This is the Capitoline Venus, the Roman copy of a second-century BC Greek original which ordinarily graces the hall of the Capitoline Museums in Rome. She’s in the so-called ‘modest’ position as per the canon of the Venus pudica, the left hand covering the groin, the right hand doing a rather poor job of concealing the breasts. However, even this proverbial modesty was deemed insufficient last month, when it was decided to place the Venus in a box – or rather, to build a box around her – to protect the sensibility of visiting dignitaries.

Fear of books is an ancient phenomenon. Some 360 years ago, John Milton had what should have been the last word on the foolishness of book censorship when he published Areopagitica in 1644. Milton’s treatise on censorship seems particularly relevant to the discussion of Family First’s appeal against Dawe’s novel. How is it that Milton, a dedicated Christian – in fact a radical Puritan – could advocate ‘promiscuous’ reading (Milton’s word), while the modern Christian organisation Family First seeks to restrict access to certain books?

Dean Biron is an independent scholar who has taught, researched and published in areas such as media studies, child protection and welfare, popular music, Australian film, sociology and criminology. In 2011 he was co-awarded the ABR Calibre Essay Prize for his work ‘The Death of the Writer’. He is also a former police detective. We chat to Dean today about his essay ‘The Aesthetics of Conservatism’, which appears in the latest issue of Overland.

On 20 July 2011, the Australian government served David Hicks with a notice of their intent to restrain any funds obtained from the sale of his book, Guantanamo: My Journey, under the Commonwealth Proceeds of Crime Act. After Hicks was captured in Afghanistan and sold to the US by the Northern Alliance, he spent six […]

Just as the Sydney Writers’ Festival has packed itself up for another year, the Sydney Film Festival has rolled into town to cater for the needs of those not satisfied by Dan Brown adaptations and cooking shows (thank you, Mr Carey). What a grand thing the festival is too, if for no other reason than […]

A few days ago, we received a letter (published below) signed by six Australian academics: Professor Bernard Rechter, Professor Douglas Kirsner, Professor Andrew Markus, Dr Bill Anderson, Dr Nick Dyrenfurth and Associate Professor Philip Mendes. They were, they said, collectively writing to the board of Overland and to its patron, Barry Jones, about ‘recent editorial […]

Nudes are in the news again. Specifically, under-age nudity has reared its terribly inappropriate head recently with the abolition of the artistic purpose defence in child pornography cases. It’s never been more exciting, or perhaps dangerous, to be doing stuff in the buff. The reforms to current child pornography laws emerged from the NSW Child […]

In Guy Rundle’s essay in Overland 197, he describes the evolution of modern Labor: The party no longer seeks to take control of objects (the products of the economy) for the benefit of subjects (the working class and the Australian people in general) but instead seeks to control subjects (especially the sub-groups and cultures that […]