As a professional book designer, I’ve spent a decade observing electronic books from a cagey distance. A couple of years ago, I reluctantly recognised the need to engage with these alien book forms, both…
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The northern summer of 2013 was a bad one for Hollywood. After Earth, The Lone Ranger, White House Down, World War Z and Pacific Rim were among the million-dollar turkeys. And you may have noticed the…
Recently the Prime Minister called upon the Labor Party to “repent” of its introduction of the carbon tax. His comments were ridiculed by some critics, not for the substance of what he said, but for the…
Fifty years ago, the notion of Australian fashion may have been regarded as an oxymoron. This is not a critique of Australians’ capacity to be intrinsically stylish, as there is plenty of evidence to reflect…
Last year the Australian Bureau of Statistics did the maths – government spends about A$7 billion annually in Australia on arts and culture. The exact dollar figure varies depending on what we count, but…
The Sydney Opera House celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. This Australian icon was, of course, designed by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, as a result of an international design competition held at…
Australia is richly blessed with an abundance of resources which, along with robust legal, business and political infrastructure, has allowed it to pull through tough times on several occasions. As we…
What is Indigenous Australia in 2013? To begin to answer this question, I believe it is important to proceed with a few key caveats: 1) There is no singular Indigenous Australia. Thus, anything written…
Creativity is the X factor of modern industry. When it slumps, our economy splutters. Creativity is the source of the unprecedented wealth of the last two centuries. Yet we still understand very little…
Why doesn’t Australia get culture? What is it about culture that defeats our perception to the point where, like an unwelcome magic trick, it vanishes as an object of collective concern? For a country…
Foundation Essay – Universities are still often known as ivory towers, other-worldly spaces of solitude where privileged elites known as academics seek refuge from the harsh realities of the world. Although…
Foundation Essay – In 1529 the great monasteries of England and the 400 smaller establishments had never looked so good. They were doubly protected, by universal belief and by their many material connections…
Foundation essay – “If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn’t be called research, would it?” While slightly flippant, this comment by Albert Einstein captures the unpredictability of research beautifully…
While the evidence for climate change continues to strengthen, public acceptance of the science keeps declining. Closing the gap could be a question of better communication. At the commencement of the…
Foundation Essay – Getting certain points across can be difficult. And yet democracies don’t function properly in the absence of broad, public discussion based on well-sourced information. Especially when…
Foundation Essay – A democracy needs conversations that range broadly, find space for many voices, accept new information, explore unexpected ideas, allow people to reach a judgement about the issues that…
Foundation Essay – In his recent statements on the poor state of the Australian debate on global warming (meaning discussion of its causes, and how to deal with it in policy terms) Professor Ross Garnaut…
Foundation Essay – Universities are at permanent risk of getting a bad rap.. They are too remote, too elitist, too unworldly, too expensive (especially in the US). They are ‘irrelevant’ to the needs and…
Top contributors
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Vice-Chancellor and President, University of Technology Sydney, University of Technology Sydney
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Professor of International Higher Education, UCL
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Laureate Professor, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity
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Professor of Journalism, Media and Communication, Queensland University of Technology
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Director, Festival of Ideas, University of Melbourne, The University of Melbourne
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Professorial Research Fellow in Economics, The University of Melbourne
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Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
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Professor of Politics, University of Sydney
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Stuart Cunningham is a Friend of The Conversation.
Distinguished Professor, Media and Communication, Queensland University of Technology
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Distinguished Professor of Public Communication, University of Technology Sydney
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Vice-Chancellor, University of Divinity
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Associate Professor - Deputy Head of Fashion and Textiles, RMIT University
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Lecturer, School of Design, University of Technology Sydney
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Julian Meyrick is a Friend of The Conversation.
Professor of Creative Arts, Griffith University
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Professor of Creative Arts and Social Aesthetics, James Cook University
