Late Night Live — Full program podcast

Can an essay change a nation? Meanjin editor Esther Anatolitis believes that some of the essays published over the journal's long history have - including one from Michael Mohammed Ahmed. We also bust a few Christmas myths with Professor of Religion, Carole Cusack.

Bruce Shapiro on the dismissal of President-elect Donald Trump's federal cases. We revisit Andrew Fowler's study of Australia's "nuked" submarine deal, recently named the Walkley Book Award winner for 2024. And why Americans are adopting British and Australian vernacular. 

Laura Tingle gives her analysis of Labor's plans for the last sitting week of 2024, while George Megalogenis looks forward to 2025, and what the parliament may look like after the next Federal election - and why.

Former federal MPs John Brumby and Cheryl Kernot discuss how Australia can make policy progress and find bipartisanship in a world of growing political division. And Lech Blaine shares the extraordinary story of his childhood, growing up in a Queensland pub, stalked by a pair of Christian fanatics. 

Marcia Langton on the dashed hopes for truth telling in Australia and Sidney Nolan's paintings of Africa tell a deeper story about his concerns for the future of humanity, nature and its wildlife.

Ian Dunt on what the US election result means for security in the UK and Europe. Journalist Jamie Tahsin investigates the online "manosphere" and Trump's courtship of the "bro vote" with the help of son Barron. And the mysteries of the greenland shark, which lives for hundreds of years. 

The Australian Greens have dropped their demand for a climate trigger in the Government's proposed environmental reforms. And British/American journalist and cultural commentator on the new power of conspiracy theorists, under Donald Trump.

Acclaimed historian Peter Stanley on how Australia writes its war histories, and our complicated relationship with memorialisation. And a new exhibition at the British library illuminates the lives of medieval women, in their own words. 

China expert Geoff Raby says we are seeing a significant global power shift away from Russia and towards China - but how will Donald Trump handle it? In 1910, Virginia Woolf and her friends gained access to the pride of the British fleet, the HMS Dreadnought disguised as Abyssinian Princes, including blackface. Was this feminist and pacifist writer also racist?

Analysis of current events to the hottest debates in politics, science, philosophy and culture.