Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site

Keywords: Public Intellectual

There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Theory and Practice: In conversation with Michelle de Kretser

    • Michael McGirr
    • 15 November 2024

    Michelle de Kretser's new book Theory and Practice is a creative combination of fiction and essay, and concerns the moment in which the encounter with literature, a connection with another human imagination, is replaced by something called 'Theory'. 

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Race Mathews: A Life in Politics

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 08 November 2024

      The story of Race Mathews’ career will be an antidote to despair about politics and politicians. It underlines the possibilities of politics, showing how it can be more than a job or a career. It can be a calling to imagine a more just society and ways of building it.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Would you bet against inequality?

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 03 October 2024

    In Andrew Leigh's new book, he argues that inequality matters because it threatens the sense of fairness that is central to our well-being, because inequality prevents the less well off from moving to relative affluence, weakens democracy, and erodes understanding of and commitment to the common good. 

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The contours of exile: The poetry of Derek Walcott

    • Peter Steele
    • 29 August 2024

      Good poetry stops us in our tracks, visited as we are by whatever it is that has stopped the poet in his tracks. This agency may properly be, as in Walcott's case, something stemming from cultural marginality, from a fascination with the dramatic, from an equipoise between the lyrical and the epical, or from the interweaving of all these. (From the Eureka Street archives)

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Finding common ground in a post-truth world

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 21 August 2024

    This year’s Social Justice Statement is ambitious in its scope. From the ravages of war to the erosion of truth, the statement challenges us to confront the root causes of our divisions and seek a path toward a more just and peaceful future.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    In search of lost liberalism

    • Russell Blackford
    • 09 August 2024

    Once the backbone of Western democracy, the philosophy championing free speech, tolerance, and civil political discourse is often reviled by those on both the Left and Right. In our desire for justice and meaning, is there a need to rediscover the principles that have long fostered human flourishing? 

    READ MORE
  • MEDIA

    Where the media vultures gather

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 25 July 2024

    Recent media pressure led to two high profile resignations. Joe Biden, after resisting pressure to do so, has abandoned his re-election bid and English professional football manager Gareth Southgate resigned. The part played by the media merits reflection on the human vulnerability of persons in public life and of those involved in reporting on it. 

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    When safetyism leads

    • Julie Szego
    • 07 June 2024

    In response to campus protests, universities erred on the side of free speech when every other day, the prevailing ethos is one of ‘safetyism’, namely suppressing speech or inquiry if an identity group frames it as ‘harmful’ to them. Universities should strive to be uncomfortable and ‘unsafe’ for all, with no identity immune from robust scrutiny.

    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
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Taller when prone: The contradictions of Les Murray

    • Paul Mitchell
    • 10 May 2024

    Les Murray once confessed it was his mission to 'irritate the hell out of the eloquent who would oppress my people,' by being a paradox that their categories can’t assimilate: the Subhuman Redneck who writes poems. And therein lies the ‘poem’ of Les Murray: complex, contradictory, sublime, and sometimes ready to whip his enemies with a scorpion’s tail.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Freud's last session

    • Neil Jeyasingam
    • 18 April 2024
    2 Comments

    Freud’s Last Session pits the famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud against Christian apologist and author C.S. Lewis, a powerful concept, given the sheer cultural heft of the two historical figures. 

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Will AUKUS lead Australia down the nuclear path?

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 04 April 2024
    3 Comments

    Nuclear energy has snuck its way onto the table of Australian public policy. Given that Australia is a country that hosts military nuclear platforms, the impetus to translate it into a civilian context is proving powerful.

    READ MORE