Archive: Arena Quarterly

The Wolvadoodles: A Review of Sub-Imperial Power

Arena Quarterly no.13

Richard King

Mar 2023

The ‘rules-based international order’ is not a set of rules at all, and still less a set of principles. It is a set of material military arrangements that seek to ensure and enshrine US dominance.

In ‘The Far-Off Afterwards’: D. H. Lawrence’s Kangaroo at 100

Arena Quarterly no.12

William Holbrook

Dec 2022

On the occasion of its centenary, Kangaroo ought to be read at the level of ideas. The book, in fact, sums up to being one of the most compelling and prognostic critiques ever made of democracy in Australia.

Solastalgia: Every climate change challenge has an internal as well as external dimension

Arena Quarterly no.12

Robert DiNapoli

Dec 2022

In the end, the notion of solastalgia may prove more helpful looking forward, for it charts much of the difficult mental terrain that the world will have to traverse.

Once Were Revolutionaries: Memory and activism—my father and fieldwork in Turkey

Arena Quarterly no.12

Christopher Houston

Dec 2022

I remember the sweet smell of the state Caykur tea factory, intimate, like perfume in the air; and the shabby suitcase traders from the ‘East’ in towns along the way, selling Russian cameras, samovar teapots, and handicrafts in makeshift harbour bazaars.

Philosophy Will Ruin Your Life

Arena Quarterly no.12

Justin Clemens

Dec 2022

Why? you might exclaim, quite legitimately. Why do these philosophers do such things? There are at least two problems with asking this question. First of all, Why? is the philosophical question par excellence. Why do I have to eat this spinach? Why is the sky blue? Why do you ask such stupid questions?

He’s On A Roll: ‘Holding Patterns’ by Alisdair Cannon

Arena Quarterly no.12

Kathleen Mary Fallon

Dec 2022

There are shades of Swift in Cannon’s solutions to the Birth-Strikes movement: ‘have your child and shoot a banker … gun down a fossil fuel executive … kill a politician for each child you have’.

Our Failing Economy: Where might the instability and nervousness of the markets take us?

Arena Quarterly no.12

John Hinkson

Dec 2022

A strong case can be made that for half a generation Australia has been living a fantasy. Borrowing to finance nuclear submarines is only the latest example.

Changing Fire Imaginaries: Walking together to reap the ethical and practical benefits of cultural burning

Arena Quarterly no.12

Danielle Couch, Mick Bourke, Amos Atkinson, Sally Gardner, Paul Komesaroff

Dec 2022

If a solution to the problem of fire in contemporary Australian society is to be found, it will not be at a purely technical level but will require a deep cultural and psychic reorientation.

Asset Politics: Why debt is not the main problem

Arena Quarterly no.12

Martijn Konings, Gareth Bryant, Lisa Adkins

Dec 2022

Our focus should be on how to reform a society that has become structurally organised around a particular logic of asset values.

Credibility Gulf: Theatrical strategies to wake up the narcoticised viewer

Arena Quarterly no.11

Kathleen Mary Fallon

Sep 2022

Living as we do in the grip of the mind-numbing spin of the 24-hour news cycle, one horror event after another desensitising us, what happens to our memory, our sensitivity, our political engagement?

‘Your Lives Are Nothing to Me’: Political responses to the rise of climate as super-actor

Arena Quarterly no.12

David Ritter

Dec 2022

It was not only the scale of social and material destruction of the world wars but the collective experience of suffering that enabled the post-conflict remaking of societies.

Pacific Moves: France and Australia in the Age of AUKUS

Arena Quarterly no.12

Nic Maclellan

Dec 2022

The notion of France as a Pacific country surprises our closest island neighbours. Members of the Melanesian Spearhead Group, for example, see it as a European country and a colonial power.