CFP: Law and Justice Through Australian Lenses: Bushrangers, Battlers, and Bastards @GriffLawSchool

From Kieran Tranter, Law Futures Centre, Griffith University, comes this call for contributions for a very interesting collection on Australian law and film.

Law and Justice through Australian Lenses: Bushrangers, Battlers and Bastards

Kim Weinert

Law Futures Centre, Griffith University

Kieran Tranter

Law Futures Centre, Griffith University

Australian film and television occupies a special place in global televisual culture. Australian lenses have captured a nation and a culture seemingly fixated on issues of (out)law and (in)justice, producing films and television of striking landscapes peopled by bushrangers, battlers and bastards. From the several outlaw tales of Ned Kelly, to the fight for justice by the Kerrigans in the Castle, to the antics of the ‘ocker’, Australia has created a lasting legacy (for good or bad) of representations of law and justice ‘down-under’. Further, Australian lenses have had a significant impact on global film and television. Deeply compromised by the violence against the lives and laws of First Australians, Australian films and television has sharply illuminated what it means to live with a ‘rule of law’ that rules with a legacy, and a reality, of deep injustice. In this Australian film and television presents a critical lens through which to analysis Western law, legality and justice in its trans-cultural and global context.

This volume is the first to bring together scholars to reflect on, and critically engage with, the representations and global implications of law and justice captured by Australian film and television. It explores how Australian lenses have provided a cascade of distinctly Australian images and narratives that also provide global insights into the translations and transmogrifications of law and justice.

Contributors are invited to submit chapter proposal and a brief CV for consideration by the editors for inclusion in this edited volume.

Possible questions to respond to but not limited to the following:

·       What do Australian lenses tell us about law and justice?

·       How has law and justice been screened by specific Australian films?

·       Has Australian film transcended the legal narratives of ‘bushrangers, battlers and bastards’?

·       How has Australian film and television redressed or continued the violence of dispossession and colonialism towards First Australians?

·       What impact does technology advances and global forces have on producing and consuming Australian films and television? How has law been responsible for this change? How has representations of law and justice been changed?

·       How has Australian framing of law and justice become global?

·       Does Australian film and television bring a unique perspective to the police, lawyer or prison genres?

·       How Australian are Australian films and television?

Contributors should submit a proposal (300 words) and a brief CV (no longer than one page) to: k.tranter@griffith.edu.au by 31 May 2018.

The editors will advise contributors of inclusion and process by 15 June 2018.

The first draft of chapters (5000-7000 words) for peer review will be due 19 November 2018 with an expected publication date of late 2019.