and media studies. Given this belief in human agency, the assumption that human subjects are able to change the social order, it is vital for practitioners of cultural and media studies, to question the nature of those assumptions, aware that human agency is so often defined in ‘able-ist’ terms. As such the writings in this issue bring a valuable perspective to cultural and media studies more generally, through their critique of the able-ist assumptions that underpin conventional understandings of human agency. Several articles in this issue examine media representations, some drawing attention to those that produce different perspectives on ability and disability. Much has been written about the power of filmic, theatrical and literary representation of disability to engage with, reflect, influence and challenge dominant (able-ist) cultural and social attitudes and narratives (Garland-Thomson, Darke, Shakespeare). Bruno Starrs’ piece on Dance Me to My Song (1997) reveals that while that film is listed in Rolf de Heer’s oeuvre, its primary author is Heather Rose Slattery, a woman with cerebral palsy who wrote, co-directed and played Julie, the lead character. Starrs asserts that in the film Julie is not held up as an object of pity, rather is a fully embodied character, thus defying the “normality drama” (Darke) of disability which aims to "reinforce the able-bodied audience’s self image of normality and the notion of the disabled as the inferior Other". In his article “Disability, Heroism and Australian National Identity”, Martin Mantle analyses Chris Lilley’s 2005 television mocumentary We Can be Heroes: Finding the Australian of the Year. Mantle claims that while disabled characters have been included in Australian national identity narratives, it is questionable whether they have been identified as contributing significantly to "what it means to be Australian". Lilley’s satiric multiple portrayals of disabled and non-disabled characters challenge the assumptions that are made about what kinds of bodies qualify for inclusion in the "development and maintenance of a national character". The ‘ableist’ view of disability as impairment, rendering people passive burdens on society awaiting a ‘cure’, is strongly challenged in the field of disability performance art. Bree Hadley mobilises Rosemarie Garland-Thomson’s comments about the ‘extraordinary’ body of the ‘freak’ and the “stare-and-tell ritual” (337) deployed by disabled performers to examine the ways in which they "negotiate the complexities of the terrain". Hadley considers the theatrical performance of Mat Fraser as Sealo the Sealboy (based on the 1940’s freakshow entertainer Stanley Berent ), arguing that Fraser’s stage strategies deliberately confront an audience, especially a ‘politically correct’ one, with its own ambiguities about and fascination with disabled bodies. A number of the articles in this issue draw directly on the experience and the socially shaped understandings of disability in the ‘everyday lives’ that Campbell and others speak of. Nicole Matthews writes about her charity-funded project, In the Picture which aimed to “generate exemplary inclusive” storylines and illustrations of disabled children in books for young readers by "drawing on the experience of disabled people and families of disabled children". Matthews’ article focuses on the ways in which the label ‘disabled’ is mobilised in an analysis of the variety of responses she received to her project from both disabled and non-disabled stakeholders. She observes with some irony that the pity and charity view of disability is still socially paramount, and one that is often flexed to attract much needed funding for projects such as hers. Donna Mc Donald’s piece “Shattering the Hearing Wall” reveals that one of her aims in writing a series of memoirs about being a ‘deaf woman’ is to produce something that rises above the “stock symbolic scripts”, challenging their tendency to ascribe a singularity of identity to disabled people. Fiona Place candidly records her experiences of being the mother of a child with Down syndrome facing and transcending the “disability as suffering paradigm” proffered by the medical establishment, and generally endorsed by a non-disabled society. She notes that disability is "to be avoided if at all possible and women are expected to take advantage of the advances in reproductive medicine - to choose a genetically correct pregnancy". She questions the promises of genetic screening tests to improve lives: "how safe is it to assume lives are being improved? Could it be… that some lives are now harder rather than easier?" The mother of a child with Down syndrome is seen to have "brought the suffering on herself – of having had choices – tests such as amniocentesis and CVS – but of having failed to take control, failed to prevent the suffering of her child". There is little comprehension that a mother might decide not to submit to the pre-natal genetic test, with its associated risks and consequences – the elimination of the child who is deemed to be a less than ideal choice. Filmmaker Veronica Wain also writes of her experiences as the mother of a child with a “genetic abnormality” – 18q23 deletion. Wain, like Place, confronts the social stigma attached to disability, but finds empowerment