Andrea Durbach ON VENGEANCE

A co-presentation with Melbourne Conversations.

Andrea’s sermon will focus on the ways we rationalise capital punishment – and how vengeance manifests in support of this enterprise. She’ll explore the execution of vengeance in different guises or forms. What drives the self-delusion and collective duplicity – and ultimately, the sheer futility – that congregate to justify the taking of life?

Additional performance by Paul Capsis.

Born and educated in South Africa, Andrea Durbach practised as a political trial lawyer and human rights advocate, representing victims and opponents of apartheid laws. In 1988 she was appointed solicitor to 25 black defendants in a notorious death penalty case in South Africa and later published an account of her experiences in Upington (Allen & Unwin 1999), which was shortlisted for the Alan Paton Non-Fiction Award. In 2011, the documentary, A Common Purpose, which is based on the book, was screened at the Sydney Film Festival, winning the Audience Award for Best Documentary.

After settling in Australia in 1989, Andrea has worked as a solicitor, public interest advocate, an academic and as director of UNSW’s Australian Human Rights Centre.

(M)an has not grown less cruel with the passage of that illusory thing called time; though in many parts of the world he has become a far greater hypocrite than he used to be.

• Charles Duff, A Handbook on Hanging, 1923

The School of Life Sermons are a co-presentation between Melbourne Conversations, the City of Melbourne’s free public talks program, and the Wheeler Centre with generous support from the Trawalla Foundation.