At the National Gallery of Victoria’s summer blockbuster, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossing Lines, Haring’s sexuality is obscured.
- Honorary Professor, DVCE Portfolio, Deakin University
The film Bastille Day – featuring a CIA agent trying to avert a terror attack in Paris – has been withdrawn from French cinemas after the tragedy in Nice. But what are we to make of Hollywood’s fondness for these kinds of stories?
At the end of July, Melbourne hosted the 20th International AIDS Conference. A huge red AIDS 2014 sign perched on the Swanston Street Bridge between Flinders Street Station and the Melbourne Concert Hall…
The week after Easter, Pope Francis presided over the canonisation ceremony which declared his two most famous contemporary predecessors, John Paul II and John XXIII, were now “saints”. This is an important…
Last week’s announcement that Australia’s oldest and most respected lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) weekly newspaper, Sydney Star Observer (SSO), will change to a monthly print…
A year ago this week, the ageing, doctrinaire and aristocratic Pope, Benedict XVI, shocked keen Vatican watchers and the public alike by his sudden resignation. Few were prepared for the shockwaves that…
The ABC’s economics correspondent Stephen Long has delivered a scathing assessment of the Coalition’s costings statement this morning but just as significantly he also delivered a harsh judgment on his…
The next 24 hours will still bring heavy campaigning, but as election 2013 begins to warp it is time to look over various aspects of the campaign. The Storify below is an overview of some of the ways Twitter…
The fact that the arts haven’t starred in this election and its media coverage is perhaps no big surprise. But it sends a disturbing signal about the place of the arts in our public discourse. When Arts…
Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott have met in a “town hall” style leaders’ debate at the Broncos Leagues Club in Brisbane. Abbott and Rudd took questions from an audience of 100 undecided voters on issues from…
My colleague David Holmes pointed out that the reporting on climate issues has been scant during this election. This could change after today’s release of a report from the Climate Institute, based on…
It’s the end of day eight and Kevin Rudd’s surprise debate announcement on same-sex marriage is still making news - maybe he is the suppository of all wisdom. SBS Evening News led with an exclusive from…
Kevin Rudd’s promise to introduce legislation for “marriage equality” within the first 100 days of his government, if elected, was one of the few concrete new promises to emerge in the election debate…
Given it has been discussed so much, I am a little loath to add further to talk about The Daily Telegraph’s “Kick this mob out” cover. But it is such an instructive example. As some of my colleagues have…
In a recent speech celebrating 30 years of the Victorian AIDS Council, Adam Carr, one of its founders who went onto pursue a PhD in history, made the point that: …not many people get to make history in…
The major story of day three of the election campaign was the coalition’s announcement of a 1.5% cut in the rate of company tax. The way this story was covered by The Australian and The Guardian represent…
Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott’s speechifying at the opening of the Australian War memorial’s Afghanistan Gallery has been reported as a kind of momentary cease-fire between the rival leaders. But it was unmistakably…
The media’s focus on opinion polls, who’s in front, how close the election result will be and what the odds are in an election campaign is often criticized as horse race journalism. The NT News took this…
Julia Gillard has had a rough few days. More accurately weeks, well, months. Let’s face it, years. And at the centre of so many of her travails has been debate about her gender. She’s been called a witch…
A lot has been written about Zero Dark Thirty’s torture narrative. Alex Gibney, whose Taxi to the Dark Side traced the abuses of the Bush torture system, gives one of the best accounts. Having seen the…
Much has been made of the fact President Obama became the first president to mention the word gay in an inaugural address. But the significance lies not in what he said but how he said it. In declaring…
The last few years have begun with predictions of the Apocalypse hanging over us. The Rapture was supposed to come in 2011, with US preacher Harold Camping first saying it would come in May then readjusting…
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