Peter Beilharz’s Baby: The Infancy of Thesis Eleven

by Alastair Davidson

Peter Beilharz is the only one of the three founding editors of Thesis Eleven to have remained with the journal over the decades since 1980. Three generations of editors joined him in its progress from the tiny, self-financed Australian journal born in Room 681 of the Menzies Building, at Monash University, but he alone saw it through to its transition into a major international journal of the Left, outlasting many other journals born in the same decade. His early energy and enthusiasm, his tenacity, flair and insights accompanied him through the years.

Retrospective: Harry Redner – Pursuing Philosophy as a Vocation

by Jill Redner

For Harry, philosophy was a vocation in Weber’s sense. But pursuing this ideal in today’s technocratic multiversity can seem almost quixotic, because specialist knowledge and technical expertise are cultivated, rather than a general intellectual grasp of problems affecting humanity. Generalists still exist but are increasingly likely to find themselves dismissed as mere “intellectuals”. Harry accepted this situation with good humour: “Though my academic sins be scarlet”, he quipped recently, “let my books be read”.