Supski
Biographic Data
| ID | 43502 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Supski |
| FAMILY NAME | Supski |
| SIGNATURE | SUPSKI |
| AFFILIATIONS | Monash University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5273-8603 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 47 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 28 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
New views from China - Postgraduate perspectives from Chengdu
Sweet Grief
Sweet Grief is an autobiographical, experimental and fragmented account of the writer’s final months with her father. The narrative is centred around a shared food ritual—eating millefeuille—which becomes almost impossible after her father experiences a stroke. The piece is anchored by the human need to swallow. It draws together food, family, memory, grief, love, a global pandemic and the impact of bureaucratic decision-making. This reflection i…
Reflections on friendship and gratitude for Peter Beilharz on the occasion of his 'revolution #70
Now no one can at the same time be both jealous and grateful, because those who are jealous are querulous and sad, while the grateful are joyous.(Seneca, On Benefits, 1912
Watching the crown
Introduction to Covid special issue
On beginning - Peter Beilharz
Beilharz blues
Children as co-researchers and confessional research tales
In a study on children, families and food messages in Victoria, Australia, we utilised a multi-methods approach that included visual data produced by primary-school aged children. Working with 50 families, we provided each child investigator with an iPad for 3-4 days and invited them to photograph family food events important to them. The analysis of visual data alongside child and family interviews revealed the diverse meaning-making practices c…
Reading for the Flavor of Life and Labor
Reading for the Flavor of Life and Labor:Four Social/ist Realist Novels in Mid-Twentieth Century Australia Peter Beilharz (bio) and Sian Supski (bio) Australian interwar and mid-century Social Realist literature is a rich, if undervalued tradition in Australian cultural life. As in other Western countries, Australians feared 'reds under the bed' especially from the Cold War on. During World War Two, Stalin was nevertheless something of a popular …
The ineffable allure of sugar - Hammer cake, That Sugar Film and contradictory pleasures
This article explores the complicated place of sugar in the display of family connectedness and health in a white, middle class Australian family. In the context of heightened anxiety about childhood obesity, we present the Baker family as a case study to explore the pleasures and tensions that sugar consumption produces in families. On their birthdays, each child has a luxurious “Hammer Cake” coated in chocolate studded with sweets; simultaneous…
Thesis Eleven
The absent presence of friendship
The family meals imperative and everyday family life
At a time of increasing diversity in family forms and family practices the evening family meal is promoted as an imperative; a straightforward solution to complex social problems such as childhood obesity, family breakdown and depression. In this paper we discuss the challenges faced by families in achieving this imperative on an everyday basis drawing on visual data generated by children from a qualitative research project with 50 diverse famili…
Children, ‘healthy’ food, school and family
This paper draws on a multi-method study with 50 families in Victoria, Australia. Primary school children were asked about food knowledge from school and whether they felt motivated to bring knowledge home. Generally, children and parents felt school food messages are unclear, contradictory and not relevant to them and this reduced the likelihood of messages coming home from school. We identify a critical difference in how families thought about …
From Sharpies to Skyhooks - On the cutting edge
Greg Macainsh is a major actor in the Australian popular music scene. He was the pioneer ethnographic filmmaker of the youth gang the Sharpies, and then bass player and songwriter for the most innovative band of the seventies, Skyhooks. Skyhooks combined new composition, driving music, sarcastic and local lyrics, and keen attention to visuals and costume. This article backgrounds Macainsh and his context. The interview that follows looks further …
Changing household water consumption practices after drought in three Australian cities
A sociology of caravans
Why do caravans matter? Australians, like others, holiday in them, travel in them, cook, eat, drink, play, sleep and have sex in them. They also live in them, often involuntarily. Caravans have a longer history than this, however caravan life has almost no presence in existing historical or cultural sociology scholarship. Our immediate interest is in caravans in Australia, modernity and mobility. Some broader interest is apparent. Theoretical arg…
