Robert Phiddian is a professor of English at Flinders University. His particular interest is political satire, from Jonathan Swift to John Clarke, and his words appear in media from academic journals and university presses to Australian Book Review, the Conversation and radio. He was the founding director of the Australasian Consortium of Humanities Research Centres, and has been involved with the Adelaide Festival of Ideas since the event’s inception in 1999, thrice chair of the programming committee.