Issue 14 | November 2026
Welcome to the tenth anniversary of the digital edition of Exordium!
Exordium originally started as a physical publication in 1990 run by UQ’s Student Philosophy Association. The journal emerged from within a vibrant student philosophy community that hosted popular wine and cheese nights, and organised seminars with over 80 students and staff in attendance. These early issues contained work by lecturers and students alike and ran every year until 1994. Then, after a break, the publication re-emerged in 1997, 1998, and 1999. After that, Exordium went dark until 2015, when it was reinstated as UQ’s Student Philosophy e-Journal, and has been digitally available since 2016. Since then, PhD students in the School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry have run Exordium annually alongside an indispensable team of student reviewers. The editors would like to thank our reviewers for this edition: Liv Evans, Georgia Farmer, Melinda Herman, Victoria Lawson, James Patterson, Riley Walker, and Ellie Wharton. Issue 14 would not exist without your fantastic work, and the editors are very grateful.
A student journal can facilitate many exciting firsts for an undergraduate. The first time submitting a paper for peer review, the first time experiencing the editing process, the first time being accepted for publication, and perhaps the first time being rejected. All these experiences teach new lessons and become part of one’s academic journey; they build new skills and can impart a sense of intellectual resilience as students navigate constructive feedback and edit their work.
This year Exordium is experiencing some firsts of our own – we are offering prizes for Best Paper and Runner Up. We congratulate Jordyn Garvie as the winner of Best Paper for their original, artistic, and reflective piece “How much does the practice of art change you? Applying Nietzsche’s Dionysian and Schiller’s Play Drive to Lived Experience.” This paper draws on the experience of the author-artist as they try to reconcile Nietzsche’s and Schiller’s theories of drives with reference to Jordyn’s own artistic practice. Our winner for the prize of Runner Up goes to Liv Evans and their fantastic paper, “’Even in Another Time’: Benjamin, ‘Sappho,’ and the Phenomenology of Aura,” that visits the relationship between aura and reproducibility to explore a new way to conceive of them as entangled rather than as in opposition. The Exordium team extends their thanks to the School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, who have kindly agreed to fund these prizes.
Another exciting first for us is the Exordium symposium! Earlier today some of our published authors came to present their papers to an audience of fellow authors, reviewers, and UQ students. Going to an academic conference for the first time can be a nerve-wracking experience, so the goal for this event was to create a welcoming atmosphere where students can get comfortable presenting their work. Safe to say, the first iteration was a success, and we are excited to make this an annual event! Exordium has officially escaped its digital constraints.
We are thrilled to publish Issue 14, which marks the tenth anniversary of the online edition. Our 2026 issue presents some excellent work from a diverse cross-section of the philosophising undergraduate student body at UQ, including political philosophy, environmental ethics, aesthetics and the philosophy of arts, translation theory, and critical theory. We hope you enjoy reading this as much as we enjoyed producing it!
Lily Elston-Leadbetter, Chief Editor
Jacob Ritz, Associate Editor
Featured Image: Serene Watercolour of a Calm Sea Under a Pastel Sky, John Singer Sargent, 1905.