University students’ drinking as a social practice and the challenge for public health
In this paper, we explore the relational dynamics of alcohol consumption by university students, drawing on qualitative interviews with fifty undergraduates in Victoria, Australia. We argue that university drinking is a social practice comprised of a bundle of activities that operate together to reinforce excessive consumption. Drawing on a distinct version of social practice theory, we conceptualise drinking as an organising principle of univers…
There’s Something Wrong with You’
Contemporary universities in Western democracies are renowned for heavy drinking youth cultures. In this context, abstinence is ‘accountable’ behaviour that requires justification. Some previous research has reported accounts of why young people choose not to drink and the social consequences, but there is limited research on how they achieve abstinence in a heavy drinking culture. Drawing on Heller’s notion of choosing oneself and Giddens’ conce…
Finding Ivan Vladislavić - Writing the city
The work of Ivan Vladislavić is well established in his native South Africa, and increasingly recognized on the larger world stage of writing, editing and publishing. If his work nevertheless eludes scrutiny in some quarters, this may also have to do with its nature, and not only with its origin. The works differ and vary; there is no formula or project which proceeds neatly by sequence. No single work can be second-guessed from any other. This i…
Introduction to Special Section on Ivan Vladislavić
Ivan Vladislavić - A tale in two cities
Bold Palates
These two books are wonderful additions to Australian culinary history. Both are rigorously researched and provide tantalising tid-bits about some of Australia's most favoured and treasured foods a
Aunty Sylvie's Sponge
Why does foodmaking matter? It does partly because it holds within it so much of everyday life, thought and activity across time, place and generation. This article explores women's embodied foodmaking knowledge as 'thoughtful practice'. It examines cookbooks as a form of nostalgia and explores aspects of gustatory nostalgia in the creation of 'manuscript' cookbooks and their variation in the twenty-first century. It also reconstructs, in part, t…
To love and to be loved
Janina Bauman was a sociologist of everyday life. Her autobiographical texts, Winter in the Morning (1986), A Dream of Belonging (1988), and the synthetic volume Beyond These Walls (2006), manage a kind of personal poignancy combined with world-historic content and attention to the detail of everyday life that sets her work apart. This essay responds to these attributes and offers a contribution to her remembrance as a writer, an actor in and obs…
It Was Another Skin’
This article examines the importance of the kitchen for immigrant women who arrived in Australia in the late 1940s and 1950s. Using oral history interviews with 27 immigrant women I examine the multiple and overlapping ways in which they ‘make’ home. Women construct home through the kitchen by re/negotiating the kitchen space to ensure that the kitchen and their central placement within it produces a ‘feeling’ of being ‘at home’. Women shape the …
Changing household water consumption practices after drought in three Australian cities
Children, ‘healthy’ food, school and family
This paper draws on a multi-method study with 50 families in Victoria, Australia. Primary school children were asked about food knowledge from school and whether they felt motivated to bring knowledge home. Generally, children and parents felt school food messages are unclear, contradictory and not relevant to them and this reduced the likelihood of messages coming home from school. We identify a critical difference in how families thought about …
There’s Something Wrong with You’
Contemporary universities in Western democracies are renowned for heavy drinking youth cultures. In this context, abstinence is ‘accountable’ behaviour that requires justification. Some previous research has reported accounts of why young people choose not to drink and the social consequences, but there is limited research on how they achieve abstinence in a heavy drinking culture. Drawing on Heller’s notion of choosing oneself and Giddens’ conce…
Anzac biscuits — a culinary memorial
The article discusses Anzac biscuits and their role in the Anzac tradition. Anzac biscuits are made up of rolled oats, sugar, desiccated coconut, butter, flour, bicarbonate soda, boiling water and golden syrup. They serve as a reminder of the World War I, Gallipoli and the Anzac spirit and downplay the role of women during the war. Through the creation of these biscuits, women were able to contribute to one of Australia's most enduring forms of p…
