It is now twenty years since the first Matrix film was released. Written and directed by the Wachowski sisters, Lilly and Lana, the film became a social phenomenon, transforming science fiction in the process. Inspired by everything from cyberpunk literature to the philosophies of Jean Baudrillard and René Descartes to the Gnostic gospels, the film was a melange of images and ideas that nevertheless found a mass audience.  

Slow TV (Sakte-TV) is a Norwegian concept that has captivated its native country, drawing in millions of viewers to watch the most mundane of events. The first episode, which aired in 2009, was a seven-hour train journey from Bergen to Oslo that was watched by a million Norwegians. Other shows followed, including twenty-four hours of salmon fishing, six hours of making a fire and watching it burn, and a twelve-hour knitting marathon.

Mothers are so ubiquitous in popular culture so as to be invisible. Cultural depictions of mothers are still, by and large, functional – women solely defined by their relationships to others, rather than full subjects with desires and anxieties of their own. Thankfully though, this is slowly changing, and we are beginning to see more nuanced representations of mothers. Here are five mothers who pushed the boundaries of maternal representation this year.

It is – or should be – the role of creative writing programs to challenge students’ ideas, to confront and reconsider every assumption a student might hold. Craft matters, but so too does originality of thought, of building on knowledge to produce something genuinely new. Removing literary theory from writing courses is an anti-intellectual move that is ultimately self-defeating, and it is one that de-politicises creative work.

While Zionism as an ideology and political project has been ideologically dominant among diaspora Jewry for the best part of a century, there are signs that there is at the very least an emerging ambivalence in Jewish communities about Zionism and the broader project of Jewish sovereignty. The appearance of groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now that support the BDS movement is one sign of an ongoing sea-change in the Jewish community. Another such sign, interestingly, is a new work of alternative history by American Jewish writer Simone Zelitch called Judenstaat (‘Jewish State’).

It is in this textual tradition that Transparent unfortunately falls, with its lead character Maura, a trans woman played by a man, Jeffrey Tambor, an actor best known for playing the patriarch on Arrested Development. Queer theorist Judith Butler has recently cogently pointed out that Transparent, while very good on representing Judaism, harks back to The Birdcage in its level of cliched representation of transness.

In particular, the primary and secondary education sectors are a minefield of homophobic and transphobic law, institutional practice and everyday discrimination. In this, LGBTQI people are the collateral damage of the neoliberal push towards privatisation.

Transgender is in the zeitgeist recently.  From an acclaimed episode of Four Corners on the ABC to transgender woman Captain Catherine McGregor’s appearance on Q&A to Human Rights commissioner Tim Wilson’s piece on The Drum about how ‘it’s time for the transgender talk, Australia,’ the visibility of transgender people has never been higher in Australia – a positive development for an oft-maligned community.  Or so it would seem.