Archive: Arena Quarterly #2

On Walking Now

Arena Quarterly no. 2

Andrew Benjamin

Jul 2020

For Descartes thinking was all; to be human was to be a ‘thinking thing’ (res cogitans). Pierre Gassendi, writing in the 1640s, attempted to counter the exclusion of the body in his reply to Descartes’ Meditations. Gassendi’s proposition was stark: ambulo ergo sum (‘I walk therefore I am’).

Motherhood as Misery?

Arena Quarterly no. 2

Rhonda Small

Jul 2020

Of all the stories we tell ourselves about motherhood, how did we arrive here? Motherhood as misery, as terror?

Trauma Talk

Arena Quarterly no. 2

Mark Furlong

Jul 2020

From a minor position less than a generation ago, trauma has come to occupy a central status in psychotherapeutic and mental-health practice.

A High-Tech Pandemic?

Arena Quarterly no. 2

John Hinkson

Jul 2020

Amplified by the powers of high technologies, capitalist expansion has moved to a new level, recalibrating the borders between humans and the natural world and producing effects across species.

Unacknowledged Legislators

Arena Quarterly no. 2

Robert DiNapoli

Jul 2020

All the received wisdoms and shibboleths of contemporary politics and economics, which have (among much else) lifted Donald Trump to his present bad eminence and left parliaments in many lands beset by extreme right-wing parties and ideologues, need reviewing in a fresh light.

American Dream

Arena Quarterly no. 2

Alison Caddick

Jul 2020

Not just precarity but destitution threatens under conditions of COVID, and especially in the United States it threatens people of colour.

Where the Mind Is Without Fear…

Arena Quarterly no. 2

Subarno Chattarji

Jul 2020

Universities in India are a microcosm of wider social desires and domains. What we are seeing playing out in universities are the fear and competitive hatred seen throughout Indian society under its present leadership.

Spies, Lies and the Caring Professions: Countering Violent Extremism

Arena Quarterly no. 2

Linda Briskman, Susie Latham

Jul 2020

The training of caring professionals in contact with young people is stealthy. It includes social workers, teachers, doctors, nurses and psychologists—in short, just about anyone young people should be able to trust and turn to when they face difficulty…

Sub-Imperial State: Australian Dirty Work

Arena Quarterly no. 2

Clinton Fernandes

Jul 2020

The instruments of statecraft, as exposed by Brian Toohey and Bernard Collaery, are wielded in the interests of those with real power: elite elements in the private sector and the US national-security state, which defends a global order protective of its interests.

Last Chance for Universities?

Arena Quarterly no. 2

Simon Cooper

Jul 2020

How bad will it be? Up until the COVID-19 pandemic, international-student revenue for Australian universities had been around 25 per cent across the sector, with many of Australia’s ‘sandstone’ universities relying on international students for at least a third of their income. The loss of much of this revenue for the near to mid-future represents the biggest crisis the sector has faced. …universities will act vigorously to manage their finances.

Unmasked: Face-work in a Pandemic

Arena Quarterly no. 2

Warwick Anderson

Jul 2020

The vehemence of debates, especially in the United States, over whether to mask or unmask indicates that far more is at stake than simple infection control.

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.