I am a regular media commentator on issues associated with product repair, trade skills, apprenticeship and manufacturing industry policy.
Media
2025, Hi-vis history spotlight in ABC social media reel, including interview with Jesse Adams Stein (and all research materials drawn from our hi-vis project). On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DJIvmGKJIGI/?igsh=MWVwZXU2eTl2MnN0bg==
2025, interviewed by Julian Morrow for ABC Radio National for Sunday Extra, on the politics of hi-vis, 6 April.
2024, interviewed by ABC Radio South East, on the history of hi-vis clothing. 19 September.
2022, interviewed by Kevin Murray for a Garland Magazine podcast:
2022, interviewed by Richard Aedy for “The global economy; the deficit issue and what can be done about manufacturing“, on ABC Radio National’s The Money, 12 May.
2021, interviewed on ABC Radio Canberra on repair and product longevity, 29 November.
2021, Josh Nicholas from the 2SER podcast Start Making Sense interviewed Jesse Adams Stein in an episode called The People vs. Consumer Electronics.
2021, Interview on ABC Radio Sydney by James Valentine into the ‘right to repair’ in an Australian context, 10 March.
2021 interviewed for an article in the Guardian on the right to repair, see: J. Landis-Hanley, ‘Tech giants to make Australia’s phone repairers extinct, right-to-repair inquiry hears‘, The Guardian, 10 March.
2020, ‘Can we talk about a “Right to Repair” in Australia’, panel discussion chaired by Stein (see Panel description below), aired on ABC Radio National’s Big Ideas program.
2019, ‘The Right to Repair‘, radio interview on ABC Radio’s Nightlife program, hosted by Suzanne Hill. Other panellists included: Associate Professor Leanne Wiseman and Guido Verbist (The Bower).
2019, Interview on Radio Adelaide, ‘Design to reduce waste’, 15 July 2019, discussing the relationship between design and repair.
2018, Interview with Wendy Harmer on ABC702 about the continuing value of trade skills, 7 December 2018.
2018, Interviewed for Beton Brut, web documentary about brutalist architecture, by Michael Lu.
2014, quoted in – L. McKenny, ‘New life as pathway mooted for rail line under Sydney’s Mortuary Station’, Sydney Morning Herald, 3 February 2014.
Public Lectures, Panels, Conference Papers & Symposia
2025, with Elizabeth Humphrys and Bettina Frankham, ‘Vested Interests: The Emergence of Hi-Vis in Australia’, Australian Fashion Matters Symposium, 31 January, Melbourne.
2024, ‘Craft labour, entrepreneurialism and social class in contemporary Australia’, paper delivered for ACCESS Seminar series (Australian Centre for Culture, Environment, Society & Space), University of Wollongong, 16 October.
2024, with Bettina Frankham and Elizabeth Humphrys, ‘Illuminating Hi-Vis: Gender, Class and Social Invisibility’, in Textiles and Masculinities, a Design History Society Symposium, Glasgow School of Art (online), 15 June.
2024, I am Program Director of History Now 2024, a public history seminar series. In 2024 History Now is a partnership project between the History Council of NSW, the Australian Centre for Public History and the State Library of NSW. (9 events across 2024.)
2023, Founder and co-convenor (w/ Dr Chantel Carr) of the international cross-disciplinary symposium, All Hands on Deck (3 day, dual track, online and in-person, 84 delegates, 45 audience-only attendees [in person] and 71 attendees online, 45 separate presentations, keynotes were Emeritus Professor Tim Ingold & Professor Alice Twemlow.) Recorded sessions available here.
2023, ‘Creative technicians and technical creatives: Rethinking skill categories and human capacities in extraordinary times’, All Hands on Deck, 21 July, UTS, Sydney.
2023, (with Ana Petidis), ‘Rescuing weaving technologies – Craft and community amid closures and cutbacks’, All Hands on Deck, 20 July, UTS, Sydney.
2022, panellist at “Crafting Labour”, part of Representing Craft / Crafting Representation, Design History Society Seminar, DHS Dialogues series, 20 January, online.
2021, Invited respondent to keynote lecture by Dr Chantel Carr, ‘Repair and care: locating the work of climate crisis’, Institute of Australian Geographers & New Zealand Geographical Society Combined Conference, at Sydney University, 9 July, (online).
2021, invited panellist at ‘Deindustrialising Australia‘, DePOT’s Fall 2021 Roundtable Series: Rethinking Deindustrialization Studies, Deindustrialisation and the Politics of our Time (DePOT), 16 September, with Tanya Evans, Lucy Taksa, Chantel Carr, Chris Gibson, Eric Eklund, Seamus O’Halloran, (the recording is online here).
2021, Invited to present at the Right to Repair Inquiry Public Hearing, Productivity Commission, Sydney session, 19 July (online).
2021, Invited speaker at the launch of the special issue of Digital Culture & Society, vol, 6, no. 1, “Alternative Histories in DIY Cultures and Maker Utopias”, 29 April (online).
