The Journal

255 Winter 2024

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This issue goes to print on the cusp of a darkening world… Overland 255 is the second issue in a suite of four special editions dedicated to commemorating 70 years of Overland. In this issue, Samuel J Cox interviews Kim Scott on his works True Country (1993) and Benang (1995) in ‘Writing from the South’. Elsewhere, Juliet Scott interrogates ‘The Australian Media’s problem with Palestine’ and Sam Ryan looks back at Overland and the state of arts funding in Australia from 1973 to 1975. This issue also features poetry from Yeena Kirkbright, DJ Huppatz, Debbie Lim, among others, and short fiction from Lauren Collee, Madeline Byrne and Jordan Smith.

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Overland literary journal > Articles by: Michael Richardson

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Michael Richardson

Dr Michael Richardson teaches writing, literature and media, and researches trauma, torture, political violence, and surveillance. A former speechwriter, he also writes political commentary and book reviews, and is completing his first novel. He tweets at @richardson_m_a.

Articles by Michael Richardson:

26 February 201418 October 2021 · Main Posts

A fair crack of the whip?

Michael Richardson

In his 2011 book In Defense of Flogging, American criminologist Peter Moskos proposes offering a choice to those about to be incarcerated: serve your sentence, or receive a flogging. He argues that given both the deeply ingrained human desire to punish and the terrible suffering that occurs in prisons, almost any punishment is preferable to incarceration.