Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site

Keywords: Memory

  • INTERNATIONAL

    Commemorate or forget: Do we care enough about D-Day?

    • Geraldine Doogue
    • 18 June 2024

    I wonder how many Australians were captivated, as was I, by the 80th anniversary D-Day celebrations? They seemed epochal to me: a reminder of something remarkable and a pointer to something possible, namely new resolve to maintain peace in Europe. Not too many Australians, as it turned out, were similarly mesmerised. 

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    Poland and the problem of borders

    • Gillian Bouras
    • 06 June 2024

    The Prime Minister of Poland announced a $2.5 billion plan to fortify borders with Russian Kaliningrad and Belarus,  highlighting the ongoing struggle for stability and security in a continent preparing for a future of conflict.  

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Terry Pratchett and the nuclear energy debate

    • Juliette Hughes
    • 05 June 2024

    Since Peter Dutton has reignited the appetite for the dream of unlimited energy from atom-splitting, we have to think about the risks again. Is it more dangerous to keep burning coal and gas and oil and boil the planet than to have a few Chernobyls or Windscales? How do we balance such risks?

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    The Punisher

    • Barry Gittins
    • 24 May 2024

    In the latest Quarterly Essay profile of Peter Dutton, author Lech Blaine may well describe his work as character delineation, rather than character assassination. But we seem to be at an impasse in Australian market of ideas, and scorn gives greater bang for the buck than dialogue.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Flowers for Father Rahner

    • John Honner
    • 02 April 2024
    12 Comments

    Karl Rahner, a Jesuit priest whose ideas helped modernize the Church, left an indelible legacy on contemporary Catholicism. On the 40th anniversary of his death, what can a flower left at his niche tell us about the lasting bonds between belief, memory, and the enduring search for human connection?

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Tunes, tales and true connections

    • Julian Butler
    • 02 April 2024

    There is beauty in returning to places that experience has made so full of memory that they have become layered with meaning. Just as there is in hearing music that you have listened to at different moments of your life, and that is filled with meaning, not just for you, but even moreso for the artist standing before you and in myriad different ways for the audience with you. 

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    On the anniversary of a poet's birth, a universal message to nations

    • Warwick McFadyen
    • 20 February 2024
    1 Comment

    ‘The loss of memory by a nation is also a loss of its conscience.’ As the loss of conscience grows with each succeeding generation, one day righting the boat on the sea of forgetfulness will become impossible. In the end, what people don’t know, they won’t miss. 

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    The return of the native

    • Gillian Bouras
    • 15 February 2024
    6 Comments

    Tolstoy once wrote that exile is a long dream of home, but the dreaming does not persist forever, so that you eventually wake to the knowledge that home exists only in your head and in your memory. Welcome home, various people have been saying, but my silent question is Where is it? 

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Living with the death of the referendum

    • Brian McCoy
    • 14 February 2024
    1 Comment

    Months after the referendum, can we allow this referendum to die while preserving the essence of its vision and optimism? This is akin to our response to the loss of a loved one — we hold onto their memory, reluctant to let go. How do we keep the deeply treasured aspirations of the referendum journey alive while facing the reality of its death?

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    When history becomes myth and memory is lost

    • Warwick McFadyen
    • 16 January 2024
    4 Comments

    In a recent survey of young Americans, 20 per cent of respondents, aged from 18 to 29, thought that the Holocaust was a myth. If knowledge of history fades into the mist, the space will be filled with ignorance, and worse, wilful malice. 

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Does cultural memory have an expiration date?

    • Julian Butler
    • 08 November 2023

    It's curious how fragments of the past linger in our minds, waiting to be unearthed. But in an era where we're bombarded with endless content and quick digital answers, one wonders: Are these shortcuts eroding our ability to remember?

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Yesterday to today

    • David Rowland
    • 25 October 2023
    1 Comment

    Paul McCartney's concerts evoke a communal magic, lighting up arenas with shared cultural memory spanning generations. Seeing the legendary musician perform in concert, retaining a youthful vigour, the experience can feel like a poignant rendezvous across time. 

    READ MORE