SPECIAL DISPATCH FROM ATHENS BY KEVIN OVENDEN Kevin is the author of a forthcoming Pluto Press book on Greece and Syriza, Escaping the Labyrinth The streets of Athens are calm tonight. The political atmosphere, intense. I joined a patient queue in the Galatsi area to withdraw a few euros from the ATM. We smiled and […]
29 Jun
Comments Off on Sex and society (5): Love & marriage
Welcome to blog five in my sex and society series. Today we will ask the question, what’s love got to do with it? Over the past four posts I’ve spoken extensively about the connection between the nuclear family (whether gay, lesbian, straight or other) and our class and capitalist society. But, how does that connect […]
19 Jun
Comments Off on Sex and society (4): Capitalism & gay oppression
I don’t support gay marriage despite being a Conservative. I support gay marriage because I’m a Conservative. This statement by British Prime Minister David Cameron was heralded by many as a major win for gay and lesbian people. Lesbian and gay rights had now, it seemed, moved away from being a narrow concern of […]
11 Jun
Comments Off on Australia’s racial state, Indigenous Recognition & the Left
This article was first published at New Matilda. For those who think that Indigenous rights issues generally split people along Left/Right political lines, the stoush within the conservative camp between influential Herald-Sun columnist and blogger Andrew Bolt and The Australian over “Recognition” must be confusing. Yet for months now Bolt and the Murdoch-owned broadsheet have […]
01 Jun
How are capitalism and women’s oppression connected? In my last blog post we discussed the rise of the nuclear family and the connection between the class system and the shift in roles between men and women. This week we’re going to explore how modern capitalism has perpetuated the oppression of women. *** Let’s start a […]
15 May
Comments Off on Sex and society (2): The rise of the nuclear family
Simon Copland is a freelance writer specialising in sex, culture and the environment. This is the second post in a six-part series examining the history of sex and the family. The first post can be found here. These posts and other work from Simon are available on his blog: http://simoncopland.com/blog. How did nuclear families become the […]
12 May
Comments Off on HM Australasia 2015: Reading Capital, Class & Gender Today
University of Sydney, 17-18 July 2015 Call for Papers The year 2015 marks a series of conspicuous anniversaries. Three books in particular celebrate significant milestones this year. Raewyn Connell and Terry Irving’s seminal Class Structure in Australian History was published thirty-five years ago, Louis Althusser and his students published Reading Capital fifty years ago, and Silvia […]
08 May
The sudden departure of Christine Milne as Greens leader — apparently kept so secret that even many of her staff didn’t know she was plotting a transition with Richard Di Natale, Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters — is a logical outcome of the party’s impasse since its electoral high point in 2010. Perhaps most significant is […]
07 May
Simon Copland is a freelance writer specialising in sex, culture and the environment. He previously wrote for Left Flank on the Left and Tony Abbott’s “inevitable downfall”. This is the first post in a six-part series examining the history of sex and the family. These posts and other work from Simon are available on his […]
18 Apr
It’s been less than 12 months since the last federal Budget, yet it seems like an eternity since Clive Palmer managed to break through the Right-Left partisanship that usually accompanies post-Budget discussion. This was the apex of Palmer’s influence on politics, a world away from the report in today’s Fairfax newspapers that then PUP senator […]
02 Jul
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