https://anu.zoom.us/j/84960900906?pwd=UlpjRmk4ZGk2clZkQVlpNEhjMXJnZz09How much change can take place in a decade? How useful is the 'decade' as a measurement of social, cultural, political and economic change in history? What, if any, are the distinct features of the decade through which we have just lived, in the 2010s? Was it really, as one commentator claimed, a decade "in which phone got smarter, social media changed our lives, and the climate changed our future"? In this panel session, Professor Frank Bongiorno, Professor Michelle Arrow, and Walkley-winning journalist George Megalogenis reflect on their own histories of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, the challenges of writing decadal history, and the ways in which this kind of study can illuminate the past. The panel will also apply these critical frameworks to a consideration of the 2010s, seeking for the continuities as well as the changes that characterised this recent past.

Frank Bongiorno is Head of the School of History at the ANU. He is the author of the award-winning The Sex Lives of Australians: A History and The Eighties: The Decade That Transformed Australia. He has reviewed for the Times Literary Supplement, Australian Book Review, the Monthly, Fairfax and The Australian. He is a regular contributor to Inside Story and The Conversation.

Michelle Arrow is an award-winning historian and Professor in Modern History at Macquarie University, where she teaches and researches postwar Australian history, the history of popular culture, and the ways history is depicted in television and film. Michelle has also produced history for radio and television. She won the 2020 Ernest Scott prize for her book The Seventies: The Personal, The Political and the Making of Modern Australia.

George Megalogenis is an experienced journalist and author of The Australian Moment, which formed the basis for his ABC documentary series Making Australia Great. He is also the author of Faultlines, The Longest Decade, Australia’s Second Chance, and Balancing Act, which contains his two Quarterly Essays, No. 40: Trivial Pursuit – Leadership and the End of the Reform Era and No. 61: Balancing Act – Australia Between Recession and Renewal. His latest book is The Football Solution.

This event will also be available on Zoom:

https://anu.zoom.us/j/84960900906?pwd=UlpjRmk4ZGk2clZkQVlpNEhjMXJnZz09
Meeting ID: 849 6090 0906
Password: 743148

All are welcome! Please direct enquiries to: joshua.black@anu.edu.au or alexander.cook@anu.edu.au