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Alternative title: A Life for the Truth : A Tribute to Ruby Langford Ginibi
Issue Details: First known date: 2012... vol. 3 no. 1 2012 of Journal of the European Association for Studies on Australia est. 2009 Journal of the European Association for Studies of Australia
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Contents

* Contents derived from the 2012 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
A Life for the Truth : A Tribute to Ruby Langford Ginibi, Oliver Haag , Linda Westphalen , single work criticism
'One of the most significant Indigenous Australian authors, Ruby Langford Ginibi, a member of the Bundjalung Nation and the Sydney Koori community, took the courageous step in 1988, the year of the Bicentenary of British colonisation of Australia, of telling a largely ignorant non-Aboriginal audience about what it was like to live her life. She recorded this life in a pivotal text: Don't Take Your Love to Town. This book, as the pages which follow indicate, had a lasting impact on many readers, both in Australia and worldwide. Thus began an extraordinary writing career, a career seemingly out of step with an equally extraordinary life lived in bush camps and subsidised housing, raising nine of her own children and many of other people's, working in backbreaking menial jobs not considered suitable for 'white' women. This edition of the Journal of the European Association for Studies on Australia is to honour the life of Dr Aunty Ruby Langford Ginibi, her works and her contributions, large and public, larger and private, to literature and history, in Australia and worldwide, to institutions and individuals.' (Authors introduction, 1)
(p. 1-7)
The First Aboriginal Progressive Association, Ruby Langford Ginibi , single work prose (p. 8-9)
My Mixed up Life or 'Screwed Up', Ruby Langford Ginibi , single work prose (p. 10)
Postscript, Pam Johnston , single work essay (p. 11)
I Hate to Talk About Her as Though She Wasn’t Here, Pam Johnston , single work prose (p. 12-18)
Swansong for Aunty Ruby Langford Ginibii"Black Swan- you sailed many waters", Jeanine Leane , single work poetry (p. 19-20)
The Ghost of Hank Williams : For Ruby, Tony Birch , single work short story (p. 21-26)
Dear Aunty Ruby, Linda Westphalen , single work prose (p. 27-31)
‘Relationship and Love’ : The Teaching of Dr Ginibi, John Barnes , single work prose (p. 32-39)
Treei"Looking out into a skeleton tree, from several floors up. The tree is a house and you", Anne Brewster , single work poetry (p. 40-41)
Tribute to Ruby Langford Ginibi, Derek Mortimer , single work prose (p. 42-46)
Don’t Take Your Love to Town : A Historical Document as Seen from a Catalan Perspective, Eva Campama Pizarro , single work criticism
'Ruby Langford Ginibi´s Don´t Take Your Love to Town has been a source of inspiration for me as it awoke my interest and passion for Aboriginal history, culture and society. Her work can be read as a historical document as it makes readers aware of Australian history from an Aboriginal woman´s perspective. Her writing made me aware of the repression that her community had during the Twentieth Century and how her Aboriginal community is recovering and explaining their past through their writing. When reading her autobiography I could draw a parallel between the repression suffered by Aboriginal Australians and the oppression suffered by the Catalan nation and Republican Spain during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and Franco´s dictatorship (1939-1975). White Australia and Franco´s Dictatorship used assimilation as the means to dominate Aboriginal peoples in the case of Australia and Republicans and the Catalan nation in the case of Franco´s dictatorship.' (47)
(p. 47-55)
My Page in Ginibi’s Book, Maria Srinivasan , single work criticism
'A classic is generally described as a work that one returns to time and again. The classic in this sense may even be a classic passage, line or page: something that one loves to read again and again. The return to a work (passage, line or page) is not always compelled by the aesthetic: the compulsion could arise from something very personal. It could very well be the case that the lines/words/ideas compel the reader to 'return' because they have struck a chord in him/her. For me that 'chord' was the story of how Ruby Langford Ginibi became a writer.' (Author's introduction, 56)
(p. 56-59)
Ruby Langford Ginibi´s Influence on a Spanish Student of Australian Studies, Caty Ribas , single work prose
'Dr Ruby Langford Ginibi influenced me, personally and academically speaking, with her text Haunted by the Past, her direct style of writing and her personal approach to life and hardship. This text pays tribute to her by explaining how reading Haunted by the Past turned out to be a central text in my life.' (Author's abstract, 60)
(p. 60-66)
Meeting Ruby, Susan Ballyn , single work autobiography
'This is a personal memoir of my meeting and subsequent correspondence with Ruby Langford Ginibi.' (Author's abstract, 67)
(p. 67-73)
'You Were Born to Tell These Stories' : The Edu-ma-cations of Doctor Ruby, Suvendrini Perera , single work criticism

