Published in Overland Issue 212 Spring 2013 · Uncategorized Editorial Jeff Sparrow Overland goes to press with the federal election some weeks away. Yet, while the parliamentary winner remains uncertain, it’s already perfectly apparent who will lose. The poll marks a renewed demonisation of asylum seekers, with the major parties competing to heap cruelties upon the heads of those with the temerity to seek refuge in Australia. The entirety of the political establishment remains committed to a neoliberalism that produces a noxious mixture of consumerism and repression – as George Steiner put it: ‘The knout on the one hand; the cheeseburger on the other.’ That’s why Overland matters. In the nearly six decades since its foundation, Overland has been regularly accused of intemperance, of insufficient respect for the etiquette of literary culture. But as the Wobbly T-Bone Slim once argued, ‘Wherever you find injustice, the proper form of politeness is attack.’ A little journal cannot, in and of itself, change the culture. But it can help progressive writers and readers to find each other. It can provide a space in which ideas can be exchanged and tested, where arguments can be had and strategies debated. And it can boost the morale of those who do not think the world was made for a small minority to dance on the faces of everyone else. This is not a time for writers to turn inward, however tempting that might seem. On the contrary, there’s never been more need for engagement with issues and controversies. That’s the spirit motivating this edition – and the Overland project as a whole. Jeff Sparrow Jeff Sparrow is a Walkley Award-winning writer, broadcaster and former editor of Overland. More by Jeff Sparrow › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays First published in Overland Issue 228 25 September 202326 September 2023 · The university Solidarity but only among managers, or the future of the university sector Hannah Forsyth The process continued during Covid. Jobs were being cut due to the threats posed by the pandemic, yet more scholars were being recruited. Nice people, good at their job. But why are we doing this, we kept asking. Management kept telling us we have a funding crisis (which often turned to a surplus in the end), so why are we also on a hiring spree? All along it looked like it could end badly, for all of us. First published in Overland Issue 228 15 September 202326 September 2023 · Friday Features Activating the poetic spirit as friendship John Kinsella I’ve always had the aching feeling that—as a text to be shared among friends and maybe eventually ‘enemies’—the soul-body dialogue poem is a way of arguing towards spiritual certainty in the face of earthly corruption and doubt.