Guest editors: Christopher G Robbins and Eric Ferris with Sian Supski
This liber amicorum, or ‘book of friends’, celebrates Peter Beilharz by engaging with different facets of his complex body of work as an intellectual, educator/mentor, and friend/thought partner, on the occasion of his 70th birthday.
by Philippa Mein Smith
Over the past two decades Peter Beilharz, Thesis Eleven’s Founding Editor, has inspired me and clarified my thinking and direction on two themes that have infused my work ever since we met: first, the concept of the Antipodes; and second, the idea of cultural traffic. I am grateful to know ‘Peter B’, an internationally celebrated critical cultural theorist and one of Australia’s leading public intellectuals, as a collaborator and friend. It is a comfort, too, to find that friendship and collaboration continues effortlessly as it evolves through time due to Peter B’s continued engagement both with me, and with my former students and colleagues from the University of Canterbury (UC) in Christchurch, New Zealand.
by Ivan Vladislavić
It was more of a performance than a ‘lecture’. Peter played Marx and one of his colleagues played Weber, and they argued about class and other things. A young woman took issue with their focus on the classic texts. Why bother to read them? You can learn the same stuff by watching The Sopranos – and it’s more entertaining. She was very stubborn about this, which they enjoyed.
by Peter Murphy
I think that what happened to both of us separately but in unconscious tandem in the 1990s says a lot about the intellectual framing of Australian society and history. We both, unwittingly, without any preconception of this, moved away from a politicised interpretation of Australian society (typical of much of Australian historiography) toward a view that placed art and aesthetics at the centre of social analysis.
Peter Beilharz, Chain’s Toward the Blues (Bloomsbury Academic, 2023)
Reviewed by Harry Blatterer
by Jeffrey C. Alexander
For many decades, Peter has been not only a thought partner but also an intimate friend, a thoughtful friend, a friendly fellow thinker, the other side of a personal and intellectual relationship I cannot think to be without.
by María Pía Lara
This reflection is tied up with the memoir written by my dear friend Peter Beilharz (2020), Intimacy in Postmodern Times: A Friendship with Zygmunt Bauman. Indeed, Peter’s process of understanding himself not only allows us to learn about him as a person and as an intellectual, but it also explores some important dimensions of his sociological thinking in connection with his friend.
Compiled by Trevor Hogan, Christopher Robbins, and Sian Supski
40 songs featuring some of Peter Beilharz’s favourite guitarists
Guest editors Fu Qilin and Peter Beilharz
Contributors: John Grumley, Shuai Shao, Norbert Ebert, Galin Tihanov, Qin Jiayang, David Roberts and Jokubas Salyga
by Eric Ferris
Peter, like my mentor and friend Chris and Bauman (from books), offered me versions of a relationship to teaching and learning – a relationship between teachers and learners – that I can, and will, carry and pass on. This is a ‘how’ and ‘why’ I met Peter, and a glimpse at part of the ‘what’ that underpins my respect for Peter.
thesis eleven 