The Wheeler Centre

How common is it for patients to ‘wake up’ during surgery? Is pain still pain if you can’t feel it? And what do we know about consciousness, anyway? In the first of a new series at Sydney's Belvoir Theatre, journalist Kate Cole-Adams broaches these questions and more in a fascinating discussion with anaesthetist Tim McCulloch and host Benjamin Law – opened with a performance from Belvoir's artistic director Eamon Flack.

Writer Sophie Cunningham and photographer Dianna Wells have been walking and documenting the defining boundaries of the City of Melbourne as part of the city’s Arts Grants program. Join them for a fascinating discussion with historian Gary Presland and water engineer Professor Tony Wong.

Earth scientist Chris Turney explores the past, present and future of Antarctica – a continent that acutely bears the impacts of our changing climate – and relives the expedition that inadvertently sent him following the fateful path of Ernest Shackleton, one of Antarctica’s unluckiest adventurers.

The overwhelming majority of Australians say they care deeply about our built heritage, but recent battles over heritage listed Melbourne properties reveal that the protection and preservation of our buildings is fraught. Open House Melbourne’s Emma Telfer joins panelists including Stuart Macintyre, Chris Johnston and Marcus Westbury for a discussion of what’s worth saving.

In a culturally diverse region, what experiences do women across the Middle East have in common? How do both Muslim and non-Muslim Arab women feel about stereotypes of the Middle East? What kinds of progress are being made to improve the lives of Arab women by Arab women and how do these advancements look from the perspective of the women living them? With interviewee Joumanah El Matrah, Awad discusses her travels and the candid and creative women she met along the way. Hosted by braodcaster Hilary Harper.

Maher Mughrabi and Jasim Husain discuss what the May 2017 Qatar diplomatic crisis says about the region in 2017 more broadly. How will the downturn in fossil fuel prices affect the political stability of gulf states? How are different regimes in the region responding to opposition groups? And what can we expect in terms of interventions (or lack thereof) from the Trump administration?

For our second meeting of the Longform Society, we look at Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts, an exhilarating, genre-defying work of feminism, queer theory and memoir. Strikingly original and immediately beloved, Nelson’s unique writing effortlessly moves between compelling literary criticism and memoir. Using selected extracts, Quinn Eades, Hannah McCann, Onyx Carmine (S.J. Norman) and Sophie Cunningham discuss Nelson's philosophical questions of queer family-making, art, literary history, sexual politics and more.

For the Wheeler Centre, Brodie Lancaster and Kamna Muddagouni present a special live taping of an episode of their podcast, Can U Not? – with Millennial's Megan Tan as their featured guest. Tune in for a discussion of coming of age, figuring yourself out and making things happen – in Australia and America.

Kate DiCamillo has a deep understanding of reading as a means of connecting us – as the former National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, she has advocated for the importance of stories as a means by which children can see the world clearly. Her children’s stories and middle grade novels, from Flora and Ulysses to Because of Winn-Dixie, are treasured by readers of all ages for their careful, tender – and often magical – depictions of how it feels to grow up. She speaks with Sally Rippin.

In her latest book, The Helen 100, writer and humorist Helen Razer chronicles the sudden, life-shattering evaporation of her 15 year relationship. This grief (and a subsequent dare from her beauty therapist) prompted her to go on 100 dates over a year – in search of renewal, distraction and good old-fashioned porking. In this energetic and hilarious conversation with sex and gender researcher Hannah McCann, Razer talks about what she recently discovered about queer identity, profound affect and our broad social values about dating, power and desperation.