In Conversation, ‘Performance Politics’: Joshua Black with Michelle Arrow

Join Dr Joshua Black, Palace Letters Fellow, in conversation with Professor Michelle Arrow, Whitlam Institute Fellow, upon the release of his new book Performance Politics: Australian politicians and the stories they tell. 

This book provides an eye-opening account of how Australian politicians have become experts at fashioning and refashioning stories about themselves, their lives, personal ambitions and political entanglements.

Delving into memoirs, autobiographies, documentaries, media coverage, personal papers and original interviews, the book reveals how much of our recent political history has been delivered through the prism of the publishing house, the book launch, the documentary, and the lounge rooms where political documentaries are watched.


Event Details

📅 Wednesday 11 November
🕕 6:00pm, doors open 5:30pm
📍 Female Orphan School
🎟️ Free admission, bookings essential

How to get here

WSU Parramatta South Campus is well served by light rail and bus services from Parramatta station, as well as other bus routes.

There is paid parking on campus but it is generally in high demand during term.

More information on getting here can be found at: https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/future/our-campuses/parramatta-south-campus

About the Book

In Performance Politics, historian and speechwriter Joshua Black provides an eye-opening account of how Australian politicians have become experts at fashioning and refashioning stories about themselves, their lives, personal ambitions and political entanglements. Delving into memoirs, autobiographies, documentaries, media coverage, personal papers and original interviews, the book reveals how much of our recent political history has been delivered through the prism of the publishing house, the book launch, the documentary, and the lounge rooms where political retrospectives were broadcast. From a time when ‘telling tales out of school’ (as Billy Hughes once put it) was not the done thing, to one where the 2024 Nemesis documentary showcased backstabbing, character assassinations and high emotions.

Performance Politics shows how political life writing and documentary making has played an outsized role in creating the story-driven political culture of our times. Settling scores, shaping legacies and dramatising the democratic process, sometimes in shocking ways.

About the Author

DR JOSHUA BLACK is a lecturer in Australian Political Studies within the Vice-Chancellor’s Centre of Public Ideas at the University of Canberra. He has previously worked as policy researcher, media adviser and speechwriter. He is co-editor, with Frank Bongiorno and Carolyn Holbrook, of Gold Standard? Remembering the Hawke Government.