'Less than fifteen years ago, on 23rd May 1984, a few months after her fiftieth birthday, a black woman who had always told her nine children she would write a book some day, sat down to do so. She had left school at the age of fifteen, unable to imagine a future for a black teacher of either white or black children. Instead,she trained as a clothing machinist in Sydney, and through hard necessity later acquired the bush skills of 'fencing, burning off,lopping and ring-barking, and pegging roo skins'...' (extract)

(p. 74-86)
White Law of the Biopolitical, Suvendrini Perera , Joseph Pugliese , single work criticism
'Drawing on Ruby Langford Ginibi's writings on the law throughout the 1990s we discuss how law, as an apparatus of biopolitical governmentality, frames, positions and inscribes the very sites, institutions and bodies essential to the reproduction of Australia as a racialised nation-state. The paper builds on the collective work we have done for over a decade in documenting how whiteness enmeshes with law in securing and reproducing colonial and racist forms of biopower, and its effects on the embodied subjects who are its targets: the scandal of the Tampa; the horrors of refugee suicide and self-harm in immigration prisons; the Cronulla race riots; the continuing attempts to extinguish Indigenous sovereignty; the fomenting of Islamophobia and the normalising of racial profiling; the violence of the Northern Territory Intervention; and escalating Aboriginal deaths in and out of custody. Our paper focuses on a number of current crises that evidence only too clearly the violences unleashed and licensed by white laws of the biopolitical.' (Authors abstract)
(p. 87-100)
Dancing with the Prime Minister, Jennifer Jones , single work criticism
'When Ruby Langford Ginibi and her daughter Pearl prepared for the Foundation for Aboriginal Affairs Debutante Ball in 1968, they contributed to development of a significant new expression of Aboriginal identity and community belonging. Debutante balls were traditionally staged as a rite of passage that introduced a select group of young ladies to British high society. They went into decline in the UK in the late 1950s, under pressure from anti-establishment and sexual revolutions. The tradition remained popular in Australia, as the debutante ball had developed important status as fundraising events for local organisations. This article examines the history of Aboriginal girls 'coming out' at a debutante ball. While the inclusion of Aboriginal girls in debutante balls was encouraged as a means to achieve assimilation, proud celebration at all-Aboriginal events provoked controversy. Ruby Langford Ginibi's reflection upon her daughter's dance with the Australian Prime Minister at the 1968 Foundation for Aboriginal Affairs Debutante Ball is instructive. It explains how an exclusive, sexist British ritual has been transformed into a vital, inclusive Aboriginal rite of passage and challenges non-Aboriginal readers to re-evaluate their assessment of the tradition.' (Author's abstract)
(p. 101-113)
‘Bumping Some Bloody Heads Together’ : A Qualitative Study of German-Speaking Readers of Ruby Langford Ginibi’s Texts, Oliver Haag , single work criticism
'The writing of Ruby Langford Ginibi has been read, not only within Australia, but also overseas. Often, Indigenous literature is regarded as a primarily national literature, addressed to first and foremost white Australian readers. This article places Ginibi's writing in an overseas context and examines the reactions that Germanspeaking readers have shown to her texts. Drawing on qualitative interviews with readers in Germany and Austria, this study explores the individual techniques of German-speaking readers to connect to the cultural foreign contexts of Ginibi's texts and make sense of them. It also reflects on the author's personal connections to Ginibi's texts and how her writing relates to his own racial contexts in Central Europe.' (Author's abstract)
(p. 114-125)
A Ruby Langford Ginibi Bibliography, 1988-2012, Oliver Haag , single work bibliography
'This article presents a comprehensive list of writing by and about Ruby Langford Ginibi. It is divided into two sections, the first including book chapters, articles and interviews by Ginibi, the second encompassing scholarly analyses, journal articles and reviews about her life and work.' (Author's abstract)
(p. 126-139)
Last amended 7 Oct 2015 09:50:55
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