Children as co-researchers and confessional research tales
In a study on children, families and food messages in Victoria, Australia, we utilised a multi-methods approach that included visual data produced by primary-school aged children. Working with 50 families, we provided each child investigator with an iPad for 3-4 days and invited them to photograph family food events important to them. The analysis of visual data alongside child and family interviews revealed the diverse meaning-making practices c…
The ineffable allure of sugar - Hammer cake, That Sugar Film and contradictory pleasures
This article explores the complicated place of sugar in the display of family connectedness and health in a white, middle class Australian family. In the context of heightened anxiety about childhood obesity, we present the Baker family as a case study to explore the pleasures and tensions that sugar consumption produces in families. On their birthdays, each child has a luxurious “Hammer Cake” coated in chocolate studded with sweets; simultaneous…
Thesis Eleven
To love and to be loved
Janina Bauman was a sociologist of everyday life. Her autobiographical texts, Winter in the Morning (1986), A Dream of Belonging (1988), and the synthetic volume Beyond These Walls (2006), manage a kind of personal poignancy combined with world-historic content and attention to the detail of everyday life that sets her work apart. This essay responds to these attributes and offers a contribution to her remembrance as a writer, an actor in and obs…
We still mourn that book’
Oral history interviews were conducted with forty-eight women in the year 1998 that were wives, mothers, housewives and homemakers in Western Australia in the 1950s. The results of this study showed that women use cookbooks and recipes as a guide, but they apply their learned skills to make the food hence their foodmaking knowledge was transformative which indicated a level of competence and confidence that was gained with practice
Anzac biscuits — a culinary memorial
The article discusses Anzac biscuits and their role in the Anzac tradition. Anzac biscuits are made up of rolled oats, sugar, desiccated coconut, butter, flour, bicarbonate soda, boiling water and golden syrup. They serve as a reminder of the World War I, Gallipoli and the Anzac spirit and downplay the role of women during the war. Through the creation of these biscuits, women were able to contribute to one of Australia's most enduring forms of p…
It Was Another Skin’
This article examines the importance of the kitchen for immigrant women who arrived in Australia in the late 1940s and 1950s. Using oral history interviews with 27 immigrant women I examine the multiple and overlapping ways in which they ‘make’ home. Women construct home through the kitchen by re/negotiating the kitchen space to ensure that the kitchen and their central placement within it produces a ‘feeling’ of being ‘at home’. Women shape the …
To love and to be loved
Janina Bauman was a sociologist of everyday life. Her autobiographical texts, Winter in the Morning (1986), A Dream of Belonging (1988), and the synthetic volume Beyond These Walls (2006), manage a kind of personal poignancy combined with world-historic content and attention to the detail of everyday life that sets her work apart. This essay responds to these attributes and offers a contribution to her remembrance as a writer, an actor in and obs…
Aunty Sylvie's Sponge
Why does foodmaking matter? It does partly because it holds within it so much of everyday life, thought and activity across time, place and generation. This article explores women's embodied foodmaking knowledge as 'thoughtful practice'. It examines cookbooks as a form of nostalgia and explores aspects of gustatory nostalgia in the creation of 'manuscript' cookbooks and their variation in the twenty-first century. It also reconstructs, in part, t…
Bold Palates
These two books are wonderful additions to Australian culinary history. Both are rigorously researched and provide tantalising tid-bits about some of Australia's most favoured and treasured foods a
University students’ drinking as a social practice and the challenge for public health
In this paper, we explore the relational dynamics of alcohol consumption by university students, drawing on qualitative interviews with fifty undergraduates in Victoria, Australia. We argue that university drinking is a social practice comprised of a bundle of activities that operate together to reinforce excessive consumption. Drawing on a distinct version of social practice theory, we conceptualise drinking as an organising principle of univers…