2019, ‘Can we talk about a “Right to Repair” in Australia?’ Panel discussion with John Gertsakis, Leanne Wiseman, Annette Mayne, Guy Keulemans, organised and chaired by Jesse Adams Stein, Design Innovation Research Centre, 2 October. This panel was recorded by ABC Radio National’s Big Ideas program, and you can listen here.
2019, Towards a Just City: Roundtable 1 – ‘Many Eyes on the Street’ vs. ‘A Digital Eye in the Sky’, Panel discussion with Saadia Muzzaffa, Jathan Sadowski, chaired by Cameron Tonkinwise, Design Innovation Research Centre, Sydney, 23 May.
2019, Level Up – How Open Source Design is enabling us to be the creator vs. the consumer, panel for Sydney Design Festival, with Liane Rossler, Valentina Zarew, HY William Chan, Angela D’Alton & Alexander Symes, Superlocalstudio, 3 March.
Stein, JA, 2018, ‘The Historian as Document Producer: A Critical Reflection on the Production of Oral History Timed Summaries’, What is a Document? A Workshop on Documentation, Records and Evidence, UTS Law School, 8-9 November.
Stein, JA, 2018, ‘The last generation of Australian hot metal compositors: Are there lessons for engineering patternmakers (and beyond)?’ The Production of Information: Technologies, Media Markets and Labour in the Twentieth Century, Hamburg, 12-14 April. Funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation & German Research Foundation (DFG).
2018, Futures / Histories, DAB Grad Show Symposium, panellist, UTS Faculty of DAB, 16 November.
2018, ‘History + Design Roundtable: In a World Focused on ‘Design Futures’ – Where is ‘History’ in Research & Practice?’ (event organiser and moderator, with Dist Prof Peter McNeil, Prof Cameron Tonkinwise, Prof Anne Burdick & Dr Susan Stewart), UTS History Network Seminar Series, 10 October.
2018, ‘Not the What but the How: Methods Conversations’, panel chair and event organiser, UTS History Network Seminar Series, 5 September.
2018, ‘The Past and Present of Technological Change’, panellist w/ Dr Frances Flanagan, Work: Past and Present, UTS, 3 May.
Stein, JA, and Rowden, E, 2017, ‘Talking spatial memory: Workers, inmates, institutional buildings and mnemonic space’, Oral History Association of Australia Biennial Conference, Sydney, 16 September.
Stein, JA, Simpson, AV, Berti, M, and Hermens, A, 2017, ‘Keeping the axe workshop going’: Australian manufacturing and the hidden maintenance of historical practices’, The Maintainers II, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, 6–9 April.
Stein, JA, 2017, ‘Fuzzy Pixels, Aesthetics and Avoiding Nostalgia’, Law and History: The Archives, Ethics and Aesthetics Symposium, UTS Law School, 18 March.
2017, ‘Oral Histories of Work’, panellist w/ Professor Maryanne Dever, Kylie Andrews, Professor Paula Hamilton, Australian Centre for Public History, UTS, 2 March.
2016, ‘Image Management’, Fieldwork symposium, panel chair, UTS School of Architecture, 16 March.
2014, ‘Hearing your Community’s Voice: Creating an Oral History Project’, panellist, Oral History NSW, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, 5 April.
2013, ‘Pictures, Pranks and Printers: Unofficial Creative Practice at the NSW Government Printing Office, 1959-1989’, public lecture for History Week 2013, History Council of NSW, 7 September. Also included as a History Week 2013 video.
Stein, JA 2013, ‘Picturing the Guv: reflections on the process of combining oral histories with institutional photographs’, conference paper, SA State History Conference / Oral History Association of Australia Biannual Conference, Adelaide, 22 September.
Stein, JA 2012, ‘Weighty matters in the shift from letterpress to offset-lithography: Gender, design, & tradition at a Government Printing Office’, conference paper, Gender, Bodies & Technology, Virginia Tech University, 27 April.
2011, ‘Placewriting” / “placeblogging”’, panel organiser and moderator, with Dr Meredith Jones, Matt Levinson, Polly Levinson, Linda Carroli, Right to the City symposium, Sydney University, Sydney, 9 April.
2010, “Domesticity and Gender in the Industrial Design of the Apple II”, public talk for the Centre for Contemporary Design Practices (CCDP) Seminar Series: Varieties of Cultural History, UTS School of Design, 31 March.
Stein, JA 2010, ‘Domesticity and gender in the industrial design of Apple Computer’, conference paper, Popular Culture Association of Australia and New Zealand Annual Conference, POPCAANZ / University of Queensland, Sydney, 30 June.
Stein, JA 2009, ‘Domesticity and Gender in the Industrial Design of the Apple II’, conference paper, George Roeder Art History Symposia, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 30 April.
Stein, JA 2009, ‘The mystification machine: the Eames Office and the IBM Pavilion at the New York World’s Fair 1964-1965’, conference paper, Failed Design: What Were They Thinking? Bard Graduate School Symposium, The Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design & Culture, New York, 24 April.
2009, ‘Be possibility’, panellist with Bruce Mau, public forum discussion about the 2010 Denver Biennial, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 15 May.
Jesse Adams Stein 