Articles by: Samuel Alexander

Author Biography:

Samuel Alexander is Research Fellow with the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne. His recent books include Degrowth in the Suburbs: A Radical Urban Imaginary (2019) and Art Against Empire: Toward an Aesthetics of Degrowth (2017).

Ambivalence about Albanese: A Reality Check on the Election

Arena Online

Samuel Alexander

14 Jul 2022

If ‘progressive politics’ cannot overcome growth fetishism and the cold logic of profit-maximisation, then we won’t survive progress in any desirable form.

Alan Roberts Prize: What if Ivan Illich Were Elected Mayor?

Arena Quarterly no. 7

Samuel Alexander, Brendan Gleeson

Sep 2021

The winning essay for 2021 in Arena’s annual Alan Roberts Prize.

"There is no way to begin this essay, at this time, other than by acknowledging…

Informit: Everything is thinkable, so what is to be done?

Arena Quarterly no. 2

Brendan Gleeson, Hayahisa Tomiyasu, Samuel Alexander

Jul 2020

PDF available from Informit

There is no way to begin this essay, at this time, other than by acknowledging the remarkable, mind-bending moment in which we write these words. It is a time of pandemic, one destined to shape the future of human civilisation for years, if not decades ahead. In Australia, the economy has all but shut down, with little open for business besides medical centres and hospitals, supermarkets and food outlets, and a very select number of…

Everything Is Thinkable, So What Is To Be Done?

Arena Quarterly no. 2

Samuel Alexander, Brendan Gleeson

Jul 2020

This is not a time of species affirmation; it is the hour of gravest peril. It is also a reopening of human possibility.

"If the earth must lose that great portion of its pleasantness which it owes to…

Informit: Post-growth economics: A paradigm shift in progress

Arena Journal no. 41/42

Samuel Alexander

Jan 2014

PDF available from Informit

If the earth must lose that great portion of its pleasantness which it owes to things that the unlimited increase of wealth and population would extirpate from it, for the mere purpose of enabling it to support a larger, but not a better or happier population, I sincerely hope, for the sake of posterity, that they will be content to be stationary, long before necessity compels them to it.

Informit: Occupy Melbourne

Arena Magazine 115

Andre Dao, Catherine Ryan, Samuel Alexander, Sharne Vate

Dec 2011

PDF available from Informit