At the annual Shangri La security dialogue in Singapore two weeks ago, US defense secretary Pete Hegseth didn’t just ask Australia to spend more on defence. He also unveiled plans for a new US military project here. The intriguing thing about Hegseth’s announcement that the US was establishing an Indo-Pacific
Judith Hermann has been writing critically acclaimed short stories and novels for almost three decades. Having burst onto the literary scene with the 1998 collection The Summerhouse, Later, she is known in her native Germany as a leading voice of a generation of women authors. With her elegant and coolly
“Scarborough Fair” is what Ellen Stekert calls a “go around song,” one that is passed from singer to singer, down centuries, across oceans, shape-shifting all the while. “Go around songs” shed and acquire tunes, lose lines and gain verses; characters change their names and quite often swap genders. Verses familiar
Right now, according to British political theorist Jonathan White, the future seems very close. Our time horizon is closing in. Crises press in on us, shadowing contemporary politics with an “air of finality,” of “temporal claustrophobia.” Climate change, geopolitical instability, social inequality, out-of-control technology — together they invoke a sense
In a sweeping introduction to his 1958 book Australian Democracy the Melbourne political scientist A.F. Davies notoriously claimed that “the characteristic talent of Australians is not for improvisation, nor even republican manners, it is for bureaucracy.” Laissez-faire, he wrote, “was, in any full-blooded sense, a non-starter in Australia.” Why? “From
Does anyone remember “American carnage”? In his 2017 inaugural address Donald Trump portrayed a collapsing society, emphasising in particular the “crime and gangs and drugs” destroying America’s cities. It was a peculiar and disturbing speech, in part because it bore no relationship to reality. Then as now, America had many
A few ordinary games as a defender with the Tasmanian Football League’s Glenorchy club ended any prospect I had of a footballing career. In those days, football was still a celebrated part of Tasmanian culture. The state team’s historic defeat of Victoria in 1963 at Launceston’s York Park was fondly
Australia’s relations with Russia have what you might call a colourful history. Spying has been at the heart of it. Tony Abbott famously vowed to shirtfront president Vladimir Putin in 2014 after Australians were murdered when flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine and intelligence identified Russia as the perpetrator.
The title of Alyx Gorman’s engrossing new book All Women Want is surely a nod or retort to the “great question” Sigmund Freud claimed he hadn’t been able to answer: “What does a woman want?” As Gorman showcases, without giving Freud explicit attention — after all, feminists have already been
Blake Bailey’s fall from grace was precipitous. After years of trying, he had finally made it. Yes, he had written a memoir and well-received biographies of American literary titans Richard Yates, John Cheever and Charles Jackson. Yes, he had won a few prizes and been a finalist for more. But
In my day job, I run a lab dedicated to research and development in AI for law enforcement and community safety. We’re preoccupied with building what’s euphemistically described as “technology for social good.” Yes, it’s a trite description, but it does at least hint at a flip side. And that
On Croker Island, just a short canoe trip from the Cobourg Peninsula in northwest Arnhem Land, a story has long been told about an unexpected visitor. His name, if ever it was known, is now forgotten. What is remembered is that he was a white man from America and that
At the annual Shangri La security dialogue in Singapore two weeks ago, US defense secretary Pete Hegseth didn’t just ask Australia to spend more on defence. He also unveiled plans for a new US military project here. The intriguing thing about Hegseth’s announcement that the US was establishing an Indo-Pacific
Judith Hermann has been writing critically acclaimed short stories and novels for almost three decades. Having burst onto the literary scene with the 1998 collection The Summerhouse, Later, she is known in her native Germany as a leading voice of a generation of women authors. With her elegant and coolly
“Scarborough Fair” is what Ellen Stekert calls a “go around song,” one that is passed from singer to singer, down centuries, across oceans, shape-shifting all the while. “Go around songs” shed and acquire tunes, lose lines and gain verses; characters change their names and quite often swap genders. Verses familiar
Right now, according to British political theorist Jonathan White, the future seems very close. Our time horizon is closing in. Crises press in on us, shadowing contemporary politics with an “air of finality,” of “temporal claustrophobia.” Climate change, geopolitical instability, social inequality, out-of-control technology — together they invoke a sense
In a sweeping introduction to his 1958 book Australian Democracy the Melbourne political scientist A.F. Davies notoriously claimed that “the characteristic talent of Australians is not for improvisation, nor even republican manners, it is for bureaucracy.” Laissez-faire, he wrote, “was, in any full-blooded sense, a non-starter in Australia.” Why? “From
Does anyone remember “American carnage”? In his 2017 inaugural address Donald Trump portrayed a collapsing society, emphasising in particular the “crime and gangs and drugs” destroying America’s cities. It was a peculiar and disturbing speech, in part because it bore no relationship to reality. Then as now, America had many
A few ordinary games as a defender with the Tasmanian Football League’s Glenorchy club ended any prospect I had of a footballing career. In those days, football was still a celebrated part of Tasmanian culture. The state team’s historic defeat of Victoria in 1963 at Launceston’s York Park was fondly
Australia’s relations with Russia have what you might call a colourful history. Spying has been at the heart of it. Tony Abbott famously vowed to shirtfront president Vladimir Putin in 2014 after Australians were murdered when flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine and intelligence identified Russia as the perpetrator.
The title of Alyx Gorman’s engrossing new book All Women Want is surely a nod or retort to the “great question” Sigmund Freud claimed he hadn’t been able to answer: “What does a woman want?” As Gorman showcases, without giving Freud explicit attention — after all, feminists have already been
Blake Bailey’s fall from grace was precipitous. After years of trying, he had finally made it. Yes, he had written a memoir and well-received biographies of American literary titans Richard Yates, John Cheever and Charles Jackson. Yes, he had won a few prizes and been a finalist for more. But
In my day job, I run a lab dedicated to research and development in AI for law enforcement and community safety. We’re preoccupied with building what’s euphemistically described as “technology for social good.” Yes, it’s a trite description, but it does at least hint at a flip side. And that
On Croker Island, just a short canoe trip from the Cobourg Peninsula in northwest Arnhem Land, a story has long been told about an unexpected visitor. His name, if ever it was known, is now forgotten. What is remembered is that he was a white man from America and that
