A new book gives a full account of Tasmanian Indigenous woman Truganini’s life. In this extract, she is taken to Melbourne and caught up in the murders behind Victoria’s first public execution.
We created a reading-machine that finds poetry hidden in plain sight in popular books. In doing so, we are exploring Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning and reading in a digitised world.
State archives hold precious Noongar letters pleading for the return of Stolen Generations children. Among them, I find my grandmother’s grandfather: historical records of love.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe brings the virtues and politics of the comic world - indeed the Ancient Greek world - to life. But trusting the message doesn’t mean I trust the corporation behind it.
Happy birthday Beethoven, 250 this year. Here, artist Ottmar Hoerl’s sculptural tribute in Bonn, Germany.
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This year Ludwig van Beethoven turns 250. Though some of his creations have been overexposed, they are indisputably brilliant. And there are still others waiting to be discovered by music lovers.
“Will it grow back Mum?” Younger family members want reassurance at Colo Heights, among the blackened trees and loose soil.
Indigenous kinship networks link each plant to the next and connect us to Country. Honouring this way of being and engaging in fair collaboration might give power to our heartbreak.
At Echo Point lookout in Katoomba, NSW, people watch smoke from the Green Wattle Creek fire beyond The Three Sisters rock formation.
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Cherine Fahd, University of Technology Sydney e Sara Oscar, University of Technology Sydney
Instagram bushfire images cut through our news fatigue. This developing brand of photojournalism brings authenticity and a different sense of proximity.
A scene from the 2017 film Geostorm: many societies have historically attempted to deal with collective trauma by replaying and restaging it in art.
Warner Bros., Electric Entertainment, Rat Pac-Dune Entertainment
Natural disasters are becoming more frequent and Hollywood cinema has kept pace. In a time of global warming, these ‘eco-disaster’ films are fraught with meaning.
The smouldering ruins of a child’s bike lies amongst a property lost to bushfires in the Mid North Coast region of NSW last month.
Darren Pateman/AAP
Living in a bushfire-prone area means every decision - from plants to parking spots to holidays - is shaped by fire risk. We live and die by the advice we are given, and the advice we ignore.
A hollow-log coffin painted with Dhal̲waŋu clan Octopus, Perahu Hull, Anchor and Coral Sunset motifs at Gurrumuru against a coral sunset on the horizon.
Photo: Aaron Corn
Yothu Yindi’s music introduced the world to the Yolŋu clan traditions of northeast Arnhem Land. But few listeners know these songs echo long histories of engagement with Southeast Asian visitors.
A portrait of George Eliot at 30 by Alexandre-Louis-François d'Albert-Durade. Her masterpiece Middlemarch is often claimed to be the greatest novel in the English language.
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Henry James called her a ‘great, horse-faced bluestocking’. On the 200th anniversary of her birth, we celebrate George Eliot, a literary trailblazer with an endless appetite for ideas, living in a patriarchal time.
In ancient China, India and the Middle East, the art of eyebrow threading was popular. It is now enjoying a resurgence.
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Moulding eyebrows to make a statement is nothing new. A journey through history, across Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the United States, shows some of the highs and lows of brow fashion.
A British Pattern 1907 bayonet with leather scabbard.
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There is no weapon more visceral than the bayonet. It encourages an intimate form of killing, and during WW1, Australia troops plunged, parried and stabbed with great vigour.
NASA ‘could not imagine the radical effect of seeing the Earth’ from the moon. In the face of a climate catastrophe, we all need to step back and see the Earth again.
Bill Anders/NASA/Handout
Historical perspective can offer much in this time of ecological crisis,. Many historians are reinventing their traditional scales of space and time to tell different kinds of stories that recognise the unruly power of nature.
Ubud is host to expat yogis, digital nomads and a writers’ festival.
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The road to three writers’ festivals in three weeks prompts reflection on authors liberated by road trips - and those sharing the journey now.
Berry, and other tourist towns, are out of step with modern museum curation which is trying to include Aboriginal communities and their stories.
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Away from the state capitals, small museums are out of step with big city curators - presenting tourists with stories that give a blinkered view of local history.
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne