The following remarks were presented at a recent public forum in Sydney to celebrate the launch of Kerry Brown’s Carnival China: The People’s Republic in the era of Hu Jintao; Essays on Politics, Society and Culture. They tackle the issue...
Read MorePolitics is a language game: in any given context, who gets what, when and how invariably depends on how things with no ‘essential’ or ‘naturally given’ meaning come to be defined, categorised and named. Briefly in Botswana for talks, and...
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There’s a time-tested ‘law’ in the history of modern self-government: when a bounded nation-state democracy prosecutes war abroad, the spirit and institutions of its democracy are usually vandalised at home. The Life and Death of Democracy analyses many historical instances of...
Read MoreLa statue du président irakien Saddam Hussein a été déboulonnée par l'armée américaine le 9 avril 2003, jour de la prise de Bagdad. «Le modèle américain de démocratisation par les armes a conduit à un désastre en Irak et en...
Read More[caption id="attachment_8881" align="alignnone" width="800"] Image: Fumarole near the base of Mount Erebus, Ross Island, Antarctica nexttriptourism.com[/caption] The following field notes grapple with the problem of how to understand the emergent polity of Antarctica, and why its break with the language and...
Read More3 June, 2014 Most people know from daily experience that memories are vital for their sense of well-being. Memory is the bearer of lavish gifts. It strengthens our capacity for living in the present. Memory brings direction. It prompts us to...
Read MoreManus Island camp Refugee Action Coalition The following commentary on the Abbott government’s policy of forcibly preventing people from seeking asylum within Australia has aroused considerable controversy. Several thousand public and private comments, from a wide variety of sources, have so far...
Read More20 April, 2014 Readers interested in the emerging politics of the human/non-human and the deep and difficult tensions between capitalism and democracy are bound to find stimulating a recent public lecture by one of the world’s leading social scientists, Bruno Latour. Delivered...
Read MoreThe following remarks on love and politics were first delivered at a welcome symposium for all first-year humanities and social science students in the Great Hall, the University of Sydney, 27th February 2014: Good morning and a warm welcome to the...
Read MoreDemocracy in action? A supporter signs a mural backing WikiLeaks leaker Private Bradley Manning. Photo: Reuters POLITICS THE CONFIDENCE TRAP: A HISTORY OF DEMOCRACY IN CRISIS FROM WORLD WAR I TO THE PRESENT By David Runciman Princeton University Press, $52.95 With talk of democracy...
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