Article: The Unaustralian: Doubling Double Nation

by Rex Butler and A.D.S. Donaldson

UnAustralian art is the art of our present, those missing years since 1970 in McLean’s book. But the real point – to say this for the last time and to conclude – is that we have always been like this. This history has been written for a long time, just not in the name of “Australia”. Those stories we tell of immigrants and expatriates from the past read as though they could have happened yesterday, and we can identify with them as if they were ours. We are all first of all non-national, non-Australian, So many of us, nearly all of us, are immigrants.

Article: Time for the return of the Sanders Movement?

by Brendon O’Connor

The challenge ahead for the Democrats is the question of how the best aspects of the Harris campaign, with its multiracial openness and pro-women’s rights agenda, can be incorporated into a more Left-wing Democratic Party. The crushing defeat for Harris is an opportunity for the Democrats to develop policies that offer real solutions to America’s many social and economic problems.

Obituary: Fredric Jameson 1934-2024

by Rjurik Davidson

The King is dead, long live the King!” This ancient French phrase, dating to at least the Fifteenth Century, is the kind that might have set Fredric Jameson on one of his extended, languorous, alternately dense and playful, intellectually demanding examinations. Marxism’s preeminent cultural critic for more than fifty years, Jameson was the foremost proponent of dialectical thought, in which two seemingly contradictory phenomena were shown to be united by some underlying logic.

Fathers and Sons: Nikos Papastergiadis on John Berger

I once met Edward Said early on in my Phd candidature. I told him about my research and he extolled the virtues of John Berger, but then added: “Whatever you do, just don’t go to visit him there. There are pigs and shit everywhere.” I said, “it sounds like my father’s village.” It was not a turn off to me. Once I got there, I didn’t see any pigs. The pig sty was empty. It later became a storeroom for all the books that John published. John, himself did not even keep copies of his books.

The Secret of John Mayall

by Peter Beilharz

Transatlantic bluesman John Mayall died in California July 24 2024. He was ninety.

What’s the fuss? The record is well enough known. Mayall was a player, musical organiser, entrepreneur and publicist for blues music over six decades. He was champion of JB Lenoir, Sonny Boy Williamson 2, and Elmore James, all of whom he wrote songs for; the Kings, especially Albert and Freddie; Otis Rush and Spann. He was the platform provider for a bevy of brilliant guitar talent, Clapton, Green, Taylor, later Mandel, Trout etc. etc