Editorial: Gaza and the Unspeakable

Arena Quarterly no.16

Alison Caddick

Dec 2023

If this disarticulation of founding story and psychological investment doesn’t occur, what hope is there for Palestinians? But what hope for Israeli Jews too?

Ukraine’s Borderline Disorder: How Ukraine’s bizarre internal politics created a European war

Arena Quarterly no.16

Peter Korotaev

Dec 2023

Ever since 2014, radical economic liberals have been in charge of economic policy, and radical ethnocentrist nationalists given crucial positions in the police and army.

From Small Things Grow

Arena Quarterly no.16

Frank Bongiorno

Dec 2023

Through the perspectives of key participants, this book tells the story of how the communities of a sprawling Victorian regional electorate initiated a movement that would transform Australian politics.

Depreciating the Real: The Never-Ending Disappointment of AI

Arena Online

Scott Robinson

14 Dec 2023

In this world of depersonalised narcissism, shaped by a uniform corporate directive and the imperative of comfort, convenience and consumption, it would be quite sensible to lose trust in reality.

History and Ancestry: On the collective imagination of our past

Arena Online

Andreas Pohl

14 Dec 2023

Harnessing the widely held belief of identity being connected to ancestry might well have the potential to break the spell of the triumphalist version of our history and hopefully others will follow in its wake.

Shark Menace: Nets and perceptions of fear/risk

Arena Online

John W. Moyle

8 Dec 2023

It was not a misunderstanding of the natural world and its hazards, but an understanding of the public: an understanding that fear can outweigh data, and that a token act of protection would be enough.

Climate Conference in the Hottest Year, Again: Australia’s Bid to Host COP31

Arena Online

Sacha Shaw

8 Dec 2023

This year we are once more witnesses to grand pledges in the hundreds of millions and saccharine self-adulation that rarely has any cause for celebration—but sometimes there are also breakthroughs.

Fusion Edgelords: Climate-Energy Futures at COP28

Arena Online

Darrin Durant

8 Dec 2023

Fusion is both thirty years away and will always be thirty years away, and that disappointment needs to be constantly massaged.

The Elusiveness of Young Donald

Arena Quarterly no.15

Guy Rundle

Sep 2023

Here we were amid the postmodern Kosovo poets and deluxe BDSM photoessay collections, permanently waiting to realise our potential, a ‘lucky country, of second rate men, who share its luck’.

Rubbing/Loving: Do Ho Suh at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia

Arena Quarterly no.15

Christian Caiconte

Sep 2023

Suh invite us to rethink the relationship between structure and agency, and in a novel way that neither romanticises the disadvantaged position of the subjects of capitalism nor absolutises the structure that these same subjects have constituted.

From the Archive

Green Pathways to a People’s Future

Arena Quarterly no. 1

Adam Bandt

‘Fire’ may be an appropriate way to think and talk about the climate-change emergency, not just because we are literally dealing with a burning world but also because it does not bring with it the concerns associated with ‘rule by emergency’.

From the Archive

The Tip of the Democracy-Sinking Iceberg

Timothy Erik Ström

There is a curious and seldom-told backstory and parallel story to the high-profile Cambridge Analytica scandal, one that makes the notorious firm seem like the tip of the democracy-sinking iceberg.

Dogecoin Milei Argentina: Populism, anarcho-capitalism, cryptomagic and the world after growth

Arena Online

Guy Rundle

23 Nov 2023

What greater, fearless, audacious commitment to freedom could one man have, but that he would let the willing dismemberment of the poor be drawn into the cash nexus? Surely, if we are now offering the ritual carving up of humans, the Gods of the Market will finally, finally return explosive growth to us?

Critical Attitudes to Israeli Colonialism and the Diversity of Nazi Victims in Popular Culture

Arena Online

Gavin Lewis

23 Nov 2023

In support of Israeli exceptionalism, the reality of the eugenicist Nazi regime and the diversity of its victims have been re-spun as purely anti-Semitic.

Australian Doctors Cannot Remain Silent on Gaza

Arena Online

Nilanthy Vigneswaran, Sana Pathan

23 Nov 2023

At what point is it that we are permitted to speak, to advocate in the manner that truly is befitting this profession?

YIMBY or NIMBY? Both are worse…

Arena Online

Alistair Sisson, Kurt Iveson

23 Nov 2023

While it would be some years before the term ‘NIMBY’ was born, the unionists, residents and progressive professionals behind the Green Bans faced similar criticisms, with developers, politicians and media sympathisers labelling them ‘anti-development’ and ‘anti-progress’.

The Universities and Israel

Arena Quarterly no.15

Mark Furlong

Sep 2023

In counterpoint to so much circulating about a victimised Israel, Riemer’s book is a work of ethical and affective commitment in which the latter, perforce, is animated by the former.

Ahmed Faraz, Poet of Love and Hope

Arena Quarterly no.15

Ali Shehzad Zaidi

Sep 2023

In Pakistan, where the poor have little recourse to justice, poetry accompanies and comforts those living a harsh existence.