The ABR Podcast

This week on the ABR Podcast we consider a poetics of contemplation with Scott Stephens. In his review of Kevin Hart’s book on reading and thinking, Lands of Likeness, Stephens writes, ‘there is no desire to consume the object of contemplation; what there is, is a longing to understand’. Scott Stephens is the ABC’s Religion & Ethics online editor and the co-host, with Waleed Aly, of The Minefield on ABC Radio National. Listen to Scott Stephens’ ‘Nothing but kestrel: Kevin Hart’s invitation to read contemplatively’, published in the March issue of ABR.

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This week on the ABR Podcast we tell the story behind Indonesia’s twentieth-century literary masterpiece, the Buru Quartet, a set of novels that began life in a jail cell. The Buru novels were written by Indonesian author Pramoedya Ananta Toer, widely considered a potential winner of the Nobel Prize. Nathan Hollier, publisher at Australian National University Press, explains why the Buru novels hold special significance for Australia, even though, as he writes ‘few Australians have heard of them’. Here is Nathan Hollier with ‘”At least I’ve told these stories to you”: Pramoedya Ananta Toer and the Buru Quartet’, published in the March issue of ABR.

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In this week’s episode of the ABR Podcast we revisit Cate Kennedy’s short story ‘Sleepers’, which won second prize in the 2010 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize. ‘Sleepers’ was also included in Kennedy’s 2012 short-story collection Like a House on Fire. Cate Kennedy is an award-winning writer of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Listen to Cate Kennedy’s ‘Sleepers’.

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This week on the ABR Podcast we look at Qantas with business writer and historian Stuart Kells. In his review of Alan Joyce and Qantas: The trials and transformation of an Australian icon by Peter Harbison, Kells notes that the company’s declining reputation extends beyond the area of substandard customer service. Stuart Kells is Adjunct Professor at La Trobe Business School and has twice won the Ashurst Business Literature Prize. Listen to ‘Fasten your seatbelts: Turbulent times at Alan Joyce’s Qantas’, published in the January-February issue of ABR.

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In this week’s ABR Podcast, historian Ebony Nilsson tracks the lives of mid-century migrant Australians with the aid of ASIO and CIA files. Ebony Nilsson is a Research Fellow at the Australian Catholic University, the current ABR Laureate Fellow, and recently published her first book, Displaced Comrades: Politics and Surveillance in the Lives of Soviet Refugees in the West. Listen to ‘The lives of ‘ordinary’ people: From Siberia and Shanghai to Kings Cross’, published in the January-February issue of ABR.

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This week’s ABR Podcast features Kevin Foster’s straight-shooting review of whistleblower David McBride’s memoir The Nature of Honour, which begins: ‘Sometimes, for the faithful, it doesn’t do to look too closely into the life of your chosen idol.’ Foster’s books include Don’t Mention the War: The Australian Defence Force, the media and the Afghan conflict (2013). One of his current research projects – about social media and the military – is funded by the Australian Army Research Centre. ‘The lives of the saints: David McBride’s ethic of self-interest’ is published in the January-February issue of ABR.

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Welcome back to the ABR Podcast. We begin 2024 with the Peter Porter Poetry Prize. First presented in 2005, the Porter Prize is one of the world’s leading competitions for a new poem in English. It is worth a total of $10,000, of which the overall winner will receive $6,000. This episode of the ABR Podcast features the five shortlisted poets reading from their work, with introductions from ABR Editor Peter Rose. The winning poem will be announced at an online ceremony on 23 January 2024. To register for this event, visit our website.  

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In this week’s ABR Podcast, Joel Deane argues that one person more than any other is the reason why more than sixty per cent of voters said No in the Voice referendum. Former prime ministers, he says, haunt Australian politics like Hamlet’s Ghost. Joel Deane is a poet, novelist and speechwriter. Listen to Joel Deane’s ‘A maddening country: The long political shadow of John Howard’, published in the December issue of ABR.

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This week’s ABR Podcast is a reflection on the future of referendums in the aftermath of the Voice. Constitutional scholar Anne Twomey argues that referendums in Australia are now an endangered species and reminds us of the original intent behind them. Anne Twomey is a Professor Emerita of the University of Sydney and was a member of the Constitutional Expert Group advising on the Voice referendum. Listen to Anne Twomey’s ‘Voiceless in Australia: Will we ever have another referendum?’, published in the December issue of ABR.

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This ABR Podcast features one of the eleven shortlisted entries in the 2023 Calibre Essay Prize, ‘The Morning Belongs to Us’, by Siobhan Kavanagh. The 2024 Calibre Essay Prize, worth a total of $10,000, is now open for entries and will be closed on the 22nd of January 2024. Full details can be found on the ABR website. Listen to Siobhan Kavanagh’s ‘The Morning Belongs to Us’, published in the November issue of ABR.

