The Trials of Portnoy: Michelle Arrow in conversation with the author, Patrick Mullins

The Trials of Portnoy: Michelle Arrow in conversation with the author, Patrick Mullins

The Trials of Portnoy: How Penguin brought down Australia’s censorship system has been published by Scribe.  Your previous book, Tiberius With A Telephone, was a widely-acclaimed work of biography, the winner of the 2020 National Biography Award and the winner of the 2020 Douglas Stewart Prize in the NSW Premiers’ Literary Awards. One aspect of The Trials of […]
Australia’s universities, Covid-19 and the future.

Australia’s universities, Covid-19 and the future.

In our latest opinion piece, John Doyle and Scott Doidge survey the effect of COVID on the university sector, and urge the higher education sector to use this crisis to reinvigorate its broader mission as a pillar of civic society. As 2020 dawned, Australia’s university sector was anticipating another prosperous year, notwithstanding perennial concerns about […]
Could Thatcher and Reagan inspire Australia’s economic recovery?

Could Thatcher and Reagan inspire Australia’s economic recovery?

A recent editorial in the Australian Financial Review declared that after devising Australia’s biggest ever stimulus package, the Government now needs to develop a sweeping ‘supply-side reform program’ to drive recovery from the economic downturn caused by the global response to COVID-19 (AFR 2020). The Government has said that it is devising a supply-side policy […]
Merle Thornton urges younger feminists to ‘bring the fight’ in recent memoir.

Merle Thornton urges younger feminists to ‘bring the fight’ in recent memoir.

Merle Thornton’s Bringing the fight is published by HarperCollins. Autobiography is not new to the genre of feminist writing. As Margaret Henderson stated in Marking feminist times: Remembering the longest revolution in Australia, autobiography, memoir and ‘life-writing’ play an important role in ‘expanding and realigning the historical and literary record’. Furthermore, Henderson contended that the modes […]
Economic Rationalism and University Course Pricing 1989-2020

Economic Rationalism and University Course Pricing 1989-2020

The Morrison government recently announced plans to overhaul the pricing structure for university courses (Duffy 2020). The government’s proposal can be understood as operating at four levels: first, the ideological level where abstraction hides the personal significance and social impact of the proposed changes; secondly, the level of the political-economic theory that provides the basis […]
Becoming John Curtin and James Scullin: A Q&A with the author, Liam Byrne.

Becoming John Curtin and James Scullin: A Q&A with the author, Liam Byrne.

Becoming John Curtin and James Scullin  is available through Melbourne University Publishing.  Your new book chronicles and analyses the early political development of two important figures in the twentieth century Australian Labor Party (ALP). Why did you decide upon a joint biography of Curtin and Scullin’s formative years? Curtin and Scullin are both well-known as […]
Why is the Confederate flag so offensive?

Why is the Confederate flag so offensive?

Clare Corbould, Deakin University Most Australians — aside from a few groups dedicated to reenacting American Civil War battles and history buffs including Bob Carr and Kim Beazley — were not familiar until recently with the charged history of the flag of the Confederate States of America. Now the flag is in the Australian news […]
What Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods gets wrong about veterans returning to Vietnam

What Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods gets wrong about veterans returning to Vietnam

  Netflix Mia Martin Hobbs, University of Melbourne Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods, out now on Netflix, tells the story of five Black US veterans who return to Vietnam to hunt for gold and recover the remains of their lost squad leader. Beginning with the reunion of five old “Bloods”, and peppered with flashbacks to […]
Vaccine, Cure and Trust: COVID-19 and Those People in White Coats

Vaccine, Cure and Trust: COVID-19 and Those People in White Coats

‘Why sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.’ The White Queen in Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There (1871).   I write as confirmed cases of the COVID-19 virus in Victoria have risen sharply, dashing the hopes of the more optimistic that the epidemic had peaked in Australia.  […]
To Preserve and Protect: Policing Colonial Brisbane: A Q & A with Anastasia Dukova

To Preserve and Protect: Policing Colonial Brisbane: A Q & A with Anastasia Dukova

Lyndon Megarrity interviews Anastasia Dukova about her recent book To preserve and protect: Policing colonial Brisbane.  Thank you for writing this book, which is a great contribution to our understanding of Queensland colonial history. Can I begin by asking you how you developed your interest and expertise in crime and policing history? Thank you! I […]
When black lives really did not matter

When black lives really did not matter

Edward Colston had some estimable virtues, as his philanthropic gifts to making Bristol a better town suggests. But those virtues were based on a vice we no longer find bearable. He got his money from participating in the slave trade. It is right that his statue has been torn down. The commentary about him, however, […]
The fury in US cities is rooted in a long history of racist policing, violence and inequality

The fury in US cities is rooted in a long history of racist policing, violence and inequality

  Omer Messinger/Sipa USA Clare Corbould, Deakin University The protests that have engulfed American cities in the past week are rooted in decades of frustrations. Racist policing, legal and extra-legal discrimination, exclusion from the major avenues of wealth creation and vicious stereotyping have long histories and endure today. African Americans have protested against these injustices […]