From Paolo Bartoloni

Dear Editor,

As the convenor of the conference ‘The Public, the Intellectuals and the Public Intellectual’ (La Trobe University, May 1996), and as co-editor of the collection of essays, Intellectuals and Publics: Essays on Cultural Theory and Practice, I have followed the discussion generated by the publication of Mark Davis’s book Gangland with great interest. Besides a certain repetitiveness of some of the pieces comprising the symposium featured in the last issue of ABR, I found that discussion much more relaxed than the somewhat visceral and even hysterical responses filling the pages of Australian newspapers days after Gangland was released. Incidentally, it was good editorial vision to combine the symposium on gatekeeping with two related and important essays, ‘Literary Authority’ by Ivor Indyk and ‘The Role of the Critic’ by Brian Castro.