Studying a book or film can be a short-cut to consigning it to boredom. But our Texts in the City series – a gift to students, their teachers and lifelong...
Don’t miss this rare opportunity to enter the minds of the world’s greatest jazz masters. These free sessions, hosted by Fem Belling, see the Festival’s...
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From 2010, Melbourne will have a new kind of cultural institution. The Wheeler Centre. A centre dedicated to the discussion and practice of writing and ideas. Through a year-round programme of talks and lectures, readings and debates, we invite you to join the conversation.
Are you still looking for the Mr Darcy to your Elizabeth Bennett? Cathy to your Heathcliff? Or even a playboy millionaire for a little B&D, if that’s your...
The passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in December 1948 was the last act of World War II – and the first act of the post-war human...
Dave O’Neil invites a merry bunch of vagabonds to share with us their most treasured possessions – their record collections. Join us for a High...
In 2012, feminism became the literary world’s latest buzzword. The Stella Prize, Australia’s first prize to reward a woman writer for the best book of the...
There’s a special bond between a grandparent and a grandchild that sets their relationship apart from any other. Catriona Rowntree knows this first hand....
The Emerging Writers' Festival brings writers together – with each other and new audiences – to inspire, create and entertain. It just keeps getting...
We’ve created an Australian Classics book club, just for you – with special writerly guests each month. Last year’s hugely popular Australian Literature...
Presented by the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Websites, blogs, social media, YouTube, iTunes, live streaming and podcasts… The worldwide web...
Jess McGuire probes a line-up of comedic talent on their experiences in the lovosphere. How far are they willing to exploit their private lives for...
What’s funnier (and sexier) than 50 Shades of Grey? Long before E.L. James turned her Twilight fantasies into a cash cow, there was Erotic Fan Fiction – a...
Advertising’s re-branded public image troubles me. I’m an old employee of the industry, and The Gruen Transfer reminds me of conversations I had within...
When Queen Victoria died in 1901, two literary gentlemen took on a monumental task: selecting and editing her vast correspondence. The book they produced...
For all the discussion, debate, money and time spent on Aboriginal advancement in Australia, how much do we really understand about indigenous life and...
This year, PEN Melbourne’s annual International Women’s Day event features a conversation with the bestselling author Alice Pung, the celebrated author of...
Visiting from the United States for the Rationalist Society of Australia, hear Sean Faircloth speak to the issues raised in his book Attack of the...
J.M. Coetzee is one of the world’s most prized literary treasures – and we’re lucky enough to have him living right here in Australia. The first author to...
In May 2012 Kirstie Clements was sacked after more than a decade in the editor’s chair at Vogue Australia. In her new book The Vogue Factor (and today’s...
John Wood left a lucrative career at Microsoft to found Room to Read, a global charity that has helped more than six million children in developing...
What is the role of the modern ambassador? How much influence do they really have? While the days of Argo are probably long gone, so too is a life of...
Privacy in the digital age is a hot-button issue, from WikiLeaks to who owns your Facebook photos. With Liberty Victoria, we present a hypothetical...
One of the biggest untold tragedies in our world is the simple fact that 2.5 billion people still lack safe sanitation; somewhere to go to the toilet,...
Pregnancy is natural, healthy and fun, right? Sure it is, if you’re lucky. But instead of a natural glow and orgasmic birth, Monica Dux experienced...
Many people in the Pacific and South Africa are facing changing weather patterns, limiting their access to land and impacting their ability to grow food...
Men and women both suffer depression, but men experience it differently. They’re less likely to acknowledge it and more likely to seek comfort at the...
The obsession with the perfect diet, germ-free homes, selective socialising, harm minimisation through choice of the correct fabrics, risk minimisation...
The ‘I’ word was once taboo in journalism – but these days, the ‘I’s seem to well and truly have it. The online age has heralded the rise of the celebrity...
David Shields has been hailed as a writing revolutionary. His wildly inventive ‘manifesto’ Reality Hunger, a broadside against the contemporary novel, has...
We all know Jonathan Franzen is a twitcher. But did you know Tom Hanks likes to collect 1940s typewriters? Or that Johnny Depp likes to play with dolls?...
