Semper Floreat is the University of Queensland Union's free & independent student newspaper.
‘On the edge of Brisbane, the largest city in Australia, spread over hills and steep slopes, are tens of thousands of gravestones, tombs and crypts. The cemetery is a true necropolis- literally a city of the dead.’ This sentence opens The Ghosts of Toowong Cemetery: Volume One by Jack Sim, a neat little book I […]
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Your Student Services and Amenities Fee (SSAF) is currently being used to fund the National Union of Students (NUS)! You’re in it, even if you don’t know it! Throughout this article, I will answer why you should care about the NUS. Who are they? The NUS is the representative body for tertiary education students in […]
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You’ve probably heard the age-old stereotype that queer people love horror. This is usually the part where I say that’s a gross generalisation, but since I am a queer person who is a little too obsessed with horror media, I am not helping in dispelling that rumour. ‘Why do queer people love horror so much?’ […]
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If you’re a trans masc or a gender-nonconforming person, chances are you’ve heard of or even tried packing. For those unfamiliar with the term, packing is when someone adds a prosthetic penis to their crotch to create a bulge to achieve the look and feel of having a penis (FolxHealth). Transgender men aren’t the only […]
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When I think of you, I think of the poem ‘Simplify Me When I’m Dead’ by Keith Douglas, specifically the lines, “Thus when in a year collapse particular memories, you may deduce, from the long pain I bore the opinions I held, who was my foe and what I left, even my appearance but incidents […]
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Author’s note: This is a very scattered recap of the event. I originally had no intention of writing a recap when I first decided to go. However, as things began happening, I started taking some notes, but my focus was mainly on being present at the event and standing up for my community. On Sunday, […]
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It’s a question I get asked all the time. Okay, that was a lie, but it has been asked once or twice. The simplified definition of anarchism is that it’s a political philosophy and movement that seeks to abolish institutions that perpetuate authority, hierarchy and/or coercion. It calls for a stateless society and targets capitalism […]
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I’m sitting in the Fryer Library, flipping through a collection of Semper Floreat issues from 1966. An orange slip of paper is nestled between the pages of an edition published on 17th March 1966. The words “Vietnam Protest Week March 21-27” are in a large, bold font. Some of the items on the agenda include […]
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Gothic fiction has been a popular literary genre since it was first conceived in Horace Walpole’s 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto. While Gothic fiction is varied, three main aspects characterise the genre: an environment of fear, threats of the supernatural, and intrusion of the past onto the present. Sometimes, these three combine into one […]
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A ragtag group of local trans activists and community-builders (including Magandjin People’s Pride and UQU Queer Collective) organised a march and rally on the 30th of March for Transgender Day of Visibility (31st March). This was one part of a National Day of Action for transgender resistance, with similar events held in every state and […]
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