Lumen Autumn 2024 - Flipbook - Page 10
Your stories
David Penberthy
It is probably not what Socrates had in
mind. But at the University of Adelaide in
the late 1980s, one of the many benefits of
embarking on a classical education was that
you could go and see Sydney punk band
Lubricated Goat smashing their instruments
in the UniBar on a Friday night.
Or spend every Sunday night staying
awake until dawn laying out that week’s
edition of On Dit.
Or see the next generation of Australia’s
state and federal cabinet ministers thrashing
it out in unbridled argument in the Mayo
Refectory about whether the creation of a
Women’s Officer was a vital feminist reform
or an egregious assault on the rights of
men everywhere.
Perhaps HECS has killed this. Certainly
it feels like the aggressive jacking of fees
for those studying an arts degree was a
deliberate political attack on the value
of a liberal education, aimed at directing
students elsewhere. But it always felt to me
like the most intellectually rewarding and
entertaining stuff at uni was unfolding away
from the lecture theatres.
That is not to downplay the value of the
education we received, nor lapse into some
John Belushi-inspired trope about how the
best thing about going to college was being
drunk all the time and not going to lectures.
On the contrary, I threw myself into my arts
degree and still remember the awe and
excitement so many of our lecturers and
tutors inspired. Austin Gough’s stunning
lecture series about the creation of modern
Paris. Trevor Wilson with his devastating
human accounts of the suffering of trench
soldiers in World War One. Paul NurseyBray on the byzantine ideological battles
of the Spanish Civil War. Helen Pringle
giving modern relevance to the oldest
political ideas.
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