Dr Adam Kerezsy is a freshwater ecologist who works in some of the driest rivers and springs of inland Australia. Working with Bush Heritage Australia, he...
We’ve partnered with one of Melbourne’s oldest institutions to create the Wheeler Centre Zoo Fellowships – a unique opportunity for Melbourne artists to...
In the clash between money and conservation, money usually wins – with devastating results in a land that tolerates few mistakes. Tim Flannery delivers a...
One of the most exhilarating things about travel is the way it takes you outside yourself – to discover new people, places and ideas. It also shifts your...
In today’s wired-up world, we can be with anyone, anywhere at any time. We have hundreds of ‘friends’, habitually ‘follow’ strangers and work from virtual...
Ramona Koval has long entered the lounge rooms and accompanied the car journeys of book lovers around Australia with ABC Radio National’s The Book Show....
Ben Elton is a writing all-rounder: he got his start creating cult television comedy classics like The Young Ones and Blackadder, then moved onto novels,...
It’s the ultimate writing championship! Come see Australian authors go head-to-head in a fearsome battle of wits, words and waggery. Jeff Sparrow, Amy...
Five years ago, the tone of discussion about the book industry shifted from ‘confidence’ to ‘crisis’, as online shopping and the emergence of e-books...
Geordie Williamson, one of our leading literary critics, approaches books and writing with the ardour of an enthusiast – though he’s also alarmed at the...
What is ‘forced people movement’, or ‘mixed flow migration’ – and where do refugees fit? We use many terms for those people who feel compelled to leave...
In the fight against the Japanese during World War II, the most disturbing events endured by the Australian soldiers occurred at Sandakan, in North...
The annual Foxtel Screenwriter’s Address, presented by the Australian Writers’ Foundation, recognises the ways in which writers shape our society and...
Richard Gill has worked in music and education for 50 years – and has never missed a chance to sing the praises of both. In a frank and fearless new...
Bedtime stories are a treasured ritual for parents and children everywhere – and not just because they’re the best recipe invented for a good night’s...
The Fifth Estate is the Wheeler Centre’s series of fortnightly forums: a more measured approach to news and current affairs. Provocative and studied,...
The revolutionary potential of rock and roll has long been a worn-out cliché in the West, where the Rolling Stones do commercials and rappers hang with...
Dr Nouria Salehi OAM is executive director of the Afghan Australian Development Organisation. A voluntary, non-profit, non-government, member...
Most Melburnians know Lily Brett as a literary bestseller, her novels peopled with wisecracking Holocaust survivors obsessed with food and death. But in...
What do we expect from a 21st-century university? Which ideals have survived the transition to our brave new education world? And what does it mean when...
Following the tsunami and ensuing nuclear disaster at Fukushima last year, former diplomat and ambassador Richard Broinowski travelled to the irradiated...
Today’s consumer culture persistently uses girls as icons of sexual attractiveness in advertising, film and television. In the nineteenth century, print...
For many, multiculturalism has come to mean a flawed approach to integrating migrants. But has it been a failure? Political philosopher and commentator...
Writing a Novel' is an intensive, practical course for writers who are ready to make the leap into creating a full-length work of fiction. For six months...
Today’s American media is sharply divided along left and right political lines, with little room in the middle for the objective news and current affairs...
Michael H. Shuman has been working on local economy issues for 15 years. He’s an economist, attorney, author, and entrepreneur. Michael argues that there...
From the old days of The Brady Bunch and Bewitched to today’s ‘golden age of television’, where screenwriters and show-runners like Joss Whedon and...
When President Obama was welcomed for his ‘night of friendship’ dinner with Prime Minister Gillard in Canberra last year, he feasted on ‘a macadamia and...
Hiroshi Ishiguro is one of the top 100 geniuses alive in the world today – and the creator of some of the most life-like robots ever made. Ishiguro’s...
Q: What’s as Australian as Vegemite and as American as apple pie? A: The new issue of McSweeney’s, the US literary journal so hip it should be wearing...
Feminism’s over, they say. It’s achieved all its goals. Women are equal now, so we should all shut up and go home. But if feminism has really succeeded,...
