It’s another year in Arts + Culture, so in case you missed it we’ve collected all the best coverage of screen, theatre, music, books and culture in one place.
Academic rigor, journalistic flair
Articles on End of year series
Displaying 1 - 20 of 22 articles
The hard numbers of sales, downloads, streams, and billboard charts seem to do all the work for us. But do these measures tell us anything meaningful about music’s nature and value in 2015?
It was the year of the grown-up superhero. Dark, witty and complex, superheroes on the big and small screen have – mostly – matured past mindless violence.
There are as many ways to summarise a “year in art” as there are eyes to look at art with. Art had some shining – and not-so-shining – moments in 2015.
“I will definitely give up smoking – that’s my New Year’s resolution,” she stated emphatically as she thumped her fist on the table to underline her determination. “All very well”, I thought, as I sat…
Sport plays a key role in an Australian Christmas. Sports matches are akin to creative events: they are dramatic performances with roles and scripts that those who attend regularly recognise and are able…
_Yet the workers’ rights cannot be doomed to be the mere result of economic systems aimed at the maximisation of profits. _Pope John Paul II, On Human Work, 1981. Written more than 20 years ago, the above…
The strange northern hemisphere tradition of the television “Christmas Special” is somewhat alien to us on this end of the world. No Mr Bean with a turkey on his head or fantastically awkward Christmas…
This time every year we feverishly try to find just the right gift for everyone on our list. Merchants seizing upon the frenzy promise more and more for less and less, seeking to awaken desires we did…
In my home city of Melbourne, an extraordinary cultural and religious drama is played out on Christmas Eve each year at the intersection of Flinders and Swanston Streets. Thousands of people mill around…
Christmas is bound to produce a few questions about Jesus Christ – as was the case with a recent article on The Conversation on the lack of evidence for a “historical Jesus”. Such questions bleed in to…
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…
I used to live in Brisbane, where, year after year on the afternoon of Christmas Day, a group of older gay men I knew would meet up in a pub. Spending some of the holiday season catching up with friends…
The anxiety attached to gift giving is worth considering. The Christian commemoration of Christmas is about celebrating God’s ultimate gift, his only son. Such an exceptional gift reaches its destiny in…
Did a man called Jesus of Nazareth walk the earth? Discussions over whether the figure known as the “Historical Jesus” actually existed primarily reflect disagreements among atheists. Believers, who uphold…
In a current TV advertisement for supermarket chain Aldi, a young traveller returns to his northern hemisphere village and shares his newfound knowledge of the Aussie Christmas. The villagers begrudgingly…
Tis the season to make Top 10 lists. Why? Because we are hurtling with unavoidable haste toward the end of another calendar year. It’s almost impossible to get through the day without some kind of Top…
Social isolation and loneliness are becoming common in our large cities. Our cities are sprawling, housing is becoming more unaffordable, people are travelling further and longer in their cars and household…
I still remember my first blockbuster art exhibition. Two Decades of American Painting came to Australia under the auspices of New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1967. This summer, art lovers can pick…
In the movie The Life of Brian (1979), Reg, played by John Cleese, asks fellow members of the People’s Front of Judea: … apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation…
Top contributors
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Professor of Psychiatry, Monash University
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Vice-Chancellor, University of Divinity
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Joanna Mendelssohn is a Friend of The Conversation.
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne
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Head Of Department in Department of Sport & Event Management, Bournemouth University
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Associate Professor UTS Centre for Business and Social Innovation, University of Technology Sydney
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Honorary Professor, The University of Queensland
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Senior Lecturer in History, University of Newcastle
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Associate professor, University of Newcastle
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Professor of Creative Arts, Griffith University
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Visiting Fellow, University of Technology Sydney
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Senior Lecturer in Communication, University of Technology Sydney
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Associate Professor and Cinema and Screen Studies Discipline Leader, Swinburne University of Technology
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Senior Lecturer in English Literature, Charles Sturt University
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Hon Associate Professor, Modern History, Macquarie University
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Professor in Art, Curtin University
