Late Night Live - Full program podcast - podcast cover

Late Night Live - Full program podcast

ABC listenwww.abc.net.au
From razor-sharp analysis of current events to the hottest debates in politics, science, philosophy and culture, Late Night Live puts you firmly in the big picture.

Episodes

The wild and talented poet Dorothy Porter and re-thinking privacy

The late Australian poet Dorothy Porter is best known for her verse novel The Monkey's Mask. But her work ranged across many ouvres. Her early life at home, with violence and bullying at the hands of her well-known barrister father, Chester Porter, is laid bare in a memoir written by Dorothy's sister Josie McSkimming

Feb 06, 202554 min

Vancouver's fentanyl epidemic plus the lost languages of Tibet

Vancouver decriminalised possession of small quantities of drugs for personal use in 2023. Then drug deaths sky-rocketed. So did the experiment fail, or were there other factors at play? Plus Tibet is one of the most linguistically diverse regions on the planet, but Mandarin is encroaching and the old languages are disappearing.

Jan 29, 202554 min

Australia by numbers, and a history of the beach shack

As the Australia Day weekend comes to a close, leading social researchers Rebecca Huntley and Anthea Hancocks break down what the latest data says about who we are as a nation in 2025. Plus, Anna Clark muses on the history of the Australian beach shack.

Jan 27, 202554 min

Peter Beinart on being Jewish after the destruction of Gaza, and Coca-Cola's power in China

While anti-Semitic attacks in Australia and America appear to be on the rise, Jewish journalism professor and author Peter Beinart argues that Israel's actions in Gaza and the West Bank have made Jews around the world a target. Plus how Coca-Cola infiltrated academia, and meddled with the science of obesity to protect their profits in America, China and beyond.

Jan 22, 202554 min

Laura Tingle's Canberra, a fishy deal and eucalypts taking over the world

Laura Tingle looks at how the major parties spent their summer as the shadow election campaign takes off. A landmark agreement for workers on Pacific fishing boats. Plus the role of eucalyptus trees in the LA fires, and how they've become an invasive species around the world.

Jan 20, 202554 min

LNL Summer: Wy the Dreyfus Affair still matters

Alfred Dreyfus was an officer in the French Army when he was arrested 130 years ago for treason, convicted and sent to Devils Island for 5 years in solitary confinement. His battle for justice divided the population of France and fascinated people across the globe.

Jan 09, 202554 min

LNL Summer: Who were Australia's black convicts and the truth about absinthe

Santilla Chingaipe tells the stories of the 15 convicts of African descent that came with the first fleet, and the hundreds that followed. How does their story fit in the story of the global slave trade? And what truth is there to the mystical powers of absinthe both in the past and its current form? Is it more myth than magic? Evan Rail investigates.

Jan 08, 202554 min

LNL Summer: Australia's first novelist revealed plus the race to save the world's islands

Author Henry Savery is credited with being Australia's first novelist, for his work 'Quintus Servinton', but in his new book author and historian Sean Doyle says in fact the first Autralian-born novelist was John Lang. Plus the challenge to save the world's islands and their inhabitants from the triple threat threat of invasive species, sea level rises and global heating.

Jan 02, 202554 min

LNL Summer: The UK's poet laureate, and the return of the night parrot

UK poet laureate Simon Armitage reflects on his Yorkshire upbringing, writing great royal deaths and coronations, and his fear and love for nature. Plus, ornithologist Penny Olsen celebrates the historic detection of a population of rare night parrots, in WA's Great Sandy Desert.

Dec 31, 202454 min

LNL Summer: Ambon pilgrimage and remembering Kosciuscko

War historian Joan Beaumont makes a pilgrimage to the Indonesian island of Ambon, where hundreds of Australian soldiers died in WWll, and ponders the meaning of connection to past war traumas. Plus, remembering Tadeusz Kosciuszko - who was he, and why was he so revered?

Dec 30, 202454 min
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