Zora Simic

Natalie Harkin’s ‘“Our descendants need you”: an archival-poetics manifesto for a just making of history’, asks ‘what do Indigenous voices, poets and creatives contribute to the public life of history’? 🔗 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
#historyaustralia #openaccess

I really do love the researchers who write basically one paper a year but every paper is a banger. You can make an event out of it

Print featuring a plant with dark green speared leaves and blue and yellow flowers against a white background

'Running Iris' linocut by Australian printmaker Rachel Newling #WomensArt

Invasion Day Fundraiser – Justice and Sovereignty Every year, Invasion Day stands as a powerful reminder of the strength, survival, and resistance of First Nations peoples. It is not a day of celebration — it is a day of mourning, truth-telling, and ...

Invasion Day Fundraiser – Justice and Sovereignty chuffed.org/project/1503...

Some men's penises are bigger than other men's penises

25/7/1988, The Go-Betweens📸Steve Pyke

Labor is passing laws that are more extreme than what Trump has attempted, on immigration and speech, largely at the behest of the media. But if Trump tried to do it, the same outlets would say they were bad, fascistic overreach. Insanely dumb country.

Hate laws to pass after Labor and Liberal deal The Liberal Party struck an agreement with Labor to tighten the scope of a bill to ban hate groups, but the position of the Nationals is unclear.

Having read the draft of the Australian government's new "hate" legislation, the scope it gives the government of the day to restrict civil society is massive. It's very clear that it could be used to outlaw a Palestine Action-style organisation www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01...

I'm definitely getting it out of storage and reading asap - and will post on insta I'm sure (thanks!)

Since this morning I've discovered there's a copy in my uni library, in storage... must be so many treasures in there.

Thanks Jo, this is wonderful. I've been meaning to read Barbara Hanrahan for a while now but oh for the diaries to be re-published! Too tantalising.

Painting of a bunch of flowers with large blooms in yellow, red and orange in a green vase on a white surface

Gabriele Münter,
Dahlias, 1945
Expression painter
#Womensart

Breaking: Randa Abdel-Fattah launches defamation proceedings against SA Premier Palestinian-Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah says her lawyers have launched defamation proceedings against South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas, following his public commentary about her sch...

Abdel-Fattah launches defamation proceedings against Premier Malinauskus.
This will be a very revealing case, if it gets to court

Randa Abdel-Fattah on the collapse of the Adelaide Writers’ Festival Podcast Episode · We Used to be Journos · 13/01/2026 · 36m

As usual, Randa Abdel-Fattah speaks with utter clarity and conviction.

podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/w...

Empty Words, Emptying Stages — Lantana By isolating one writer as a potential risk, the institution produces a broader chilling effect in which participation itself becomes precarious. Public debate shrinks not because anyone is ordered to...

'When the Adelaide Festival Board’s statement is read closely, it follows the DARVO pattern almost line for line.'
- Natasha Joyce in Lantana Journal

www.lantana.net.au/words/empty-...

Exclusive: pro-Israel campaign seeks removal of Palestinian DJ from WOMADelaide After ruining the Adelaide and Bendigo writers festivals, pro-Israel supporters are now targeting WOMADelaide’s inclusion of Sama’ Abdulhadi

What is the end game here? No publicly funded cultural events that aren’t approved by Israel? No arts boards that aren’t pro-Israel? The sections of our political class and media who are active in this attempted gutting of our cultural landscape need to ask wtf they are doing here.

Albanese calls national day of mourning for Bondi victims on January 22 There will be a national day of mourning for the victims of the Bondi terror attack on January 22, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says.

welp. Looks like we have a date for Herzog arriving in Aust.

The first Day of Mourning in this country was held in Sydney on 26 January 1938.

www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01...

I cannot be party to silencing writers, which is why I am resigning as director of Adelaide Writers’ Week | Louise Adler Cancelling the Australian Palestinian author Randa Abdel-Fattah weakens freedom of speech and is the harbinger of a less free nation

'Many years ago the former premier Don Dunstan touted Adelaide as the “Athens of the south”. Now South Australia’s tourism slogan could be “Welcome to Moscow on the Torrens”.' - Louise Adler resigns

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Kind of shocking that Randa was the only Arab or Muslim writer booked for the Adelaide Writer’s Fest tbh.

Universities and the arts after Bondi: from definitions to “ambient antisemitism” - Overland literary journal The Adelaide Festival’s decision to dump Palestinian academic Randa Abdel-Fattah from its upcoming Writers’ Week gives us a grim foretaste of the Australian cultural landscape in 2026.

“The Adelaide Festival’s decision to dump Palestinian academic Randa Abdel-Fattah gives us a grim foretaste of the Australian cultural landscape in 2026.”

David Brophy on “ambient antisemitism” and the institutional mechanisms for curtailing protest and political expression.

You can contact the Adelaide Festival here to express your opinion about their decision to ban Randa Abdel-Fattah. Please refrain from abuse.

I am stunned and saddened by this announcement. Adelaide Writers Week has been an important platform for Arab and Palestinian voices these past few years. I greatly admire director Louise Adler and her fearless advocacy for freedom of speech. There will be more to come on this story, I’m sure.

Randa Abdel-Fattah
wrote one of the most important & highly praised novels of recent times, but the board of Adelaide Writer's Week have cancelled her on the grounds of 'cultural sensitivity'. No hiding this racist BS. Boycott!

post a perfect album from the 90s that isn't nirvana, pearl jam, soundgarden or alice in chains

easy! except it was so hard to choose between jeff buckley, liz phair and this:

SBS is 50! Australia's unique multicultural broadcaster, SBS, turned 50 in 2025. Here's an insight into what SBS was like in the 1980s and how it enriched Australia, all of its people... and me.

Australia's unique multicultural broadcaster, SBS, turned 50 in 2025.

Here's an insight into what SBS was like in the 1980s and how it enriched Australia, all of its people... and me.

Australia, the Balkans, languages and translation all roll into one here for me.

I love your substack, and this was my favourite post so far- thanks!

The Jewish Refugee Family and Concerns Over Intermarriage in Australia After 1945∗ Abstract. Intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews was conceptualized as a ‘problem’ by the Australian Jewish establishment after the Second World War. From

🚨 new article by Ruth Balint
academic.oup.com/past/advance...