Can you recall what you were doing last Wednesday between 2.15pm and 2.36pm? Where were you? What did you see? Who did you talk to? How well do you remember those 21 minutes? Now try to recall Wednesday…
A nation that understands tragedy is one that respects limits.
José María Pérez Nuñez
Tragedy is a peculiar thing. More than a style, different from genre, it cuts across art forms to carve out its own non-Euclidean aesthetic space. In the 4th century BCE Aristotle, in his Poetics, famously…
Is one of President Obama’s SS agents a shape-shifting alien humanoid?
katiew
While it’s tempting to dismiss conspiracy theorists as nothing more than a loopy minority, on a growing range of contemporary issues they in fact make up a loud and vocal majority. Consider the nearly…
Zero tolerance is a faith and not a policy.
Creativity103/Flickr
According to the UK government’s “first evidence-based study”, released at the end of last week, tough laws for personal possession of illicit drugs fail to lower levels of their use. This is not news…
Landscape architects need to mediate between the soft and hard elements of the city.
Forecast, photo by John Gollings
I predict we’re going to hear a lot more from landscape architects in the coming years. There has long been a misunderstanding about what they actually do – “something about gardens” being a common response…
One of the works on show at Manifesta 10: Francis Alÿs, Study for the Lada “Kopeika” Project. Brussels—St. Petersburg, 2014. (Courtesy of the artist and David Zwirner Gallery. Commissioned by MANIFESTA 10, St. Petersburg. With the support of the Flemish authorities. Installation view MANIFESTA 10, General Staff Building, State Hermitage Museum.)
Manifesta
Manifesta is a nomadic European biennial exhibition of contemporary art that sets up camp in a different European city every two years. In 2012, Manifesta 9 was held in Limburg, Belgium, and considered…
Visitors of Afghan nationality wearing hijabs outside Parliament House yesterday.
Lukas Coch/AAP
A call to ban the burqa has permeated Australian political discussions since police raided the homes of suspected Islamist extremists in Sydney and Brisbane on September 18. Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi…
Time to get off the economic growth train?
Sergey Nivens/Shutterstock
What does genuine economic progress look like? The orthodox answer is that a bigger economy is always better, but this idea is increasingly strained by the knowledge that, on a finite planet, the economy…
Photographs sometimes mean what they can be shown to mean.
AAP Image/Julian Smith
Drama and its core principles are to be found in theatres while the real world goes on outside, right? Wrong. And recent events bear this out. Dramaturgy is the art of managing events in time for the benefit…
What keeps us watching AFL, even when we’d rather not?
Theron Kirkman/AAP Image
In September each year, for more than a century now, Australians have participated in the triumphs and tragedies of the annual carnival of the boot. We celebrate football as a quasi-religious, tribal homage…
The Sunday Age on the morning after Gough Whitlam’s 1972 election victory.
The following was delivered as the 2014 Dean Jaensch Lecture at Flinders University, September 16. In opposition, Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott were fond of comparing their battles to become the nation’s…
Most of the world continues with a criminal justice approach to drug use despite ample evidence of its harmfulness.
Jason Verwey/Flickr
In 1967, the Beatles took out a full-page advertisement in The Times describing Britain’s marijuana laws as “immoral in principle and unworkable in practice”. Almost half a century later, both past and…
Clare Wright’s Forgotten Rebels of Eureka has been justly praised - and it’s an important addition to Australian feminist history.
Paul Baird/Flickr
Clare Wright’s The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka (2013) is a career-defining work of scholarship and storytelling. The significance of her historical intervention and the power and flair of Wright’s narrative…
During World War II, residents on the islands in the southern Pacific Ocean saw heavy activity by US planes, bringing in goods and supplies for the soldiers. In many cases, this was the islanders’ first…
Some of the bird world’s mimicry superstars. Clockwise from top left: superb lyrebird; silvereye; satin bowerbird; Australian magpie; mistletoebird; brown thornbill.
Alex Maisey; Justin Welbergen; Johan Larson; Leo/Flickr; David Cook/Filckr; Patrick/Flickr
From Roman classics to British tabloids, humans have long celebrated the curious and remarkable ability of birds to imitate the sounds of humans and other animals. A recent surge of research is revealing…
Professor Ian Chubb: ‘We are a nation in 'transition’, we hear. But to what; and how?‘
This is a transcript of the 2014 Jack Beale Lecture on the Global Environment, hosted at the University of New South Wales. Tonight I want to talk about the future. I know that it’s not a novel thing to…
Nicholas Clements’ The Black War sheds new light on the long and bloody war between colonists and Aboriginal people in Tasmania in the early 19th century.
Crop of Governor Davey's Proclamation to the Aborigines, Wikimedia Commons
Nicholas Clements, The Black War: Fear, Sex and Resistance in Tasmania (2014, University of Queensland Press). In the heat of commemoration of Australians’ involvement in the first world war, it’s timely…
Strange as it may seem, many participants at Gallipoli took the time out to ponder the beauty of the landscape.
Mattia Notari - Foto
If you do a historical study of the Gallipoli battlefields, or even if you are just a passing visitor to the sites, one of the first things to strike you is all the different names. At the Anzac battlefield…
A new collection takes stock of the four decades that have passed since the publication of Dennis Altman’s landmark book, Homosexual.
malstad
Noted Works is a new series on The Conversation devoted to long-form reviews of significant new books. See the end for further details. Dennis Altman was a young, articulate activist and out gay man when…
Less than welcoming… policies that prevent asylum seekers working are dehumanising.
AAP Image/Newzulu/Zebedee Parkes
My interview with Mr Syed did not get off to a great start. We’d arranged to meet at the Dandenong library – part of the city council building, a huge, bright orange edifice in the redeveloped heart of…