Finding Soho

Published in Peril Learning All my life, English served as the only language that I could read and write reasonably well – the only language that I could express complex thoughts in; the only language through which I could feel deeply; the language that I could argue in; and the language that formed the basis of my critical faculties. My grasp of my two other primary languages was always less than adequate for any of those higher-order tasks. The foundations for this were laid during school.   However, in school, even though English was the medium of instruction and we studied English Literature quite seriously, our learning of the language was flawed. The absence of an organic link between what we read and how we spoke reflected this most markedly. While we read (or were supposed to read) Wordsworth, Dickens, Shakespeare, and all the rest of the “traditional” canon—our curriculum was developed by English classicists in the early twentieth century, and changed very margin...

Published in Southern Crossings American writer Lionel Shriver recently delivered a keynote speech at the Brisbane Writer's Festival where she discussed cultural appropriation, authorial autonomy, social expectations around works of art and a host of other subjects that have arguably been at the forefront of much critical debate in recent times. Her speech provoked a lot of debate, as well as the usual outrage, grandstanding and squabbling on Twitter. I read the speech as well as some responses to it, and also listened to a discussion about it on the radio. I thought the speech raised many valid questions and argued convincingly against certain contemporary trends. In this blog post, using Shriver's speech as a point of departure, I want to discuss four distinct ideas or areas of concern that I think are pertinent to the conversation at hand.  Authorial voice Shriver's speech, at its core, was about authorial autonomy. Howev...

Living with millennials can be tough. I think I count as a millennial too, but I think my upbringing disabused me of a lot of the sense of entitlement I see underlying millennials' conduct in Australia.  Allow me to generalise.  First, they are quite unreliable when it comes to confirming meetings and timings. I remember receiving texts from a number of people when I was looking for housemates earlier this year - texts confirming meetings with them - only to have no notification (or only last-minute notification) of their intention to cancel. The fact that this inconveniences the person you're supposed to meet - that they, in fact, absolutely need to be told that you can (or intend to) no longer meet them - does not seem to occur to some people.  I suspect this is partly because of the sheer volume of communication that millennials habitually engage in. They are constantly on their phones, texting out hundreds of messages daily, and it does not...