Learnability Professional Development, UWA Cultural Precinct, City of Perth Library and Boffins Books are pleased to invite you to attend a compelling public discussion featuring Benjamin Law on Moral Panic 101: Equality, Acceptance and the Safe Schools Scandal.
Are Australian schools safe? And if they’re not, what happens when kids are caught in a bleak collision between ill-equipped school staff and a confected media scandal?
In 2016 the Safe Schools program became the centre of an ideological firestorm. In QE67 Benjamin Law explores how and why this happened. He weaves a subtle, gripping account of schools today, sexuality, teenagers, new ideas of gender fluidity, tabloid media scares and mental health.
Looking at the perils for those of uncertain or shamed sexual identity, and bullying of the vulnerable young, he brings to light hidden worlds, in an essay notable for its humane clarity.
This presentation will be chaired by Professor Ted Snell, Chief Cultural Officer, UWA Cultural Precinct.
Copies of Quarterly Essay will be available for sale on the night.
Can't make it? We'll happily have a copy of Benjamin Law's Quarterly Essay 67 signed for you. Simply contact us via phone, email, online or visit us in-store, and we'll take care of the rest.
About the The Quarterly EssayQuarterly Essay is an agenda-setting Australian journal of politics and culture. Each issue contains a single essay written at a length of about 25,000 words, followed by correspondence on previous essays.
Established in 2001, Quarterly Essay aims to present the widest range of political, intellectual and cultural opinion and to foster debate. It offers a forum for original long-form investigations, profiles and arguments.
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Benjamin Law is a Sydney-based TV screenwriter, journalist and newspaper columnist, who has a PhD in creative writing and cultural studies.
He’s the author of two books—The Family Law (2010) and Gaysia: Adventures in the Queer East (2012)—and the co-author of the comedy book Shit Asian Mothers Say (2014) with his sister Michelle and illustrator Oslo Davis.Both of his books have been nominated for Australian Book Industry Awards. The Family Law is now in its fourth reprint, has been translated into French and is now a major SBS TV series. Gaysia was published in India in 2013 and North America in 2014.
Benjamin is a frequent contributor to Good Weekend (The Sydney Morning Herald/The Age), frankie and The Monthly.
