The line between what is normal and what is pathological has blurred. We risk our collective sanity and our planet if we stick to business as usual.
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Articles on Friday essay
Displaying 1 - 20 of 216 articles
Is there an essence of love? Is it ultimately about commitment? Philosophy can offer some answers.
Australian Indigenous languages use a fascinating array of expressions drawing on body parts to describe emotions. Here is a guide to some of the most intriguing ones.
Many Australians believe in the existence of the soul. Here is a brief guide to how the five major world religions imagine the soul's origin and journey.
What happens when the distant frontier takes up residence in the family home? How are we to remember our flawed ancestors? A new book grapples with these questions.
Every day, the internet fills up with more and more dead people while our ability to reanimate them grows. The dead are more robust and more vulnerable — and we’re not ready for any of this.
The widespread conflict that accompanied Australian life for 140 years was arguably our most important war. We need a museum telling this story, funded on a par with The Australian War Memorial.
An artist and self-proclaimed witch, Rosaleen Norton defied cultural norms in Menzies-era Australia. Reviled by the media, she was a powerfully unconventional woman.
Before the goldrush, Indigenous people told stories about how the bronzewing pigeon seeded precious minerals across the land. Europeans stole not just land, but the value deep within it.
It was once thought the Aboriginal names for the Hawkesbury had been lost forever. But after a remarkable find in the Mitchell Library, almost 100 place names will be restored to Dyarubbin Country.
A spear-thrower, a shell, a bowl, a vase, a bucket. Five very different items tell us much about the history of collecting, the role of Indigenous experts and the shadow of colonial violence.
Will the newest batch of books about the climate crisis change minds? Reading about the problem can help us understand it, but it's political action that is needed now.
Pardalotes are quintessentially Australian birds, industrious, beautiful and strange. They have adapted to our environment but we are corroding the places in which they live.
A new book by participants in the controversial 'Grievance Studies' hoax critiques the rise of an ideology they call Social Justice Theory. But the authors overstate their case.
Alice Pung's family escaped Pol Pot to settle in Australia. In suburban Melbourne, as her mum worked in the dark, back shed, she discovered books — and what the world could be.
A new Greta Thunberg biopic has drawn criticism from those who don't see the value in the stories of young lives. But children's voices matter — and Thunberg's is potent.
Trees seeded after the end of the last ice age, which survived the ruptures of invasion and industry, have re-emerged as art.
First published in October 1970, The Female Eunuch has never been out of print.
It's time for a new accord, with a summit led by First Nations people, bringing disparate groups together to help heal the nation and the land.
Fresh research casts new light on a boldly unconventional woman who cross-dressed as a man to join a French naval sea voyage.
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 in the History of Religious Thought, The University of Queensland
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Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing, The University of Melbourne
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Associate Professor, 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
