Published in Overland Issue 246 Autumn 2022 · Uncategorized Editorial Evelyn Araluen and Jonathan Dunk In July critics and teachers of Australian literature met in Nipaluna/Hobart to commemorate the thirty-year anniversary of the Mabo decision, and to trace its various afterlives in the novels, films, and poems of the settler-colony. Keynotes and papers contemplating the changing aesthetics and politics of Australian writing were punctuated by austere reminders of the decimation of an already exclusionary humanities sector. The scattering of early career researchers subsidising precarious sessional work by drawing on their superannuation, stories of suddenly terminated contracts in place of missing colleagues, and remaining ones drowning under compounding administrative duties as professional services are stripped to their absolute and untenable minimums. The dissonance between symbolic progress and material regress was a stark reminder of the disingenuities settlement, and the inadequacy of merely representational politics. The essays in this edition of Overland are un-themed, but all investigate the relationship between place and labour, and the necessity of collectively re-imagining that relationship. Bugalwan, solidarity, Evelyn Araluen & Jonathan Dunk Read the rest of Overland 246 If you enjoyed this piece, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four brilliant issues for a year Evelyn Araluen Shillan Shebly is a scholar-organiser from Rojhelat (Eastern Kurdistan) and a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne. She is a member of the National Network of Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, 3CR Community Radio and the Institute of Postcolonial Studies. More by Evelyn Araluen › Jonathan Dunk Jonathan Dunk is the co-editor of Overland, a widely published poet and scholar. He lives on Wurundjeri country. More by Jonathan Dunk › 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 18 July 2025 · Friday Fiction Inner ants Caitlin Mahony The shower tap squeaks as Ray finally turns it off. I sit, cross armed on the couch. Pippa is sprawled across the floorboards in a patch of sunlight, oblivious to the impending volcanic eruption. 16 July 202516 July 2025 · The university The People’s Inquiry shines a light on Palestine repression at Australian universities James McVicar Our universities are employing police-state tactics to discipline and punish students and staff for their opposition to the Gaza genocide. The fact that this censorship is regularly couched in the language of “safety” and “well-being” — while Palestinians in Gaza lining up for starvation rations are being gunned down daily — adds a bitter layer of irony to this disturbing situation.
