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Keywords: Myth

  • ENVIRONMENT

    Climate indifference is an Aussie tradition

    • Greg Foyster
    • 31 January 2019
    9 Comments

    One of Australia's foundational myths is of white settlers weathering nature's worst. It's actually in our national character — the story we tell about the nation — to dismiss climatic extremes like heatwaves. Maybe one missing part of taking climate change more seriously in Australia is a shift in culture to respect the heat.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The myth of the leg-up for women's sports

    • Erin Riley
    • 23 January 2019
    11 Comments

    When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression. Sometimes, it's worse than that: when you're accustomed to privilege, even meagre attempts towards equality can be interpreted as unfair. This attitude is evident not only in conversations about affirmative action and quotas, but in the way we talk about sport.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The myth of polarisation in modern Australia

    • Jeff Sparrow
    • 10 December 2018
    12 Comments

    Why do so many pundits decry the divisions in Canberra at a time when, objectively speaking, the parties have never been closer? The short answer is that they're responding to a genuine polarisation — not between Labor and Liberal but between both parties and the rest of society.

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  • EDUCATION

    The myth of the average teacher

    • Tim Hutton
    • 22 June 2018
    12 Comments

    I have the controversial opinion among my colleagues that teachers, on average, actually get paid pretty well. Averaging, however, is the crux of debate. Yes, if a teacher's job is averaged over the year, their pay is reasonable and their workload is manageable. Alas, teachers are mere mortals; they aren't Time Lords who can redistribute their work to a time of year when they are less busy.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Finding hope in shared struggle after trauma

    • Zoë Krupka
    • 20 June 2018
    1 Comment

    Using memoir as a kind of litmus, Atkinson challenges the myth that traumatic events are socially 'out of character' and asks us to look at how by its very nature, patriarchy demands the abuse of its most vulnerable citizens.

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  • EDUCATION

    The joys of teaching adult refugees

    • Paulette Smythe
    • 25 May 2018
    15 Comments

    I often feel I have the best job on the planet. Teaching English to adult refugees should be a daunting task. Yet these classes are especially warm and congenial places to be. Human beings at their most vulnerable possess an extraordinary fund of light and laughter despite, or perhaps because of, the darkness they have left behind.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Confronting fear on the cusp of manhood

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 09 May 2018
    2 Comments

    The boys conquer one hazardous feat after another: entering the ocean via rocky cauldrons; sharing waters with a mythic giant shark; tackling waves that rear up over a deadly shallow reef. In so doing they confront their fears: of physical peril; of failing, or failing to meet the expectations of the group; of existential ordinariness.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Rising above redhead myths

    • Neve Mahoney
    • 18 April 2018
    8 Comments

    In perspective, my hair colour really isn't that big of a deal. I don't face institutional discrimination because I'm a redhead. But because of the cultural fascination with red hair, people will always try to project their own ideas about redheadedness onto me. So as I've grown older, I decided to claim this part of my identity for myself.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Parliamentary troll alert

    • Brian Matthews
    • 23 March 2018
    4 Comments

    In Iceland, the most recent 'troll alert' was only 50 years or so ago, and belief in the mythological troll dies hard. What is interesting to consider regarding the revenant troll of the internet age is where they are congregated. Michaelia Cash's recent outburst suggest we might look no further than our Federal Parliament.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Brutal Aboriginal fable in the postwar outback

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 31 January 2018
    6 Comments

    Aboriginal filmmaker Warwick Thornton exercises his visual mastery to its fullest in order to elevate a straightforward story of outback brutality and racial prejudice to the proportions of myth.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    African gangs myth shows fear is winning

    • Troy Pittaway
    • 12 January 2018
    20 Comments

    I have been working with Sudanese youth for over eight years and never encountered anything like the gangs of youths that are being talked about. To try and distill an entire culture, with various sub-cultures and values, into a media soundbite about hordes of African gangs, insults not only the Sudanese community, but every Australian.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Winter Raffle 2017 Winners

    • Staff
    • 06 July 2017

    The Society of Jesus in Victoria, Jesuit Communications Winter Raffle 2017. Drawn on Thursday 6 July 2017 (Permit No 10156/17 issued 20 February, 2017). Congratulations to the winners: 1st prize: R Durick, NSW; 2nd prize: C Whybrow, NSW; 3rd prize: C Smyth, VIC; 4th prize: C Johnson, NSW. Thank you to everyone who supported our Winter raffle. If you missed the opportunity to purchase raffle tickets but would like to support us financially, please consider making a donation.

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