David Smyth

David Smyth is a senior lecturer at the ANU Mathematical Sciences Institute. Besides teaching and learning mathematics, he enjoys singing, drinking coffee, and obsessively arranging and rearranging his numerous piles of half-finished books.

How Did We Ever Get Stuck in the *Pinstriped Prison*?

How Did We Ever Get Stuck in the Pinstriped Prison?

By: David Smyth

The Pinstriped Prison: How Overachievers Get Trapped in Corporate Jobs They Hate. By Lisa Pryor. Published 2008 by Picador Pan MacMillan Australia Pty Limited, 1 Market Street Sydney, 272pp. In the 1950s and 60s, top students from elite universities aspired to careers...

In

Past Issues

PRECARITY

Precarity’s paradoxical force unites us in a condition of fragmentation and isolation.

CRISIS

The change and ruptures in our personal and collective lives, still lingers.

THE UNIVERSITY

Excessive managerialism, neoliberalisation and casualisation are some of the main challenges that are threatening the viability and the values of the university today. Lina, Amber and Scott kick off ‘The University’ issue, introducing the core themes and questions.

BODIES

This issue of Demos explores the ways in which the body moves through the world – how it labors and loves, how it treads the duplicitous thresholds of legality, how it is radicalised, and eternalised, how it is corralled and transgressed.

STUDENT ACTIVISM

Today’s student activists ask themselves: “how did we get here?”, “where are we going?” and “how are we going to get there?”. Issue 7 of Demos Journal concerns itself with these questions representing the history, practice and form of student activism.

FUTURES POSSIBLE

Introducing Demos issue 6: the editors take a look into what it means to imagine the future.

RESISTANCE

Introducing Demos issue 5: the editors take a look into what it means to resist and affect change.

PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES

Introducing Demos issue 4: the editors take a look into what boundaries mean to Australian identity today.

VOICES FROM THE GRASSROOTS

As a sneak peak into our latest edition, the Demos Editors bring together voices on grassroots organising and activism at ANU, in the Canberra community, and from beyond.

ARTICULATING SILENCE

The Demos editorial team bring you a preview of some of the exciting pieces to come with an exploration into the many meanings of silence.

CREATING DEMOS

To introduce the exciting diversity of voices that make up the first edition of Demos Journal, we embark upon a reflection on the relation between democracy and creativity itself.