Piers Kelly – The Conversation

Raychan on Unsplash

December 14, 2022

Most assume writing systems get simpler. But 3,600 years of Chinese writing show it’s getting increasingly complex

Piers Kelly, University of New England; Charles Kemp, The University of Melbourne, and James Winters, Université Mohammed VI Polytechnique

The extraordinary Chinese writing system has over 4,000 core complex characters – and they’ve been getting more complex over time.

Incoming Australian Greens Senator Senator Lidia Thorpe lifts one fist and carries a message stick, during a swearing-in ceremony at Parliament House, Canberra. AAP/Lukas Coch

October 8, 2020

What are message sticks? Senator Lidia Thorpe continues a long and powerful diplomatic tradition

Piers Kelly, University of New England and Wunyungar, Indigenous Knowledge

Pre-Invasion, message sticks were sent between distant communities to maintain diplomatic relations. They demanded acknowledgement and mutual respect.

Films such as Avatar idealise indigenous people as Noble Savages, enjoying simple and uncorrupted lifestyles until contact with colonisers. Nicole Hanusek

May 18, 2015

Anthropologists do well in movies, indigenous peoples not so much

Piers Kelly, Australian National University

In a recent study, of the 53 films watched that had at least one anthropologist as a character, just under half belonged to the horror genre. Why should that be the case? And how were indigenous peoples in those films portrayed?

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