Re-inventing New Zealand - Roger Horrocks - 27 July - AKL

Roger Horrocks, Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Auckland, is the author of ‘Re-inventing New Zealand’, a recently published collection of essays which looks at how New Zealand has ‘been invented and re-invented’ over the course of his lifetime.

Roger has been deeply involved in the arts and also with film and television, and his talk will focus on how the great political and cultural upsurge which began in the late 1960s was then confronted by Rogernomics. How are the arts and media faring today in a society that has been radically re-shaped by neo-liberalism? Are Bruce Jesson’s comments still valid that ‘New Zealand has not provided a friendly environment to culture or to thought’? (He was thinking in particular of neo- liberalism and the anti-intellectualism that helped support it.) Also, are the latest technological developments – the so-called ‘digital revolution’ – going to change our society for the better or the worse?

Roger Horrocks has been involved in the start-up of many arts organizations and is well known as a film-maker and writer. (His collection of poetry, Song of the Ghost in the Machine, was a finalist in this year’s national book awards.) He was the founder of the university’s Film and Media Studies programme, and Deputy Chair of NZ On Air (the Broadcasting Commission) in its early years. His interest in politics began with CND, the Republican Party, and organising protests against the Vietnam War in the 1960s.

See here for a recent interview.

Copies of the book will be on sale on the night.