Category: Commentary
Posts discussing social and political issues of interest
Rhizomatic Thinking—Responding to Our Times
David Pledger—Thinker and Provocateur The following ideas in this blog post are taken from the writings of David Pledger an award-winning contemporary artist, curator, cultural commentator and thinker working within and between the performing, visual and media arts. David writes regularly for Daily Review. https://dailyreview.com.au/the-long-game/ David is a graduate of the National Institute of [...]
Art, Health and Wellbeing
Art and Wellbeing There is a burgeoning interest in the intersection between the creative arts and health and wellbeing, as countries all over the world grapple with an ageing population, the growing incidence of mental health problems across all age groups, and the need to take a more holistic attitude to the way we think [...]
‘Phosphorescence’ by Julia Baird
Baird is well known to many of us as the host of the ABC’s talk show, The Drum. However, she is also an historian and writer, author of Victoria, a biography of Queen Victoria, which critics have hailed as a triumph. In her recently published, Phosphorescence, Baird takes us on a journey that is acutely [...]
Critical Reflections on Knowledge Systems
Defenders of Western Civilisation As Wollongong University charges ahead with its Ramsay Centre of Western Civilisation, and associated BA in Western Civilisation, at the behest of the champions of the British empire like Tony Abbott, we can only hope that this will not be a vain propaganda exercise, but a serious academic appraisal of the [...]
Cultural Burning as Caring for Country
When I tuned into the Q&A program that kicked off 2020 with an exploration of what we are calling our Black Summer of catastrophic bushfires, one of the speakers was Victor Steffensen, one of the founders of the Aboriginal Firestick Alliance. Victor’s voice was drowned out by the other members of the panel who were [...]
Coming Together for a Just Transition
Mridula Amin's article in ABC Online 9 February points to the way in which the summer bushfires have brought communities together across the political divide between those focused on coal mining jobs and cheap energy prices, and those concerned about the impact of global warming on the whole socio-environmental system, and the need to reduce [...]
Freya Mathews: The Epistemic and Cultural Challenge
Conflicting Worldviews Barbara Lepani—in her Opinion article on revisioning conservation for the ABC Religion and Ethics Report (18 Dec 2019), Professor Freya Mathews, a patron of the Wild Mountain Collective, also discusses the important difference between the modern Western idea of 'law' and the idea of 'Law' in Aboriginal culture. We see this playing out [...]
Finding our Inner Wilderness—Max St John
THE DARK MOUNTAIN PROJECT In this article, published by the Dark Mountain Project (https://dark-mountain.net/the-way-back-to-the-wilderness-within/) Max St John talks about his journey to find his own sense of the wilderness within, through the Daoist body practice of Nei Gong. He describes the profound alienation from our inner wilderness that is 'built in' to our modern consumerist, [...]