Wake Up! The Essay as Alarm Clock

Sat 25 Oct 10:00 AM
Senate Chamber, Museum of Australian Democracy Old Parliament House

A powerful and timely essay can wake us up. Esther Anatolitis, editor of Essays That Changed Australia, has identified some of the best from Meanjinover the decades. This session also celebrates the immense contribution regular pieces across key publications including The Monthly and Quarterly Essay have in shaping our political, social and cultural life. Esther will be joined by award-winning journalist, Marian Wilkinson (Woodside vs. the Planet: How a Company Captured a Country: Quarterly Essay 99) and long-time authority on the art of the essay and Keating speechwriter, Don Watson (Quarterly Essays High Noon and Enemy Within). Moderated by Michael Williams, editor of The Monthly.


Whitlam’s Dismissal: On These Very Steps

Sun 26 Oct 3:30 PM
Senate Chamber, Museum of Australian Democracy Old Parliament House

Australia changed under Whitlam. There were important steps taken on childcare, equal pay for women, access to education, Indigenous land rights and a greater sense of an independent Australia in the world. But the pressure mounted in the months leading up to his dismissal. Virginia Haussegger who has written on feminism and Whitlam, Esther Anatolitis, Editor of Meanjin’srecent issue on Whitlam and award-winning Wiradjuri writer, poet and academic, Jeanine Leanne come together with Whitlam biographer and journalist, Troy Bramston for this exciting panel. Each will take different perspectives on the story. How did the Woman and Politics Conference launched with a bang at Old Parliament House in September 1975 turn into a wild media circus and accusations Whitlam was letting crazy bra-less women’s libbers run the joint? What has Whitlam’s dismissal meant for Australia’s ongoing evolution towards being a Republic (culturally if not yet constitutionally)? How might we reinterpret the tall figure of Whitlam looming large over history and identity, including stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land rights in this country?  What unfolded during the day of the dismissal and on the steps of this building?

>>> Full Canberra Writers Festival program and tickets