Progressive culture since 1954
Throughout Tenet a verbal code, ‘we live in a twilight world’, is refrained. Narratively it propels the plot forward. Thematically it operates as Nolan’s driving idea: that the late-stage capitalism displayed throughout the film leads directly to extinction. Sator’s plan is Christopher Nolan’s portrayal of where an unregulated billionaire-class leads.
I do not wish to defend Australian universities as they exist. But I do wish to defend the principle of public tertiary education as a good – not a product, but a good – that should be available to everyone.
There are humanistic benefits to heritage, but it is also a concept that can be exploited for the purpose of ossification and stasis, and for the maintenance of a type of privilege that should be challenged, not set behind glass. The Eastern Freeway recommendation exemplifies these paradoxes.
Radical Hope arrives at an urgent moment in Australian higher education. As the world around us offers countless reasons to be terrified for the long-term wellbeing of universities, Gannon’s transformative vision is a welcome reminder of how radical and consequential education can be.
Rachel, a girl in my class, lives on our side of Montpelier Street, The Big Hill. She walks home every afternoon and said I should walk with her. I told Rachel I asked for permission but my mother said no. We’re in grade seven, she said, it’s no big deal. Why’d you even ask? But I hadn’t asked at all. There’d have been no point and the question would only have gotten me into trouble.
Abbott’s revealed more than what we already know about modern conservatism – namely that, in its relentless attacks on health, education, and welfare, as well as its racialised approaches to immigration and foreign policy, it does not hold that all lives are equally worthy. It showed his capitulation to a kind of brutal economism more often associated with Randian capitalist radicalism than the religious right.
There is currently a trend within western animation studios whereby queerness in both characters and plot is inching evermore to the centre of children’s narratives. But as creators continue to experiment and expand the cultural canon, appropriate homage must be paid to the often-belittled Magical Girl genre – a medium that effortlessly makes space for queerness both within its themes and aesthetic in a naturally humble way that perhaps only ‘feminine’ stories could accomplish.
Stephen Hsu’s removal from the position of research VP at Michigan State University is not only a step forward in the context of Black Lives Matter. It can also be seen as a step toward a deeper understanding and valuing of people with Down syndrome and intellectual disability.
For insecure workers, ‘going back to normal’ is not possible or desired. What the pandemic has shown us is that in order to sustain the rural workforce, we need to improve the material and structural conditions that put precarious workers at risk.
Apps like Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, OkCupid, Grindr, Scruff and Brenda offer affordances that are built into the way they are designed. These affordances import all the assumptions and norms of both those who make them, and adapt primarily to what sells: they turn daters into consumers of each other, and unwitting producers of data for the monopolistic behemoths of the digital world. Dating apps are actively involved in reproducing the traits of contemporary capitalism, transforming our very desires in ways that reshape and homogeneise how we love each other.
I board the train heading back to my studio, backpack over one shoulder and a drawing I don’t like anymore, stuffed inside.
S11 was a moment when tens of thousands stood up to corporate power. It showed that collective action can push the ruling class on to the back foot. As the triple crises of COVID-19, the economy and climate deepen, we need that inspiration, daring and defiance more than ever.
We squabble about the money skimmed from our drudgery, the barbs lift enemies from our skin. At the end of shifts we are lathered in sweat and the day is night