fraggle rock
Type
Article
Category
pop culture

Work your cares away: Revisiting Fraggle Rock

The year is 1982. US President Ronald Reagan is ankle-deep in his first term. Across the pond, Margaret Thatcher will soon be elected Prime Minister of the UK. Everyone’s shaking hands with free market capitalism, neoliberal ideals, and a hostile brand of shark-eyed individualism that will endure for decades to come. Jim Henson is having none of it.

Crop_roomonesown
Type
Announcement
Category
News
Writing

Introducing Overland’s 2019 writing residencies

We are pleased to announce that Overland will be running two writing residencies in 2019, both of which are supported by the Malcolm Robertson Foundation. These residencies will again address a lack of opportunities for underrepresented writers, providing space, time, stipend and mentorship.

CBW building
Type
Article
Category
Migration
The city

The affective politics of congestion and Australia’s population debate

After a picturesque rail journey from Glasgow to Kings Cross station, I was in shock when confronted with the crowds, and not happy about lugging two suitcases up several flights of busy staircases. There was further affective congestion to come as I stayed in university accommodation near Oxford Street, took the packed tube to be a tourist and see friends, and struggled to enjoy walking on the hustling streets.

escalator
Type
Article
Category
Privilege theory

The limits of privilege

Power is not a blunt instrument. It doesn’t get applied evenly, and it doesn’t operate uniformly, in accordance with clearly identifiable categories and factors that each person fits into. Power traces invisible and barely conscious networks of bias built around prior knowledge, unexamined or underexamined assumptions, desires and practices.

Manus
Type
Article
Category
open letter
Refugee rights

An open letter from Manus to Minister Dutton concerning the Medivac Bill

Mr Dutton, how in all conscience can you continue to humiliate and dehumanise severely ill refugees in your own personal and political thirst for power? You continually use hate speech in order to prevent due justice to be given to us, the remaining refugees on Manus and Nauru. We are not responsible for shortages in hospital beds. We are dangerously ill only because many treatable illnesses and injuries have not been given adequate medical attention for years.

Copyright
Type
Article
Category
Copyright
Writing

Does Australia really need author rights? A response to industry pushback

Authors are always put at the centre of Australia’s copyright debates, grounding claims for more rights or fewer exceptions. Despite that, our law has no explicit rights to protect authors in the case of unfair, unclear or outdated contacts. I criticised this state of affairs in the last spring issue of Overland, making a case for Australia finally joining the majority of the world’s nations by granting authors appropriate baseline protections.