in a supportive community, discovering in the process of making the film, what Margrit Shildrick identifies as the vulnerability shared by all human beings. Drawing on the work of Lacan, Schildrick points to the sustaining ‘fantasy’ of the fully realised subject in control of self – a fantasy that is one held dearly by those who identify as able-bodied: the ideal self is phantasmatic, fissured by misidentification, and deeply threatened in its discursively constructed security by the materiality of the anomalous body, in whom signs of disorder and dependency evoke intimations of what has been disavowed. (342) It is the vulnerability of the able- body that is often masked/disavowed by the disabled/abled dichotomy, something which we are reminded of in Catalina Florescu’s account of photographer William Yang’s portraits of Allen who is dying of AIDS. Yang’s series of images starkly intone the body’s "mortal, gradually disabling fabric". Fiona Kumari Campbell’s exhorts us to refuse “ableist normalising dialogue”, to construct a different kind of landscape, a “disability imaginary” based on the “nuances and complexities” of being in and of the world; one which eschews the fixity of absolutes. To address this is to go beyond able/disable dichotomies, to interrogate the ableist- centred narratives of the medico, social, and personal tragedy models of disability presently available, and to refuse disability as a “negative ontology”. Likewise Mairian Corker and Tom Shakespeare advocate that it is time to move beyond limited ways of thinking about and understanding disability. They assert that both the "medical model and the social model seek to explain disability universally, and end up creating totalising, meta-historical narratives that exclude important dimensions of disabled people’s lives and (of ) their knowledge" (15). There can be no unitary or coherent model that fully represents the complexity of either disabled or non-disabled people’s lives; the articles in this issue of M/C Journal go some way towards capturing that complexity. References Corker, Mairian, and Tom Shakespeare, eds. Disability/Postmodernity: Embodying Disability Theory. London: Continuum, 2002. Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie. “Staring Back: Self-Representation of Disabled Performance Artists.” American Quarterly 52.2 (2000): 334-338. Schildrick, Margaret. “Unreformed Bodies: Normative Anxiety and the Denial of Pleasure.” Women’s Studies 34 (2004): 327-344.

The task of the unpaid reviewer in academic publishing has always been a taxing one. Although the notion is one of blind peer review, the selection of reviewers is far from random. Journals try to balance a prospective reviewer’s expertise with their availability, and with their track record of returning a useful review on time. Ideally, the reviewer should have a specific (reasonably expert) knowledge of the paper’s topic, but should also retain enough in common with the interested, but jargon-averse, academic reader to empathise with non-specialist journal subscribers. Reviewers should be able to judge the quality of the argument, of the writing, and of the contribution of the article to the field. It’s a tough ask, and now there is a further layer of concern: will the reviewer – having satisfied all the foregoing – be able to spot ‘self-plagiarism’? Self-plagiarism is a relatively new evil – at least, few people in the author’s circle appear aware of it. Googling the term results in some 8,000 hits (whereas plagiarism scores 3,150,000). At first blush, the usual interpretation of plagiarism – the pinching of some one else’s intellectual property without acknowledgement – seems to rule out the possibility of self-plagiarism. Surely, if the ideas and words are your own, a little judicious re-purposing is all grist to the mill? Indeed, most of the anti-plagiarism sites, for example: What is Plagiarism? (Georgetown University), don’t include the term at all. Instead, the site offers examples of five types of plagiarism, most of them familiar to seasoned markers of student work, which are sufficiently rigorous to include “the ‘apt phrase’”, defined as the lifting of a part sentence. Their comment on the example they give for ‘apt phrase’ plagiarism involves four words in an original paragraph: “This passage is almost entirely original, but the phrase ‘dissolved into a conglomeration’ is taken directly from Arendt [the example used for illustration]. Even though this is a short phrase, it must be footnoted. Only phrases that have truly become part of general usage can be used without citation.” Georgetown University, then, sees plagiarism predominantly as a matter of correct attribution of authorship. Most journals have a requirement that no work offered to them for review should previously have been published, and that concurrent submissions to multiple journals are not permitted. The issue here, it seems, is that a journal’s reputation is built upon the originality and usefulness of its contents. Journal editors like to feel that they are ‘advancing the field’ with each edition and they are building a readership that can count upon learning something new (or, at least, provocative) for each hour invested in consuming their journal. Where papers have appeared in other forms (based, for example, on