Grappling with an abiding sorrow? Grinding your teeth when that car cuts you off in the street? Searching for that ever-elusive sense of satisfaction and well-being? If Melbourne’s a city that often experiences four seasons in a day, most of its residents face much the same experience internally.
We’re always in the mood for a good discussion at the Wheeler Centre, but let’s face it - an even temperament is hard to find and even harder to achieve. Over three nights we take a digressive exploration through the tempers and moods of modern life. From the electrical signals and balance of chemicals that fire up our brains, to the social pressures and metaphysical entanglements that drive our behaviour, our panels of experts consider depression and rage, contentment and joy.
Featuring
Jonathan Daly
Jonathan Daly is an urbanist and behaviour change consultant with a focus on the human, social and cultural capital of cities.
He has a strong interest in the sensory experience of urban environments - the visual, the sound, the smell, the texture, and the taste of urban spaces. His work questions how this experience influences our behaviour, our perceptions and our use of public spaces, and whether we feel invited to engage with the urban realm on foot or bicycle or in enclosed spaces such as cars.
Jonathan’s research focuses on the mindset of changing cities as they undertake the process towards becoming sustainable, liveable and healthy places. He works with urban managers and problem solvers to develop behavioural adaptation strategies and interventions to build capacity for the social and physical change of cities.
Sean Dooley
Sean Dooley is a Melbourne author who works as a television comedy writer. He has a weekly spot with 3RRR Breakfasters and regularly contributes to The Age and ABC radio about birds, the environment, sport and, well, anything really.
His greatest claim to fame is that in 2002 he broke the Australian birdwatching record for seeing the most species in one year.
He then wrote about it in The Big Twitch, thereby outing himself as a nerd. He’s part of the writing team for the ABC’s hugely successful Spicks and Specks.
Catherine Deveny
Catherine Deveny has been a comedian, writer and professional speaker for 23 years.
She’s the author of seven books and over 1,000 columns for the Age newspaper, and is an ABC regular. She has appeared on Q&A five times — sitting next to John Elliott, Tony Abbott, Corey Bernardi, Peter Dutton and Archbishop Peter Jensen.
Deveny has performed five one-woman shows in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, and has been named one of the Top 100 Most Influential Melbournians. Her charity and activist work includes public schools, public housing, feminism, atheism, asylum seekers, child abuse in the Catholic Church and homelessness.
She’s a keen commuter cycling ambassador and the co-founder of Pushy Women. She is the creator of the enormously successful Gunnas Writing Masterclasss — running 50 classes in less than 18 months.
You’ll find her performing everywhere from debates at Melbourne Town Hall with Julian Burnside to Splendor In the Grass in Byron Bay.
She has never married and lives with her childhood sweetheart in the People's Republic Of Moreland.
Anne Manne
Anne Manne is a Melbourne writer. She has been a regular columnist for The Australian and the Age. More recently, her essays on contemporary culture such as child abuse, pornography, gendercide and disability have all appeared in The Monthly magazine.
Her essay ‘Ebony: The Girl in the Room’, was included in Best Australian Essays: A Ten-year Collection. Her book, Motherhood: How Should We Care For Our Children?, was a finalist in the Walkley Award for Best Non-Fiction Book of 2006. She has written a Quarterly Essay, Love and Money: The Family and the Free Market, and a memoir, So This is Life: Scenes from a Country Childhood.