Set it on fire with your love?

Arena Quarterly No. 13 features a special section on nuclear power and its political resurgence as ‘the only way forward’ in a climate collapsing world. John Hinkson explores the deep structures of life and culture in the nuclear age, shattering any confidence there might be in the safety of the nuclear way. Dave Sweeney gives an account of the success of the people’s anti-nuclear movement to date in Australia. Guy Rundle forewarns on the technocratic directions of Greens parties that might see nuclear power accepted by them as clean and green, and asks will it happen here. Darrin Durant engages nuclear interests and their political backers on Left and Right in a comprehensive demolition of their claims about the capacities of nuclear power, and especially those of the latest-generation reactors with which the  industry is currently all abuzz.

In other pieces, Melinda Hinkson and Jon Altman reveal the depth of rupture, and poverty, in Central Australia; Alison Broinowski takes aim at Joe Biden’s Summit for Democracy; Richard King reviews Clinton Fernandes’ Subimperial Power; Freg J. Stokes digs into the politics of Amazon deforestation; Emma Fagjenbaum asks is the family dead; while Ian Barns considers the politics of hope, and Mark Furlong the psychic costs, of climate change.

Editorial: Rupture in Remote Australia

Australians are being asked to vote in support of the constitutional establishment of an Indigenous Voice to Parliament while the work of successive governments, Coalition and Labor alike, has been complicit in the killing of First Nations people.

Read more...

Arena Quarterly issue no. 13, 2023

Contents

TitleAuthorPagePg.
Editorial
Melinda Hinkson & Jon Altman1
Global Social War
The Netanyahu government's attack on Israel's Supreme Court
Marcelo Svirsky5
The status of democracy in the lead-up to Joe Biden’s summit
Alison Broinowski10
Left movements and deforestation in South America
Freg J. Stokes15
Special Section: Nuclear Worlds
Nuclear technologies threaten all life, so why do we persist?
John Hinkson24
How a grassroots movement stopped nuclear in Australia
Dave Sweeney31
From tragedy to farce, the claims of a nuclear renaissance
Darrin Durant38
Will it happen here? An emerging shift internationally reveals a technocratic logic
Guy Rundle46
State and Equality
How to read a popular meme signifying inclusion
Scott Robinson50
The state as arena of struggle and lasting transformation
John Falzon56
Essays
Exploring texts on faith and practice in a technocapitalist world
Ian Barns64
The Psychic Costs of Climate Collapse
Looking for Eros in the long hard rain of climate collapse
Mark Furlong71
Genesis B, Paradise Lost and the dark politics of resentment
Robert DiNapoli78
Arts and Culture
On Noah Baumbach's film of Don DeLillo's White Noise
Mitchell Welch84
Reviews
Sub-Imperial Power, by Clinton Fernandes
Richard King91
Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation, by Sophie Lewis
Emma Fajgenbaum94
So Far, So Good: On Connection, Loss, Laughter and the Torres Strait, by Aaron Fa’Aoso, with Michelle Scott Ticker
Kathleen Mary Fallon97
Poetry
granite / banksias / labour
Kristy Sangester61
The Secret History / To the Tune of ‘Swing that Thing’ / To the Tune of ‘Didn’t It Rain, Children?’
Kevin Hart89
Love is a Weird Cat / Lawnmower Man / Serpentine Mornings
Damian Balassone100

Support Arena

Independent publications and critical thought are more important than ever. Arena has never relied on or received government funding. It has sustained its activities largely through the voluntary work and funding provided by editors and supporters. If Arena is to continue and to expand its readership, we need your support to do it.