a presentation recorded in conference proceedings) this may be acceptable to the journal, provided it is acknowledged, and experienced editors will often check that papers developed from conference presentations have not previously been posted on the web. If two journals in ignorance each accept and publish the same paper at the same time then that reflects very poorly on the academic who failed to deal honestly with the editors. The issue here is one of resources – the printed page, in particular, is expensive – and of the reviewers’ time. Given the unpaid and voluntary labour of reviewers, and the amount of time and energy that goes into deciding which papers to accept or reject, journals think very poorly of someone who ‘withdraws’ a paper after acceptance on the grounds that s/he has got a better offer/earlier publication elsewhere. Most journals would not welcome future papers from that author. If self-plagiarism were a simple matter of passing off published paper A as published paper B (say, by changing the title and offering it elsewhere), then it would be seen to be deceitful and perpetrators would receive little respect from their peers. But these extreme cases are not (generally) the kind of self-plagiarism against which authors are warned. So what is the authorship problem widely referred to as ‘self-plagiarism’? The SPlaT website (SPlaT) is happy to explain: Self-plagiarism occurs when an author reuses portions of their previous writings in subsequent research papers. Occasionally, the derived paper is simply a re-titled and reformatted version of the original one, but more frequently it is assembled from bits and pieces of previous work. … It is our belief that self-plagiarism is detrimental to scientific progress and bad for our academic community. Flooding conferences and journals with near-identical papers makes searching for information relevant to a particular topic harder than it has to be. It also rewards those authors who are able to break down their results into overlapping least-publishable-units over those who publish each result only once. Finally, whenever a self-plagiarised paper is allowed to be published, another, more deserving paper, is not. Among the more chilling examples of self-plagiarism identified by the developers of SPlaT is “cryptomnesia (reusing one’s own previously published text while unaware of its existence)” (SPlaT). The avoidance of cryptomnesia is one reason why authors are encouraged to use the SPlaT tool. Academic and journal reviewers are also regarded as potential users, and the software is designed to work in three modes – ‘reviewer’s workbench’, ‘author’ and ‘web spider’. It is indeed a crypromnesiac’s concern that the ‘apt phrase’ that came so creatively to the author in an earlier paper might appear again, unwittingly, in the guise of an original composition. However, the injunction to use SPlaT as a ‘reviewer’s workbench’ (where “SPlaT compares a paper under review to a record of the author’s previously published articles extracted from their web site and online article repositories” [SPlaT]) begs the question as to how a review may remain blind – in the sense of not identifying the author of the work to be reviewed – if the ‘workbench’ and/or ‘web spider’ modes of SPlaT are pressed into service. Might it be the case, notwithstanding the foregoing, that the problem of self-plagiarism is as authentic as ‘social anxiety disorder’ (SAD), incidences of which multiplied dramatically once a drug, Paxil, had been shown effective in treating it? In a Washington Post article (Vedantam), the journalist-author comments: “according to a marketing newsletter, media accounts of social anxiety rose from just 50 stories in 1997 and 1998 to more than 1 billion references in 1999 alone” and goes on to say, “The education and advertising campaigns have raised concerns that pharmaceutical companies, traditionally in the business of finding new drugs for existing disorders, are increasingly in the business of seeking new disorders for existing drugs”. Prior to the publicity about SAD, Paxil was an anti-depressant with sales languishing way behind Prozac and Zoloft. The identification (and treatment) of social anxiety disorder did wonders for its marketing. Could it be that self-plagiarism has only come into existence as a major concern for academia now that there is a tool for its detection? Social anxiety disorder may be an authentic scourge – as may self-plagiarism – and the fact that it has been publicised in concert with its cure (or detection) does not mean that the remedy serves no useful purpose. On the contrary, once a population of professionals is attuned to a new way of viewing symptoms and practices then valuable advances may result. However, such advances are only possible when the community concerned has had a chance to consider the matter and discuss the ramifications. At the present, we run the risk of allowing the designers of anti-self-plagiarism software to be the judges and the jury of this new way to commit academic crime. One way to avoid charges of self-plagiarism is self-citation. Leaving aside crytomnesia, it is perfectly possible to cite the already-published reference when an author is aware of reusing a previously-published phrase or idea. Unfortunately, this remedy is also