Announcing: Letters to the Editor
… and other new content and events from Statecraft.
Since our inception, Statecraft’s two core goals have been to provide you, the members of the UQ PPE Society, with a platform to share your ideas, and to spark discussion of these ideas among the PPE community.
Having recently passed the milestone of 100 articles published, we feel we’ve been pretty successful at the first of these goals. Statecraft is now well-established as an institution within the UQ PPE community, and continues to be a welcoming space for students to share their ideas and improve their writing.
This year, we want to build on this, and improve the level of engagement and discussion surrounding our content. To this end, we’re excited to announce a new initiative: letters to the editor!
Letters to the Editor: Nasty, Brutish, and Short
Have you ever come away from a Statecraft article wishing you could convey something to the writer, or to us? An interesting thought, or a clarifying question, or perhaps a scathing attack on our personal intelligence?
If you disagree with anything we publish, or have something to add, we want to hear from you.
On the last Friday of every month, we’ll be publishing a special article containing exclusively your thoughts, sent in as letters to the editor. These can be published under your own name, or a pseudonym.
We’d prefer these letters to be under 200 words in length — anything too far over that will likely be cut down, or potentially turned into a standalone response article. To get involved and share your thoughts, simply leave a comment on the article in question, or send an email to publications@uqppes.com.au.
Other New Content Types
The vast bulk of what we publish at Statecraft is opinion pieces and analysis. We love platforming student opinions, and these types of content are the clearest way to do this.
However, it’s not the only type of content we publish. In the past, Statecraft has published content as diverse as satire — see ‘First year PPE student yet to realise economics gets harder’ — as well as book reviews, film reviews, and university-oriented content.
This year, we want to re-emphasise this diversity of content.
This is not to say we’re moving away from opinion and analysis — opinion pieces remain our bread and butter. However, to provide our readers with a more colourful diet, and to give our writers the opportunity to try different ways of communicating their ideas, we’ll be encouraging more creative styles of writing.
The history of PPE is full of writers — think George Orwell, Ayn Rand, Ursula Le Guin, or Albert Camus — who have used the power of creative writing to convey complex political or philosophical ideas.
We’d love to publish more satire, reviews, and university-oriented content. We’d especially love to publish creative writing, such as short stories, micro-fiction, philosophical dialogues, or even poetry.
If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, then don’t hesitate to submit a draft, and keep up to date with us on Facebook — we’ll have some exciting opportunities to announce soon.
Events
If you didn’t know, as well as publishing Statecraft, The Statecraft Review, and Pillar Talk, the Statecraft editorial board also organises a variety of academic events for the benefit of the UQ PPE community.
Statecraft Autumn Lecture
Earlier this month, we hosted economist Dr Cameron Murray for the Statecraft Autumn Lecture. Speaking on the topic of ‘why politicians must pretend to care about cheap housing’, Dr Murray outlined the misaligned incentives that block meaningful action on housing affordability, before introducing his alternative vision for Australian housing policy.
If you missed this event, you can watch the video recording over on our YouTube page, along with past Statecraft Lectures.
Academic Writing Workshop
Are you working on an important essay for a politics, philosophy, or PPE course, and looking for the kind of help tutors can’t give? Are you new to writing university essays? Or do you just feel like practicing your writing skills and sharing tips with your peers?
The Statecraft editorial team is running a workshop on academic writing on Tuesday the 3rd of May. In a two-hour session oriented toward students of politics, philosophy, and economics, we’ll cover effective structure, argumentation, and style in academic writing, and provide tailored feedback and help with any academic essays you’re working on.
If this sounds helpful to you, register your interest on the Facebook event now.
Thanks for engaging with this update from Statecraft. We exist to benefit members of the UQ PPE community, and we can only do this thanks to the support of writers and readers like you.
Writing for Statecraft is easy. If you have a hot take on a current issue, an essay you’re particularly proud of, or just some thoughts related to politics, philosophy or economics that you’d like to share, get in touch with us at publications@uqppes.com.au, and we’ll help you refine it into a piece for publication.
