Poetry | (lingering)
don’t want to w a l k any where any more lingering orientalism delivered to your door — guy does the guy collected guy’s collective events gaga does the gaga & yes when i think about it echolalia’s not that medical
Progressive culture since 1954
Ardern's world
Usually, when we say that a politician has immense charisma, it is taken to imply that they have no substance, which wasn’t true of Key just as it isn’t true of Ardern. You don’t occupy the centre of politics just by flashing a smile. You occupy it by articulating a set of values in which the social bloc that determines the outcome of elections wants to see itself reflected.
The slow death of a public institution
When I first visited Thailand, in 1985, both nations had cheap and efficient postal services. When I returned, twenty-five years later, that could only be said about one country – and it wasn’t Australia.
Everything is evidence: the persistence of QAnon
Capitalism in crisis, faced with the inevitable consequences of its own internal contradictions, is the perfect nutrient for fascist ideas, for desperate terrors and paranoias that create demons and project them into the world.
How we maintain the silence on Palestine: the case for the ABC
On June 29, I submitted an opinion piece to ABC’s online platform Religion and Ethics. After one week of back-and-forth editorial interventions, it was published alongside an opposing piece by Bren Carlill from the Zionist Federation of Australia. It became instantly clear that Mr Carlill had written his piece directly in response to mine.
Metonyms for home
It is tempting to read New Metonyms as first and foremost an attempt to cast Bosnia in a new light, to make over its image. And yes, New Metonyms is an art book immaculately designed to offer the world a new, more optimistic conception of Bosnia. But through this, it is also the story of diaspora, of homecoming, of the complicated relationships we hold with our past, and of the refugee’s need to prove that there is more to us than hurting. It is a work of art, of sevdah and of hope.
Standing against transphobia and for the right to protest
Mark Latham is a clown, a crank, more pundit than a politician, a perennial loser of Australian politics. Some political operators are of the belief that protesting proposals such as his Education Legislation Amendment Bill brings more attention to them when they will inevitably die on the floor. But the reasons to protest against them are broader than that.
Fiction | Ounya passed
Here it begins: Falid’s wife is Alexandra. She dies in the river. The river is dull. Its current is not too strong. I hear at the women’s meeting that no-one blames the river, no-one blames Alexandra. But this happens, still. She dies in the river and it is a beginning. Ounya is Falid’s daughter. She is born by Alexandra. She is hit by a truck after six years and this is where it ends.
To what are the humanities relevant?
The trends which are destructive of liberal education ideals must be understood not as aberrations, but rather as tendencies that have always been inherent in educational institutions. As Bertrand Russell remarked, ‘a certain percentage of children have the habit of thinking; one of the aims of education is to cure them of this habit.’ Recognising this, we need to ensure that the primary task of university education is not to make students job-ready, but to create critical, informed, and humane citizens, and a society in which the ideals of free inquiry are themselves the main measure of relevance.
Why the Liberals want Victoria to fail
The Liberal government is predominantly focused on the maintenance and expansion of their power, rather than the best outcomes for the country. This fact explains the logic of what would otherwise appear to be ignorant or hypocritical decisions over policy, especially when it comes to Labor-controlled states – whose mere existence, let alone success, represents a threat to its power.
When someone great is gone: remembering Ania Walwicz
Ania Walwicz taught us that art is central to being human. She recognised that to be an artist is also to be a teacher. She wanted to create a community and a movement, and when it suited, that community was also her court.
Labouring inside and getting outside of labour: lessons from (re)watching The Nanny
In the frames of the Zoom window and this sitcom alike, it’s work to raise a child, to prepare meals, to hang out the laundry. It’s also work that exceeds in some way the mere production of exchangeable value; work which points to alternative systems of care, of solidarity, and of keeping ourselves going when paid productive opportunities are scarce.
Cottagecore: the new, new romantics
Cottagecore: an Internet community devoted to a nostalgic rural aesthetics and homely comforts. Associated social media accounts are full of freshly baked bread, bunches of wildflowers gathered from hedgerows and beautiful young women wearing flowing summer dresses or chunky jumpers, a picturesque life set to a soundtrack of gentle strings and Taylor Swift’s lockdown album, Folklore.