In William Shakespeare’s comedy Merchant of Venice, the play’s heroine Portia sings: Tell me where is fancy bred, Or in the heart or in the head. If you look at Valentine’s Day cards, it’s clear fancy…
Academic rigor, journalistic flair
Articles on Cultural history
Displaying 21 - 40 of 42 articles
Hollywood films that depict American history deeply influence our sense of national identity. Films that portray Civil Rights and Black Freedom history are particularly important. Beyond entertaining moviegoers…
Traditional Christmas and winter food and drinks such as mulled wine, eggnog, ginger bread and fruitcakes often call for more than a dash of what Jamie Oliver calls “festive spices” – cloves, cinnamon…
Growing up with a Jamaican grandmother in 1970s small-town Australia was unusual. There weren’t any other Caribbean (or West Indian) people living nearby and a Caribbean community did not exist in Newcastle…
Another game, another bite. That’s the allegation against Uruguayan Luis Suárez, anyway, who has been accused of sinking his teeth into an opposition player. For the third time. But a mid-game nibble on…
Political scandals, the perennial product of the grinding gears of greed and governance, proliferate in the age of digital media, the 24-hours news cycle and anti-corruption bodies with wide powers. Constant…
German approaches to the history lessons of World War I are characterised by a sense of distance and an anti-war attitude. But probably the most striking feature of the way Germany teaches its children…
Oxfam has announced the latest set of results from its Behind the Brands project to influence ten leading food and beverage companies to reform their supply chains. The charity’s efforts are only the most…
Several members of the cast of the film The Monuments Men made headlines for expressing the view that the British Museum should return the Elgin Marbles to Athens after their “very nice stay” of 200 years…
Literature has mirrored the shifting economic climate over the past century, according to a study published today by researchers in Bristol and London. When times are tough financially, it seems, books…
The mantra that “sport and politics don’t mix” was always false and misleading, but in the age of Twitter it’s absurd. Calling for boycotts of high-profile sporting events is an established political tactic…
Radioactivity is dramatic. You can’t smell it, taste it, or see it. You may be powerless to avoid it. Nuclear history is a story of dramatic contrasts, of hope and tragedy. Worldwide excitement over Marie…
A fifth of Britain’s young people are out of work; how long before they snap? The International Labour Organisation has recently issued warnings about possible youth unrest in the future, as young people…
In an election year we need to remember that, in recent years in Australia, history has been the subject of fierce party politics, and we should spare a thought for our museum sector. In 1996, at the Sir…
The speedy construction of earthen mounds challenges assumptions about the social structure of early American hunter-gatherers…
It’s estimated that in 2011 a truly staggering 1.8 zettabytes of digital information was created. Or to put it in more meaningful terms, that’s 57.5 billion 32-gigabyte iPads full. Recent articles about…
There is a great deal of derogatory, evidence-free and ill-informed opinion about how history is taught in Australian schools. But these tired arguments are so often repeated that we can actually put them…
American author and essayist Gore Vidal died at his home on Tuesday from complications of pneumonia. The 86 year old was the author of 25 books, including the historical novels Burr and Lincoln. He also…
Vibrators have been causing a buzz for as long as they’ve existed: sometimes this happens behind closed doors, and sometimes in the public sphere. But as the new film Hysteria shows, there’s still fascination…
A few weeks ago astronauts on the International Space Station hid in escape capsules following concerns a piece of space junk was going to collide with the station. The collision didn’t eventuate but the…
Top contributors
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Emeritus Professor of Cultural Research, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University
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Cultural Researcher, University of Notre Dame Australia
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Visiting Scientist of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Cornell University
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Director of the Centre for Organisational and Social Informatics, Monash University
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Associate Professor in American Politics and Foreign Policy, US Studies Centre, University of Sydney
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Lecturer, Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of Melbourne
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Dennis Altman is a Friend of The Conversation.
VC Fellow, La Trobe University
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Adjunct Professor, University of Technology Sydney
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Professor of English, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, ACU, Australian Catholic University
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Digital Archivist
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Research fellow, The University of Melbourne
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Lecturer, Centre for Heritage and Museum Studies, Australian National University
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Senior Lecturer, Literary and Gender Studies, Victoria University
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Lecturer, Twentieth Century History, University of Liverpool
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Associate Professor in Archaeology and Space Studies, Flinders University
