Your storiesDavid PenberthyIt is probably not what Socrates had inmind. But at the University of Adelaide inthe late 1980s, one of the many benefits ofembarking on a classical education was thatyou could go and see Sydney punk bandLubricated Goat smashing their instrumentsin the UniBar on a Friday night.Or spend every Sunday night stayingawake until dawn laying out that week’sedition of On Dit.Or see the next generation of Australia’sstate and federal cabinet ministers thrashingit out in unbridled argument in the MayoRefectory about whether the creation of aWomen’s Officer was a vital feminist reformor an egregious assault on the rights ofmen everywhere.Perhaps HECS has killed this. Certainlyit feels like the aggressive jacking of feesfor those studying an arts degree was adeliberate political attack on the valueof a liberal education, aimed at directingstudents elsewhere. But it always felt to melike the most intellectually rewarding andentertaining stuff at uni was unfolding awayfrom the lecture theatres.That is not to downplay the value of theeducation we received, nor lapse into someJohn Belushi-inspired trope about how thebest thing about going to college was beingdrunk all the time and not going to lectures.On the contrary, I threw myself into my artsdegree and still remember the awe andexcitement so many of our lecturers andtutors inspired. Austin Gough’s stunninglecture series about the creation of modernParis. Trevor Wilson with his devastatinghuman accounts of the suffering of trenchsoldiers in World War One. Paul NurseyBray on the byzantine ideological battlesof the Spanish Civil War. Helen Pringlegiving modern relevance to the oldestpolitical ideas.10
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