Great minds, big ideas, strong views.
The 2017 edition of the highly regarded Journal of Urgent Writing is the place to find the answers to the big questions. Editor Simon Wilson invited 23 of New Zealand’s best thinkers to ponder the “state of our nation”, and ponder they did. Their strong views about everything from climate change and social investment to race, identity, Trump, community, urbanisation, tertiary education and politics coalesce around a dream about a different, better Aotearoa.
As Wilson says, “Change is in the air. Volatility now attends to politics, economics, social structures, value systems and so much more, and with it comes opportunity. Donald Trump looms in the background of all the Journal’s essays (and is directly the subject of one of them), but against his corrosive influence there is a countervailing sense of hope. A sense that old ways are failing and new solutions might be at hand”.
The Journal of Urgent Writing features:
- Morgan Godfery on identity
- Jess Berentson-Shaw on social investment
- Andrew Judd on racism
- Carys Goodwin on climate change
- Conor Clarke on dirt
- David Cohen on Popper, Plato, Hegel and Marx
- Emma Espiner on a tikanga Māori world
- Gilbert Wong on growing up Chinese
- Assistant Vice-Chancellor Research, Academic and Enterprise Professor Giselle Byrnes on why universities matter
- Jo Randerson on dying
- Māmari Stephens on our threatened marae
- Victor Rodger on being actually brown
- Maria Majsa on Johnny Rotten
- Max Harris on dreams
- Dr Mike Joy and Kyleisha Foote on dams
- Raf Manji on a new progressive agenda
- Sarah Laing on menstruation
- Sylvia Nissen on youth and politics
- Teena Brown Pulu on three Tongan funerals
- Tim Watkin on explaining Trump
- Simon Wilson on a radical centre
About the editor
Simon Wilson is the Auckland affairs editor at The Spinoff, where he writes about politics, social and urban issues, and the arts. He is the former editor of Metro and Cuisine magazines. Simon has won many awards for his journalism, both as a writer and an editor, including two for the Canon Magazine of the Year.