Published 24 May 2009 · Main Posts Sydney Writers’ Festival Jeff Sparrow Back from the SWF now. Didn’t actually get to go to anything much, other than events in which I was directly involved — the problem is that you are either preparing for sessions or recovering from them. Rjurik’s already posted something about the Greer event but there’s varying assessments of it floating around the web. Here‘s an assessment by Tara Moss (‘Greer’s speech was pointed, funny and full of zeal’); Guy Rundle was more critical in Crikey. To be honest, I wasn’t really looking forward to the event on literary journals (with Meanjin and Griffith Review) cos it’s a panel that seems to have been done so many times. But it seemed to go pretty well, with a particularly interesting back and forth towards, in which people put forward different positions about the impact of the digital revolution. As for the event on climate change, well, they had to turn people away, which is always a good sign. David, Sharon and Tim spoke passionately and about half the session was given over to questions and answers. Someone was asking as to whether the thing was recorded. The answer is that I don’t know. There did seem to be lots of high-tech equipment about but I’m not sure as to what the SWF policy on podcasting actually is. Jeff Sparrow Jeff Sparrow is a Walkley Award-winning writer, broadcaster and former editor of Overland. More by Jeff Sparrow Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays First published in Overland Issue 228 25 May 202326 May 2023 · Main Posts The ‘Chinese question’ and colonial capitalism in New Gold Mountain Christy Tan SBS’s New Gold Mountain sets out to recover the history of the Gold Rush from the marginalised perspective of Chinese settlers but instead reinforces the erasure of Indigenous sovereignty. Although celebrated for its multilingual script and diverse representation, the mini-TV series ignores how the settlement of Chinese migrants and their recruitment into colonial capitalism consolidates the ongoing displacement of First Nations peoples. First published in Overland Issue 228 15 February 202322 February 2023 · Main Posts Self-translation and bilingual writing as a transnational writer in the age of machine translation Ouyang Yu To cut a long story short, it all boils down to the need to go as far away from oneself as possible before one realizes another need to come back to reclaim what has been lost in the process while tying the knot of the opposite ends and merging them into a new transformation.