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.
Mary Tomsic is an ARC Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Melbourne researching the history of visual representations of child refugees. Her book Beyond the Silver Screen: A History of Women, Filmmaking and Film Culture in Australia 1920-1990 will be published in October this year. Her teaching and research interests are in cultural history, Australian film culture and history of gender and sexualities.
