PARANOID NATIONALISM
As public debates become increasingly organised around historical grievances, identity and trauma, has Australia’s multicultural project become a competition for recognition, attention and moral authority?
With dedicated envoys combatting particular forms of discrimination and growing demands for public recognition of communal suffering, Australia appears to be experimenting with new ways of responding to difference. But do these approaches for empathy build solidarity or deepen division?
Can a nation hold multiple histories of pain without them becoming rival claims for belonging?
Ghassan Hage
Ghassan Hage is a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and a fellow of both the Australian and the British Academies of the Social Sciences. He has held prestigious visiting professorship all over the world including at Harvard and the Collège de France in Paris. He is currently a Distinguished Research Fellow at Zhejiang University in China. He is internationally renown for his work on the anthropology of racism and nationalism.
Marcia Langton
Marcia Langton holds the Foundation Chair of Australian Indigenous Studies at the University of Melbourne and is an anthropologist and geographer who has made extensive contributions to Indigenous knowledge and advocacy for Indigenous rights. She is a descendant of the Yiman and Bidjara peoples. She is Director of the Indigenous Studies Unit of Onemda at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health. Her research subjects include alcohol-related family and domestic violence, Indigenous alcohol management plans, racism, and Indigenous culture and art.
David Leser
David Leser is a two-time Walkley award-winning journalist and author of seven books, including his memoir To Begin to Know, shortlisted for the 2015 National Biography award, and Women, Men & the Whole Damn Thing, his 2019 study of the history of patriarchy and misogyny in the age of #MeToo. A former Middle East and Washington correspondent, David is a former staff writer and regular contributor to Good Weekend magazine and columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
We acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation - the custodians of the country on which we meet - and acknowledge their Elders, past and present.
The views and opinions expressed by the Festival participants are not necessarily the views of The Ethics Centre and our partners.