Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 · Culture Introducing Overland 235 Jacinda Woodhead We live in a period in which all art is reproducible, stripped of aura and authenticity – that is, the rituals that once made artworks unique: they were physically present in a specific time and place or crafted by only certain individuals. Is the old art even possible ‘when there are self-acting mules, railways, locomotives and electric telegraphs?’, Marx once asked. So what is a left-wing literary magazine today, besides 96 pages of fiction, poetry and essays each quarter? I have debated this question a lot over the decade I’ve worked at Overland, but I’m yet to reach firm conclusions, mostly because this magazine is a reflection of the period, and the period is permanently shifting. Can you remember a world before Donald Trump or the internet? It has been a privilege to edit a magazine that emerged from different left traditions and continues to find new ways to foster radical spaces and thought. For me, it has always been the making of the magazines that I loved (18 print editions since 2015, and countless online editions and pieces) and the ephemerality of each edition, a collaboration shaped by all the ideas and forces around it. Now more than ever, we need projects like Overland: we may not always agree with the positions and experiments published in its pages, but it’s critical to build spaces where collective alternatives, where collective futures can be articulated. This edition shows how Overland is necessary: every contribution makes visible that which usually goes unseen, from the ‘barriers’ in the health sector that Ellen van Neerven recounts, to the plight of workers, employed and unemployed, that Godfrey Moase describes, to the impossibility of migrating to Australia that Giovanni Tiso outlines, to Giacomo Lichtner’s essay on Primo Levi and Auschwitz, to the lives of Tony Birch’s brother and Enza Gandolfo’s mother. From ‘the economist’ to hymens to the literary ambitions of children, the stories here are not visible unless you go looking for them, perhaps in the mountains of Asturias or perhaps in the pages of a small literary magazine. Thank you to all the writers, artists, editors and readers who make Overland the literary force that it is. Read the rest of Overland 235 If you enjoyed this piece, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four brilliant issues for a year Jacinda Woodhead Jacinda Woodhead is a former editor of Overland and current law student. More by Jacinda Woodhead › 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 17 April 202417 April 2024 · Culture From the edge of the circle pit: growing up punk and girl in Indonesia Dina Indrasafitri Circa 1999, I sat on the floor in a poorly lit house on the outskirts of Jakarta, still in my grey-and-white high-school uniform. The members of the protest punk band Anti-Military were plotting their first album recording in the next room. Scattered around me were political pamphlets, zines and books touching on the subjects of anarchism, anti-work and anti-racism. 3 12 October 202313 October 2023 · Culture The work of friendship: the new communities of Melbourne’s 60s and 70s counterculture Molly McKew The urban counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s played a historically significant role in establishing friendship communities as a key social institution — communities that have the potential to be just as profound, transformative, and fulfilling as romantic love. The profound ways our means of finding social sustenance, along with continuing shifts in the nature of adulthood itself, suggest this revolution is yet to reach its zenith.
