Contemporary works of cultural studies to deepen understanding and broaden perspective
The digital world, the bitter legacy of colonialism, the challenges of artificial intelligence and more. These recent nonfiction reads will expand your understanding and broaden your perspective of some of today's most pressing issues.
The Dark Cloud by Guillaume Pitron (trans. Bianca Jacobsohn)
It turns out that the ‘dematerialised’ digital world, essential for communicating, working, and consuming, is much more tangible than we would like to believe. Today, it absorbs 10 per cent of the world’s electricity and represents nearly 4 per cent of the planet’s carbon dioxide emissions. We are struggling to understand these impacts, as they are obscured to us in the mirage of ‘the cloud’.
The Dark Cloud, the result of an investigation carried out over two years on four continents, reveals the anatomy of a technology that is virtual only in name. Under the guise of limiting the impact of humans on the planet, is already asserting itself as one of the major environmental challenges of the twenty-first century.
The Queen Is Dead by Stan Grant
From one of our most respected and award-winning journalists, Stan Grant, The Queen is Dead is a searing, viscerally powerful, emotionally unstoppable, pull-no-punches book on the bitter legacy of colonialism for indigenous people.
Taking us on a journey through the world's fault lines, from the war in Ukraine, the rise of China, the identity wars, the resurgence of white supremacy, and the demand that Black Lives Matter, The Queen is Dead is a full-throated, impassioned argument on the necessity for an end to monarchy in Australia, the need for a Republic, and what needs to be done – through the Voice to Parliament and beyond – to address and redress the pain and sorrow and humiliations of the past.
She and Her Pretty Friend by Danielle Scrimshaw
A joyous look at the history of lesbian and bisexual women in Australia – from colonisation to convict times, through suffrage and liberation to today.
Throughout history, women’s relationships have been downgraded and diminished. Instead of lovers, they are documented as particularly close friends; the type that made out, worked, lived, and are buried together. Besties, if you will. She and Her Pretty Friend aims to dispel this myth. It is an exploration of women’s relationships through Australian history, each chapter centring on a specific person, couple, or time period.
Personal Score by Ellen van Neerven
Sport is such a big part of ‘Australian’ life and identity but one that is rarely unpacked or questioned. With the incredible upsurge in the popularity of women’s sport comes the potential to reshape the narratives around sport and culture. As Personal Score examines, many athletes challenge mainstream views of gender and sexuality, and use sport and their role within it to effect change not only in their own sporting realm, but more broadly in the wider culture and society.
Moreover, van Neerven interrogates the implications of playing sport on stolen land and how this complicates questions of identity around sport, who plays it and where.
Man-Made by Tracey Spicer
'Mum, I want a robot slave.’ Broadcaster Tracey Spicer had an epiphany when her young son uttered these six words. Suddenly, her life’s work fighting inequality seemed futile. What’s the point in agitating to change the present, if bigotry is being embedded into our futures? And so began a quest to uncover who was responsible and hold them to account. Who is the ultimate villain? Big Tech, whose titans refuse to spend money to fix the problem? The world’s politicians, who lack the will to legislate? Or should we all be walking into a hall of mirrors and taking a good, hard look at ourselves…?
This is a deeply researched, illuminating and gripping ride into an uncertain future, culminating in a resounding call to action that will shake the tech sector to its foundations.
Monsters by Claire Dederer
What do we do with the art of monstrous men? Can we love the work of Roman Polanski and Michael Jackson, Hemingway and Picasso? Should we love it? Does genius deserve special dispensation? Is history an excuse? What makes women artists monstrous? And what should we do with beauty, and with our unruly feelings about it?
Claire Dederer explores these questions and our relationships with the artists whose behaviour disrupts our ability to apprehend the work on its own terms. She interrogates her own responses and her own behaviour, and she pushes the fan, and the reader, to do the same. Morally wise, deeply considered and sharply written, Monsters gets to the heart of one of our most pressing conversations.