There’s Something Wrong with You’
Contemporary universities in Western democracies are renowned for heavy drinking youth cultures. In this context, abstinence is ‘accountable’ behaviour that requires justification. Some previous research has reported accounts of why young people choose not to drink and the social consequences, but there is limited research on how they achieve abstinence in a heavy drinking culture. Drawing on Heller’s notion of choosing oneself and Giddens’ conce…
Finding Ivan Vladislavić - Writing the city
The work of Ivan Vladislavić is well established in his native South Africa, and increasingly recognized on the larger world stage of writing, editing and publishing. If his work nevertheless eludes scrutiny in some quarters, this may also have to do with its nature, and not only with its origin. The works differ and vary; there is no formula or project which proceeds neatly by sequence. No single work can be second-guessed from any other. This i…
Introduction to Special Section on Ivan Vladislavić
Ivan Vladislavić - A tale in two cities
Changing household water consumption practices after drought in three Australian cities
A sociology of caravans
Why do caravans matter? Australians, like others, holiday in them, travel in them, cook, eat, drink, play, sleep and have sex in them. They also live in them, often involuntarily. Caravans have a longer history than this, however caravan life has almost no presence in existing historical or cultural sociology scholarship. Our immediate interest is in caravans in Australia, modernity and mobility. Some broader interest is apparent. Theoretical arg…
From Sharpies to Skyhooks - On the cutting edge
Greg Macainsh is a major actor in the Australian popular music scene. He was the pioneer ethnographic filmmaker of the youth gang the Sharpies, and then bass player and songwriter for the most innovative band of the seventies, Skyhooks. Skyhooks combined new composition, driving music, sarcastic and local lyrics, and keen attention to visuals and costume. This article backgrounds Macainsh and his context. The interview that follows looks further …
The family meals imperative and everyday family life
At a time of increasing diversity in family forms and family practices the evening family meal is promoted as an imperative; a straightforward solution to complex social problems such as childhood obesity, family breakdown and depression. In this paper we discuss the challenges faced by families in achieving this imperative on an everyday basis drawing on visual data generated by children from a qualitative research project with 50 diverse famili…
Children, ‘healthy’ food, school and family
This paper draws on a multi-method study with 50 families in Victoria, Australia. Primary school children were asked about food knowledge from school and whether they felt motivated to bring knowledge home. Generally, children and parents felt school food messages are unclear, contradictory and not relevant to them and this reduced the likelihood of messages coming home from school. We identify a critical difference in how families thought about …
The absent presence of friendship
The ineffable allure of sugar - Hammer cake, That Sugar Film and contradictory pleasures
This article explores the complicated place of sugar in the display of family connectedness and health in a white, middle class Australian family. In the context of heightened anxiety about childhood obesity, we present the Baker family as a case study to explore the pleasures and tensions that sugar consumption produces in families. On their birthdays, each child has a luxurious “Hammer Cake” coated in chocolate studded with sweets; simultaneous…
Thesis Eleven
Reading for the Flavor of Life and Labor
Reading for the Flavor of Life and Labor:Four Social/ist Realist Novels in Mid-Twentieth Century Australia Peter Beilharz (bio) and Sian Supski (bio) Australian interwar and mid-century Social Realist literature is a rich, if undervalued tradition in Australian cultural life. As in other Western countries, Australians feared 'reds under the bed' especially from the Cold War on. During World War Two, Stalin was nevertheless something of a popular …
Reflections on friendship and gratitude for Peter Beilharz on the occasion of his 'revolution #70
Now no one can at the same time be both jealous and grateful, because those who are jealous are querulous and sad, while the grateful are joyous.(Seneca, On Benefits, 1912
Watching the crown
Introduction to Covid special issue
On beginning - Peter Beilharz
Beilharz blues
Sociology (25 works) · Political science (18 works) · Art (13 works) · History (13 works) · Psychology (12 works) · Social science (11 works) · Aesthetics (9 works) · Social Psychology (8 works) · Everyday life (7 works) · History (7 works)