Series

The Interrobang: A Festival of Questions

Event Series

What’s more important: answers, or questions?

Are the ‘big’ questions – life, the universe, everything – more important than ‘little’ ones? Does a good question provoke debate or laughter, lead to certain answers or create reflective pause? Can it change laws, minds or lives?

Are questions the best answers?

The Interrobang – a new festival from the Wheeler Centre – is looking for the best questions in the world.

Ask your questions and vote on others, then join us on 27–28 November for a feast of frequently unanswered questions – as we present your most controversial, revealing, funny and insightful ideas to a 28-strong Brains Trust of the world’s most inquisitive thinkers.

Pose your question at The Interrobang festival website. We’re building this festival on your curiosity, so brace yourself – and wonder hard.

Presenting partners

• City of Melbourne
• The University of Melbourne

Past Events

The Interrobang: A Festival of Questions

What’s the ‘good’ in the good fight? Questions for ethical thinking in strange times

Raimond Gaita, Anne Summers, Gregory Phillips, Alan Duffy, Mark Colvin

The Interrobang: A Festival of Questions

The Interrobang – a new festival from the Wheeler Centre – is looking for the best questions in the world.

Presenting partners

Past Events

What’s the ‘good’ in the good fight? Questions for ethical thinking in strange times

Must happiness require effort? Meghan Daum and Sally Warhaft

Will the world be a safer place when more women occupy positions of power? Rukmini Callimachi and Anne Summers

Why does ‘i’ come before ‘e’, except after ‘c’? Mary Norris and Jane Caro

Does science fiction give us an unrealistic expectation that we can effectively inhabit Mars? Questions on discovery, imagination and progress

Is religion ever more important than democracy? Questions about rules

Does the universe have a memory? Alan Duffy

How does the world end? Upulie Divisekera

If you could choose the legacy you leave behind, what would it be and why? Graeme Innes

Would it advantage Australia by changing the names of our capital cities to their Indigenous language names? Gregory Phillips

Is the attainment of physical beauty a classist pursuit? Anne Summers

Why are so many people intimidated by poetry, but love song lyrics? Alan Brough

Do we become more politically conservative as we get older? Tom Elliott

What is the difference between muffins and cupcakes? Adam Liaw

One last question: are words more important than actions?

What future do we want – and deserve? Questions for the places, politics and pleasures of the hereafter

What is the best way to destroy the internet before it destroys us? Cory Doctorow and Alan Brough

What is it to be wild? Cheryl Strayed and Meghan Daum

When is Australia racist? Questions of difference and fairness

Is the concept of a country obsolete?

Why are people nicer when it’s your birthday? Questions of relativity and hope

Why marry capitalism with democracy? Mary Kostakidis and Yanis Varoufakis

Why be good? Questions of work, love and feminism

Questions on notice

Truth is stranger than fiction. Can fiction be stronger than truth? Geraldine Brooks and Mark Colvin

Rob Delaney and Benjamin Law: Are cockroaches attracted to human tears, and if so, why?

Stay up to date with our upcoming events and special announcements by subscribing to the Wheeler Centre's mailing list.

Acknowledgment of Country