David Marr’s Quarterly Essay on former PM Kevin Rudd marked the beginning of the end. Was it a well-timed coincidence, or a body blow he never recovered...
If you look up ‘literary hipster’ in the dictionary, you just might find a picture of McSweeney’s, the San Francisco-based publishing company started by...
Introduced by Bendigo businesswoman Margot Spalding, Ita Buttrose will talk about her amazing life, as a warm-up to her keynote address. Hosted in the...
We are delighted to be partnering with a sweep of wonderful festivals in Victoria’s regions this winter. What better excuse to get out into the...
The Fifth Estate is the Wheeler Centre’s new series of fortnightly forums: a more measured approach to news and current affairs. Provocative and studied,...
India observers, devotees of immersion journalism and lovers of good writing agree: New Yorker staffer Katherine Boo’s account of life in a Mumbai slum is...
Australia’s population has become a political hot potato. With forecasts of 30–40 million people by 2050 and up to 60 million by 2100, Australians are...
Sex, sex, sex… and celebrity. Not all storytelling is about boarding schools, bloodsuckers and bow-slinging lady killers. In this adults-only night of...
Slavery did not end 200 years ago. There are 27 million slaves in the world today – poor and vulnerable people who are owned, bonded or trafficked –...
In our ecologically-threatened world, birds have a vitally important place in the human psyche. At a more intimate level their wondrous nests – exquisite,...
Australia is famous for its blokey blokes and strong, silent types. But few men fit the lazy stereotype of being obsessed with beer, babes and balls. In...
For many years Sean Condon was represented by the most respected and influential agent in Europe. But when she died suddenly he had to find a new one. It...
Jenny Gray, CEO of Zoos Victoria, speaks passionately about the role of zoos in fighting extinction, in preserving species at risk, and in engaging...
In the annual Walter Lippmann Memorial Lecture, hear former Federal Minister for Finance and Deregulation, Lindsay Tanner argue that while the mechanical...
In the Australian election of 2010, hundreds of thousands of voters chose not to cast a ballot. A new book of essays, edited by Jeff Sparrow and Antony...
Sometimes there’s nothing better than a good rant. Every Thursday, the Wheeler Centre hosts an old-fashioned Speakers’ Corner in the middle of the city,...
We’re interested in how the world and art collide. We think it’s most interesting when art is seen in context. In a time of intense political confusion,...
The Breakfast Club is a series of talks events, presented in partnership with the Next Wave Festival, and held at breakfast time: on weekdays at 8am, on...
Who tells the story of a country? What story does a country’s national literature tell about its people and its identity? Is there such a thing as...
Tamsin Roberts opened her first gallery in 2005 in Beijing. Now the director of Art Melbourne, previously known as the Affordable Art Fair, she discusses...
No matter how compelling a novel or a film might be, if you have to study it, there’s always the risk you’ll end up hating it. Not any more! A gift to VCE...
Internationally bestselling crime writer Peter James makes his living exposing the murky underbelly beneath the postcard-perfect facade of seaside...
Across the world, the story is the same. Sex scandal. Media frenzy. Another prominent man caught with his pants down. Sex therapist and social commentator...
Kathy Lette pioneered smart, funny fiction with a frivolous edge (and a feminist flavour). Her heroines find themselves in sticky situations that range...
Join us to celebrate the launch of the fabulous Emerging Writers' Festival program 2012. Three writers from a wide range of genres discuss the art of...
Anna Rose is co-founder and Chair of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition. Her new book Madlands: A Journey to Change the Mind of a Climate Sceptic...
From Breaking Bad and The Wire to home-grown drug drama Underbelly, we couldn’t be more fascinated by the war against drugs. Walkley-award-winning...
Is it time to rethink Australia’s drug policy? Join Dr Alex Wodak AM, Senior Specialist of St Vincent Hospital’s Alcohol and Drug Service and President of...
More than half of the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims, and 60% of the world’s Christians, live along the ‘tenth parallel’. This latitudinal line, spanning the...
Join us for a unique opportunity to share the company of two of the most inventive – and critically acclaimed – writers working in Spanish today, both of...