The detention centre for asylum seekers generated some economic benefits for Manus Islanders. But how would their forefathers have reasoned with the incarceration of men in exchange for development and money?
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Articles on Friday essay
Displaying 141 - 160 of 212 articles
Essays On Air: Reading Germaine Greer’s mail.
The Conversation24.4 MB (download)
The Germaine Greer Archive offers a powerful, often amusing, sometimes perplexing glimpse into the lives of people affected by her work, as well as the many faces of Greer herself.
Essays On Air: Why libraries can and must change.
The Conversation, CC BY23.3 MB (download)
The much heralded 'death of the book' has nothing to do with the death of reading or writing. It's about a radical transformation in reading practices, as explained in this episode of Essays On Air.
Journeys to the Underworld – Greek myth, film and American anxiety.
The Conversation36.9 MB (download)
Our new podcast, Essays On Air, features the most beautiful writing from Australian researchers. Today, classics expert Paul Salmond explores how modern cinema directors borrow from Greek legends.
Essays On Air 01: Introducing Essays On Air.
The Conversation is launching a new podcast, Essays On Air. It's the audio version of our Friday essays, where we bring you the best and most beautiful writing from Australian researchers.
Aboriginal missions were notorious for their austerity, but Christmas was a brief time of joy. While celebrations had a sinister assimilationist edge, Aboriginal people often adopted traditions into their own culture.
The dream of a "gay utopia" is a constant in gay and lesbian historical imaginings over the last 200 years. But the Greek attitude to same-sex attraction was not nearly as permissive as many have assumed.
Old stories from around the world tell of drowned islands, volcanic eruptions and upheavals to the land around them. Increasingly we are realising these tales preserve actual memory, often from thousands of years ago.
Pinching musical phrases and stylistic approaches has always been a part of art making and can be a respectful exchange. But shallow, ill-informed appropriation only perpetuates tired stereotypes.
Fairy tales can be brutal, violent, sexual and laden with taboo. But they are are excellent narratives with which to think through a range of human experiences: from disappointment, and fear to envy and grief.
Over the past half century, Australia has experienced a 'time revolution' with Indigenous history pushed back into the dizzying expanse of deep time. The latest discovery reminds us that science, like history, is an ongoing inquiry.
The distinctive visual style of Robert Mapplethorpe’s beautiful, oversized images seems now more classical than shocking. But he can still reveal the subconscious of an era we think we have outgrown.
For centuries, women with dwarfism were depicted in art as comic or grotesque fairytale beings. But artists are challenging these portrayals and notions of beauty and physical difference.
Wooredy and his second wife Truganini set off into the Tasmanian wilderness with settler George Robinson in 1830, on a "conciliatory" mission to find other original Tasmanians. Their stories bear witness to a psychological and cultural transition without parallel in modern colonialism.
The history of dangerous cosmetics shows us the harms that women have suffered to meet expectations of what is beautiful.
From 30,000-year-old cave paintings to The Man From Snowy River, wild horses have always been part of human culture. As Australia debates what to do with 'brumbies' in mountain environments, it's time to reconsider their place.
American cinema mines Greek myth most strongly at times of profound social anxiety. In the age of Trump, we are already seeing key political battlegrounds framed as underworld quests in film.
The AIDS crisis arrived in Australia in 1982 and triggered an enormous (and successful) public health response, largely driven by volunteers. These people, often from marginalised communities in their own right, deserve recognition in Australia's proud volunteer tradition.
The history of the library is replete with mechanical marvels. More than collections of books, libraries are social, cultural and technological institutions that house the very idea of a society.
The women’s magazine formula runs deep in many online publications branded as 'feminist'. While the personal was once deemed political, the emphasis now is on adapting to the status quo - not changing it.
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Top contributors
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Associate Professor in Media, University of Notre Dame Australia
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Senior Lecturer in Literary Studies, Monash University
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Lecturer, Deakin University
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Professor of Classics, University of Newcastle
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Senior Lecturer in Writing and Publishing, Griffith University
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Professor of English, Flinders University
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Principal Fellow (Hon), Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne
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Adjunct Professor of Art History, Australian National University
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Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing, The University of Melbourne
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Director Photography, School of Design, University of Technology Sydney
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Adjunct Professor in History, University of Tasmania
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Associate Professor (adjunct) in Creative Writing, Flinders University
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Senior Lecturer - Urban Planning, The University of Melbourne
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Alice Gorman is a Friend of The Conversation.
Associate Professor in Archaeology and Space Studies, Flinders University
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Dennis Altman is a Friend of The Conversation.
Professorial Fellow in Human Security, La Trobe University
