Overland 254 is the first in a set of four special editions dedicated to commemorating 70 years of Overland. This issue also launches a new design and format by Common Room Editions, inspired by Overland’s trove of radical literature spanning from 1954 to today. Andrew Brooks and Astrid Lorange consider the asymmetrical responses to two events: the wearing of keffiyehs by three cast members during the Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Anton Chekov’s The Seagull, and, on the same day in the US, the shooting of three Palestinian men wearing keffiyehs. Jeff Sparrow uncovers the Sydney Herald’s legacy of Terra Nullius, and Daniel Lopez writes on Marx, Meredith and the festival as an inversion of modern life.
Devleena Ghosh is a Professor in Social and Political Sciences at UTS. She researches and has published widely in environmental and postcolonial studies, specifically on India and Indian Ocean connections. Currently, she is researching coal mining in Chattisgarh, progressive women’s movements in India and Australia and syncretic religious practices in India. Her most recent book is Teacher for Justice: Lucy Woodcock's Transnational Life (with Heather Goodall and Helen Randerson) (ANU Press 2019).