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In this week’s ABR Podcast, Jelena Dinić pays tribute to Charles Simic, the Yugoslavian-born American poet, essayist, and translator, who died earlier this year. After her own poetry received an award in 2020, Jelena Dinić initiated a correspondence with Simic in Serbian, two writers ‘born in a country that doesn’t exist anymore’. Jelena Dinić’s writing in Serbian and English has been published in several literary journals and anthologies. Listen to ‘”Come closer and listen”: A tribute to Charles Simic (1938–2023)’, published in the November issue of ABR.

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In this week’s ABR Podcast, Marilyn Lake reviews My Grandfather’s Clock: Four centuries of a British-Australian family by historian Graeme Davison. Lake argues that Davison has produced an ‘uncommonly good family history’, in part because of the broader history he tells. Marilyn Lake is an Honorary Professorial Fellow in History at the University of Melbourne. Listen to Marilyn Lake’s ‘The ancestors: An uncommonly good family history’, published in the November issue of ABR.

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In this week’s ABR Podcast, Catriona Menzies-Pike reviews Richard Flanagan’s new hybrid work Question 7. Menzies-Pike argues that Flanagan’s ‘sweeping engagement with history ultimately brings the author back to himself’ in ways that limit understanding of the present tense. Catriona Menzies-Pike is a literary critic and former editor of the Sydney Review of Books. Listen to ‘The Measure of things: Flanagan’s looping book of questions’, published in the November issue of ABR.

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On this week’s ABR Podcast historian Zora Simic reviews Graeme Turner’s new book, The Shrinking Nation: How we got here and what can be done about it. Simic argues that state-of-the-nation books ‘can capture the Zeitgeist, but always run the risk of being outrun by history itself’. Zora Simic is a Senior Lecturer in History and Gender Studies at the University of New South Wales and a regular reviewer for ABR. Listen to Simic’s ‘Capturing the mood: A new addition to a tricky genre’, published in the October issue of ABR.

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On this week’s ABR Podcast, Julian V. McCarthy reviews Powering Up: Unleashing the clean energy supply chain by Alan Finkel. McCarthy endorses Finkel’s claim that conceptually and technically the solution is simple – ‘electrify everything’ – as well as his judgement that this transformation will require considerable social, economic, and political shifts. Julian V. Mcarthy is a senior adviser on clean energy transition. Listen to ‘Shipping sunshine: Accelerating clean energy transformation’, published in the September issue of ABR.

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This week, on the ABR podcast, we feature a special conversation between author and journalist David Marr, historian Mark McKenna and ABR’s Georgina Arnott, recorded in the middle of September 2023, one month out from the Voice referendum. The subject was David Marr’s new book, Killing for Country: A family story, which takes the reader to early nineteenth-century New South Wales and follows the bloodshed of invasion as it tracks north. Don't miss Mark McKenna’s review of Killing for Country, published in the October issue of ABR.  

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In this week’s ABR Podcast, we hear from Melissa Castan and Lynette Russell on the history and mechanics behind the Voice to parliament, the subject of next week's referendum. Melissa Castan is a Professor of Law at Monash University and the Director of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law. Lynette Russell is Sir John Monash Distinguished Professor and ARC Laureate at the Monash Indigenous Studies Centre. Listen to Lynette Russell with their co-authored article, ‘Ancient sovereignty shining through: A Voice to parliament, not a Voice in parliament’, published in the October Indigenous issue of ABR.

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This week on the ABR Podcast historian Penny Russell reviews Kate Grenville’s new book, a fictional account of her maternal grandmother. In Restless Dolly Maunder, Grenville reckons with the life of a woman who left no written records but whose memory she carries from her childhood. Penny Russell is Professor Emerita at The University of Sydney and an historian of families, intimacy, and social encounters. Listen to Penny Russell’s ‘Mirrors on misery: A brilliant portrait of an unhappy marriage’, published in the September issue of ABR.

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In this week’s ABR Podcast, Professor Desmond Manderson takes us back sixty years to the 1963 Yirrkala Bark Petition drafted by Yolngu leader Yunupingu. The Yirrkala petition called for constitutional recognition of Indigenous rights and can be seen as an antecedent to the Uluru Statement from the Heart. Desmond Manderson is Director of the Centre for Law, Arts and Humanities at the Australian National University. Here he is with ‘Yunupingu’s song: Constitutions as acts of vision, not of division’, published in the September issue of ABR.

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In this week’s ABR Podcast, Sarah Ogilvie explores the mystery behind the Oxford English Dictionary’s (1928) Australian lexicon. Ogilvie, a former Director of the Australian National Dictionary Centre, tells us about the Melbourne Dictionary People, a group of nineteenth and early-twentieth century Melburnians who contributed Australianisms for the OED project. Listen to Sarah Ogilvie’s ‘The Melbourne Dictionary People: Active service to the mother tongue’, published in the September issue of ABR.

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