generally frowned upon in many academic circles. The practice undermines the principle of blind peer review – since the identity of the author soon becomes clear in such repeated instances – while readers may become irritated, suspecting that self-citation is a clumsy ruse to improve the citation index ratings of the originally-published article. The issue is of concern to more than journal editors: it also relates to text- and reference-book editors and publishers. One ‘for instance’ was discussed a year ago by the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) who conducted a hypothetical on “self-plagiarism of textbook chapters” and threw the discussion open to the members’ list. The initial self-plagiarism case-study situation was complicated by the supposition that Author A (of Book A) had self-plagiarised a previously-published chapter which had been jointly authored by Author A and Author B (Book B). Notwithstanding this complication, the WAME Ethics Committee addressed themselves to four questions: Is [Does] reuse of a person’s writings in another textbook, but authored by the same person, meet the definition of plagiarism? If so, what degree of identical components needs to be present for this definition to be met? Is it appropriate for authors to write for different textbooks in the same field? If so, can they write on the same topic? If not, what are the potential infringements on the author’s rights to pursue their career/income? Should the editors of these textbooks agree to exclude authors that write for one another’s textbooks? Or is that unfair restraint of trade? For example, if all four textbooks were to agree to limit or completely avoid any overlap among authors, it could effectively deny entry of another textbook into that market. For book A, the author had a co-author. Since this shared work was used for book B, what is the author’s responsibility to the original co-author? (WAME) These are good questions and they are the kinds of questions we should be asking ourselves about self-plagiarism in our own ‘media and culture’ academic circles. In particular, in the case of textbooks, it is precisely because an author has a standing in the field, and has published on equivalent matters, that editors seek them out and ask them to contribute chapters. Whilst all reputable writers would expect to originate a new chapter according to the specific brief given, it is possible (some might even say likely) that there is an overlap in approach and phraseology. In the case of Books A and B, the overlap stretched the bounds of coincidence in that: “One table is essentially identical, although other tables in the two chapters are different. In addition, there are some passages that contain identical phrases. Most of these appear to have been reworded, but many identifiable words and phrases are identical between the two chapters. There are also areas where the text is completely different” (WAME). However, this hypothetical case is clearly not a situation where the same authorial product was disguised with a new title. Although the whole debate is worth reading, the general consensus of the Ethics Committee was along the lines of (specifically citing one response): I do not see a problem with the author reusing his own material to write a chapter in another textbook (readers of textbooks as opposed to research articles are not expecting originality). The problem is that he should have done this with the concurrence of the two editors and if he signed over his copyright the permission of publisher of textbook A. He should of course also have consulted with his co-author. I think the editors should inform the publishers and his employer of the facts and let them decide what course of action to take. (WAME) The references to re-using the material transparently, and the editors of the textbooks informing the author’s employer, are a constant refrain from a number of contributors to the discussion. Some WAME list discussants offer defences to the charge of self-plagiarism: “the main problem here is not whether the same, or very similar, information can or should be published in more than one place” commented Frank Davidoff, “that sort of thing is done all the time, and can serve important functions. After all, different people read different textbooks, and if it’s important for the information to get out there, why shouldn’t it be made as widely available as possible?” Andrew Herxheimer thought the readers’ perspective had not been given sufficient consideration: “If I were keenly interested in the contents of the chapter in textbook B, I might well wish to know how they had developed, and to look at earlier versions of the material, and to understand why the contents and emphases etc had changed in the way they had.” “The choice of an author for a review monograph or textbook chapter is based always on perusal of the existing reviews and chapters, hoping that the new publication can contain something just as good” argued Rick Nelson, going on to say, “that obligates the author to produce something as similar to his previous publication as possible, and yet different – an impossible task even if such writing were a priority endeavor, which it never is.” (WAME). Irving Hexham, of the Department of Religious Studies, University of