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Arts & culture
News about visual, literary and performing arts, languages and other aspects of culture
Latest news
19 April 2024
Dunera Boys theatre production recreated for 81st anniversary
Associate Professor Ian Maxwell, Chair of Theatre and Performance Studies, is researching and recreating theatre created by the original Dunera Boys while interned as enemy aliens during the Second World War, including a musical revue titled Sergeant Snow White.
13 April 2024
AI can write you a poem and edit your video. Now, it can help you be funnier
University of Sydney researchers have developed an AI application using cartoons from The New Yorker to help people be funnier.
05 April 2024
ABBA: 50 years since Waterloo
Dr Jadey O'Regan, lecturer in Contemporary Music Practice at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, recalls the magic of ABBA's Waterloo as the group releases a 50th anniversary edition of their classic pop album.
04 April 2024
Museum removes Egyptian body parts from galleries
The Chau Chak Wing Museum has this week removed unwrapped mummified body parts from its Egyptian galleries.
03 April 2024
Puppets could offer valuable support for autistic teenagers
Puppets could potentially provide autistic teens with a tool to communicate, express their identity and interact socially in ways that are uniquely their own, according to a new study by Dr Olivia Karaolis, lecturer in special and inclusive education.
22 March 2024
Svetlana Sterlin wins Australia's richest poetry prize
Svetlana Sterlin, a Brisbane poet, has won the 2023 Helen Anne Bell Poetry Bequest Award for her book-length unpublished manuscript called If Movement were a Language. The prize includes $40,000 and publication of her manuscript by Vagabond Press.
21 March 2024
American Civil War: prize-winning new book reveals plight of underage soldiers
Associate Professor Frances M. Clarke, an historian in the School of Humanities, has won the Lincoln Prize, the highest American Civil War history prize, for her book exploring the importance of underage enlistment in the American Civil War era.
14 March 2024
The risks of a digital cold war
Dr Chunmeizi Su from the Discipline of Media and Communications says if we're voting yes for a TikTok ban, we're voting for a new digital cold war, further away from the globalised internet as it should be.
06 March 2024
The Lewis Trilogy is ultimately about a love for theatre
Associate Professor Ian Maxwell, Chair of Theatre and Performance Studies, reviews The Lewis Trilogy, a sweeping tale by Australian playwright Louis Nowra, and ponders the power of a shared love of theatre in a "strange little room" between 120 in the audience.
05 March 2024
Sydney Con announces 2024 Indigenous Artists-in-Residence
The Sydney Conservatorium of Music welcomes Nancy Bates and Tim Gray as the 2024 Indigenous Artists-in-Residence. They follow a successful residency by artists Nardi Simpson and Troy Russell.
04 March 2024
Chau Chak Wing Museum announces Biennale of Sydney artists
Twenty artists from Australia and around the world bring a breadth of formats and perspectives to the Chau Chak Wing Museum for the 24th Biennale of Sydney.
28 February 2024
Making love and making music in a new Greek-Australian story
Composer James Humberstone and award-winning slam poet and rapper Luka Lesson have come together to create a new Greek-Australian work combining ancient poetry and modern hip-hop to explore every aspect of love.
27 February 2024
Crowdfunding key to defending and rebuilding Ukraine
Dr Olga Boichak, senior lecturer in Digital Cultures in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, explores how Ukrainians are innovating from the battlefield to the digital frontlines, to take the
fight to a much better equipped and better funded enemy.
21 February 2024
Should Taylor Swift be taught alongside Shakespeare? Yes!
Professor Liam Semler, a Shakespeare scholar in the Discipline of English, explains how Taylor Swift is not only a genuine ally of serious literature but that she deserves a place on the university curriculum alongside Shakespeare's Sonnets.
19 February 2024
What can we learn from nature if we listen to it deeply?
Dr Diana Chester, a sound studies scholar from Media and Communications in FASS, and Associate Professor Damien Ricketson, a composer from Sydney Conservatorium of Music invite visitors to lie down, close their eyes and listen to the sand, sea and wind in a new research project called Listening to Earth.
15 February 2024
Taylor Swift: why academics are studying the pop star
Taylor Swift, who is about to tour Australia with her much-anticipated Eras concerts, was the subject of a three-day academic conference, known as a Swiftposium, in Melbourne, where academics presented papers on her global impact.
12 February 2024
Opera Australia finds campy, playful joy in The Magic Flute
Dr David Larkin, senior lecturer in musicology at Sydney Conservatorium of Music, reviews the new production of The Magic Flute by director Kate Gaul for Opera Australia.
06 February 2024
Lunar New Year 2024: What does the Year of the Dragon mean?
Associate Professor Xiaohuan Zhao, from Chinese Studies in the School of Languages and Cultures, shares what it means to be born in a Year of the Dragon or to live through the Year of the Dragon in 2024.
30 January 2024
Mysterious pearl shells unearthed in French Polynesia
Associate Professor James Flexner, archaeologist, returned from a dig in French Polynesia where, together with local community members, he and his team found relics from the country's missionary past.
20 December 2023
Loud, energetic and bright: Disney's Artful Dodger down under is fun!
Dr Megan Nash, a teacher in literature and film in the School of Arts, Communication and English, takes a close look at Disney's new TV series The Artful Dodger, set in Australia with bright sunshine and savage humour - and Aussie pop songs.