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Editor's note
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Today we take a look at a different side of Christmas. On the Aboriginal missions, December 25 could be a time of relief from the normal austerity. But as Laura Rademaker writes, the celebrations had a sinister edge, as missionaries hoped (naively as it turned out) that Christmas would replace traditional culture.
Meanwhile Robyn J. Whitaker upends what we think we know about the Christmas story, from the date to the inn to the three wise men. Jesus’ birth, she writes, had more in common with a child born on Nauru than the lives of the majority of Australian churchgoers.
And from Monday, our team will be taking a two-week break, returning on January 8. We’ll continue to publish over the holidays, though, with fun, thought-provoking and insightful reads, and some special newsletters revisiting some of our best articles from the year. We hope you have holiday time to read and enjoy them, and we look forward to you being part of The Conversation in 2018.
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James Whitmore
Deputy Editor: Arts + Culture
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Top story
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Christmas Dinner, Mt Margaret Mission 1933.
State Library of Western Australia
Laura Rademaker, Australian Catholic University
Aboriginal missions were notorious for their austerity, but Christmas was a brief time of joy. While celebrations had a sinister assimilationist edge, Aboriginal people often adopted traditions into their own culture.
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Arts + Culture
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Robyn J. Whitaker, University of Divinity
The inn, the shepherds, angels and animals: pretty much everything we think we know about the Christmas story is historically wrong.
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Catherine Strong, RMIT University
A new, permanent exhibition, which pays tribute to Australian popular music, represents a coming of age for our industry.
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Science + Technology
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David Fagan, Queensland University of Technology
What if Santa’s job is one of those taken over by an intelligent machine? Would a robot Santa begin to question its purpose and the existence of those it’s designed to serve at Christmas?
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Tanya Hill, Museums Victoria
A solar day is a measure of how long it takes the Earth to rotate from one noon to the next, and today's summer solstice also happens to be the longest solar day of the year.
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Brittany Cardwell; Jamin Halberstadt
If you're a non-believer, then staying away from Church may be the best thing for your psychological health this Christmas.
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Health + Medicine
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Peter Rogers, University of Melbourne; Martin Healey, University of Melbourne; Premila Paiva, University of Melbourne
Many women are prescribed the pill without a definitive diagnosis of endometriosis.
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Rafael Puyol, IE Business School
More and more people are living to 100, but in some regions of the world there's more of them – what does this tell us?
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Susan Hazel, University of Adelaide
Chocolate poisoning in dogs remains a problem, particularly at Christmas.
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Politics + Society
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Adam Behr, Newcastle University
From outright celebration, through charity to explicit political salvos – is there such a thing as the 'ultimate' Christmas pop song?
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Business + Economy
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Zoe Staines, Queensland University of Technology
To Close the Gap, Indigenous Australians are the experts. Indigenous organisations are more likely to achieve outcomes because they understand local issues and have ‘skin in the game’.
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Environment + Energy
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Justin Welbergen, Western Sydney University; Kyle Armstrong, University of Adelaide
We need balanced media reporting about bat-borne diseases to help avoid vilification of Australia's under-appreciated creatures of the night.
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Michael Hopkin, The Conversation; Madeleine De Gabriele, The Conversation
Environment news isn't all bad, you know. Here are some of 2017's happier stories, from friendly magpies to rebounding leopards.
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Cities
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Iderlina Mateo-Babiano, University of Melbourne; Dorina Pojani, The University of Queensland; Jonathan Corcoran, The University of Queensland; Richard Bean, University of Melbourne
Many short-term bike-hiring programs have been launched amid much fanfare, only for their popularity to decline soon after. Several key factors need to be in place for a program to work.
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Education
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Mark Warburton, University of Melbourne
The cuts to higher education funding are more about making savings than improving higher education, and would be extremely hard to change in the future.
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Featured jobs
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Featured events
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Business School, Dr Chau Chak Wing Bldg, 14-28 Ultimo Road, Sydney, New South Wales, 2007, Australia — University of Technology Sydney
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RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, 3000, Australia — RMIT University
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Business School, Dr Chau Chak Wing Bldg, 14-28 Ultimo Road, Sydney, New South Wales, 2007, Australia — University of Technology Sydney
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Esplanade Hotel Fremantle, 46-54 Marine Terrace, Fremantle WA, Perth, Western Australia, 6160, Australia — Curtin University
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