Calgary, appears to have been substantially ahead of the game in discussing self-plagiarism in the 1990s. His consideration of the issue is generally more sympathetic than SPlaT’s, or WAME’s. For example, “Self-plagiarism must be distinguished from the recycling of one’s work that to a greater or lesser extent everyone does legitimately”, and: Academics are expected to republish revised versions of their Ph.D. thesis. They also often develop different aspects of an argument in several papers that require the repetition of certain key passages. This is not self-plagiarism if the complete work develops new insights. It is self-plagiarism if the argument, examples, evidence, and conclusion remain the same in two works that only differ in their appearance. (Hexham) It appears that Hexham and SPlaT have very different ideas of what constitutes self-plagiarism. Their different perspectives may be influenced by disciplinary perspectives and wider contexts – journal article or textbook chapter, a cannibalised conference paper or thesis – and by whether or not they have authored software to catch the offending behaviour. At least one Australian academic (not in M/C – Media and Culture) has been asked by their University to justify their publications against a charge of self-plagiarism, however, which is how the topic has become visible and why the need for debate has become urgent. Incidentally, the opening sentence of the opening paragraph to the Introduction of the paper on “Splat: A System for Self-Plagiarism Detection” is almost identical to the Abstract for a paper published two years later as “Self-Plagiarism in Computer Science”, viz: “We are all too aware of the ravages of scientific misconduct in the academic community. Students submit assignments inherited from the [sic] their friends who took the course the year before, on-line paper-mills allow students to browse for term papers on popular topics, and occasionally researchers are found out when falsifying data or publishing the work of others as their own.” (Collburg et al.) “We are all too aware of the ravages of misconduct in the academic community. Students submit assignments inherited from their friends, online papermills provide term papers on popular topics, and occasionally researchers are found falsifying data or publishing the work of others as their own.” (Collburg & Kubourov) Further, in these two papers there is a difference in authorship line-up, as with the WAME example… So what of the reviewers in all this? The Journal of Optical Networking, published by the Optical Society of America, comments that “self-plagiarism causes duplicate papers in the scientific literature, violates copyright agreements, and unduly burdens reviewers, editors, and the scientific publishing enterprise.” (JON). In an environment of blind peer review, where the reviewer does not know the author’s identity and is not in a position to check the body of their published work, the acid test becomes whether (in the reviewer’s opinion) the article advances the debate by offering something new. The submission should also repay the time and effort expended in reading and considering the contents. Other than that, issues of in/valid repurposing, repackaging, recycling and redeveloping arguments and findings require debate and determination at a discipline-wide level, rather than at the coalface of reviewers’ practice. References Collburg, Christian, and Stephen Kobourov. “Self-Plagiarism in Computer Science”, Communications of the ACM, 48.4 (April 2005): 88-94. Collburg, Christian, Stephen Kobourov, Joshua Louie, and Thomas Slattery. “SPlaT: A System for Self-Plagiarism Detection” IADIS International Conference WWW/INTERNET, Algarve, Portugal 5-8 November 2003. 09 Oct 2005 http://splat.cs.arizona.edu/icwi_plag.pdf>. Georgetown University. What Is Plagiarism?, Georgetown University Honor Council, Georgetown University, n.d. 9 Oct. 2005 http://www.georgetown.edu/honor/plagiarism.html>. Hexham, Irving. The Plague of Plagiarism, Department of Religious Studies, University of Calgary, 1999 published on University of Missouri Kansas City, Douglas E Cowan Website. 9 Oct. 2005 http://c.faculty.umkc.edu/cowande/plague.htm#self>. JON. “From the Board of Editors: On Plagiarism”, Journal of Optical Networking, Optical Society of America, 4.3 (2005): 142-3, 9 Oct. 2005 http://www.osa-jon.org/abstract.cfm?URI=JON-4-3-142>. Vedantam, Shankar. “Drug Ads Hyping Anxiety Make Some Uneasy”, Washington Post 16 July (2001): p. A01; also published in PR in the News, Council of Public Relations Firms, 9 Oct. 2005 http://www.prfirms.org/resources/news/drug071601.asp>. SPlaT. SPlaT Website, Computer Science Department, University of Arizona, March 2005. 9 Oct. 2005 http://splat.cs.arizona.edu/>. WAME. “Self-Plagiarism of Textbook Chapters”, World Association of Medical Editors, Ethics Committee and list discussants, October 2004. 9 Oct. 2005 http://www.wame.org/selfplag.htm>. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Green, Lelia. "Reviewing the Scourge of Self-Plagiarism." M/C Journal 8.5 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0510/07-green.php>. APA Style Green, L. (Oct. 2005) "Reviewing the Scourge of Self-Plagiarism," M/C Journal, 8(5). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0510/07-green.php>.