Sydney Ideas

Australia poet Mark Tredinnick discusses the landscape in and of contemporary poetry, the role of the lyric in a time of spiritual and ecological crisis, and the importance of writing across the disciplines and embedding creativity in education at all points of life and learning. A Sydney Ideas event held at the University of Sydney on Tuesday 15 May 2018. https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/sydney-ideas/2018/landscape-of-poetry-mark-tredinnick-in-conversation-robyn-ewing.html

This event brings together a panel of experts to discuss how the Australian healthcare system is a major contributor to the nation's carbon footprint. Held as part of Sydney Ideas on 1 May 2018: https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/sydney-ideas/2018/is-the-health-sector-key-to-a-low-carbon-world.html

Professor Mary Kaldor will introduce the concept of global security cultures in order to explain why we get stuck in certain ways of doing security. She argues that, in contrast to the Cold War period when there was one dominant security culture based on military forces and states, nowadays there are several competing cultures including Geopolitics, New Wars, the Liberal Peace and the War on Terror. She will discuss the contradictions, dilemmas and experiments that might open up alternative pathways.

Nadia Urbinati, one of Italy's most distinguished scholars, analyses the main forces that are nowadays tearing apart more than a few democracies around the world, Italy included. In an unusual twist, she concentrates less on the overt enemies of democracy than on those who pose as its friends: for instance, technocrats wedded to expert procedures; demagogues who make glib appeals to 'the people', and media platforms bent on turning politics into a sensational spectator sport and citizens into fans of opposing teams. Presented as part of Sydney Ideas with Sydney Democracy Network (SDN) and Sydney Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Centre (SSSHARC)on 17 April 2018: https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/sydney-ideas/2018/the-false-friends-of-democracy-power-opinion-truth-people.html

A panel of distinguished international visitors and Australia-based experts discuss and debate the ‘hot button’ issues being raised by Asian digital transformations. Held as part of Sydney Ideas on 12 April 2018: https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/sydney-ideas/2018/digital-rights-and-governance-in-asia-the-state-of-the-arts.html

Australia is widely celebrated as a multicultural triumph, but any such success remains incomplete. The findings of a new report, produced by the Australian Human Rights Commission in partnership with the University of Sydney Business School, the Committee for Sydney and Asia Society Australia, suggest we have a long way to go before realising the full potential of our multicultural population. In this Sydney Ideas event, held on 11 April 2018, Race Discrimination Commissioner Dr Tim Soutphommasane and University of Sydney Vice-Chancellor Dr Michael Spence AC launch the new research on cultural diversity and Australian leadership, and discuss opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.

Can we make objects invisible? Professor Gunther Uhlmann explores inverse problems, and the progress scientists are making to achieve invisibility.

Authoritarian populists have disrupted politics in many societies, as seen in the U.S. and the UK. This event brings two leading scholars to discuss their new books and the power of populist authoritarianism. Prof Pippa Norris discusses her new book Cultural Backlash: The Rise of Populist Authoritarianism. Prof John Keane discusses his new book When Trees Fall, Monkeys Scatter: rethinking democracy in China.

From the atom bomb to the microprocessor, physics produced many of the great transformations of the 20th century. In the 21st, a convergence of artificial intelligence, autonomous systems and quantum computing will yield even more profound changes. Professor Michael Biercuk, Professor Allison Macfarlane, Professor Hugh Gusterson, Professor Toby Walsh and Professor James Der Derian investigate the implications of quantum innovation for peace and security in the 21st century. Held as part of Sydney Ideas on 15 February 2018: https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/sydney-ideas/2018/strange-physics--drones--artificial-intelligence-and-quantum-com.html

Ngarigu woman Professor Jakelin Troy discusses intimate details of the lives, language and knowledge of the Aboriginal women she has discovered among the anthropological archives. Co-presented with Sydney University Museums, this talk coincides with the UNESCO memory of the world exhibition in Fisher Library which features the Anthropology archive through the work of Phyllis Kaberry, the first professionally trained Australian anthropologist, and the first to publish on Aboriginal women’s knowledge. Held as part of Sydney Ideas on 15 March 2018: https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/sydney-ideas/2018/interlocutors-in-the-archive.html

Outrage. Is it an affect? An agency? A meme? This talk by Professor Robyn Wiegman attempts to decide whether outrage offers political instruction or if it's an instrument of democratic destruction. Held as part of Sydney Ideas on 13 March 2018: https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/sydney-ideas/2018/outrage-the-psychic-life-of-trumps-america.html

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have historically been subject to much more misdiagnosis, mistreatment, incarceration and coercion than other Australians in the hands of psychiatric institutions, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals. The ramifications of psychiatry’s sometimes unwitting, indifferent or knowing complicity in past harmful practices and beliefs have been far-reaching. They extend from the health and well-being of the individual patient, to human rights and social justice concerns that prevail in contemporary Australian society. How do we come to grips with the past, and how do we do so in just ways? What are the responsibilities of psychiatry to ensure a contribution to improving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social and emotional health and well-being? What can apology and other forms of recognition achieve? What can we learn from other projects of apology and recognition? A panel discussion held as part of Sydney Ideas on 7 March 2018: https://sydney.edu.a

We’ve just legalised same-sex marriage, but where does the rest of the world stand? Bronwyn Winter and Maxime Forest explore the ways in which same-sex marriage becomes institutionalised (or resisted) through legal and societal norms and practices. Held as part of Sydney Ideas on 5 March 2018: https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/sydney-ideas/2018/same-sex-marriage-and-the-state-global-perspectives.html

Professor Sylvie Poirier reflects on her trajectory of engagement and collaborative research with the Atikamekw First Nation (north-central Quebec, Canada). In 1990, when the Council of the Atikamekw Nation first approached Professor Poirier to conduct research work on land rights issues, they agreed that her anthropological expertise would serve their life projects. Since then, Professor Poirier’s engagement with them has been manifold. Early on, as an “expert” anthropologist within the arduous process of land claims negotiations, she documented the “anthropological proof” of their ancestral relationships to the land claimed. In the early 2000s, her anthropological expertise and research funds were further utilised for exploring contemporary ways to document, valorise and transmit their knowledge systems to younger generations. In this Sydney Ideas lecture she discusses collaborative research as an ongoing process of learning, exchange, and decolonization for the anthropologist and the Indigenous people.

Professor Roger Saljo, University of Gothenburg, argues that learning as we know it is currently changing in nature from its traditional focus on reproduction to a focus on learning as design. The purpose of education is to contribute to reproducing the knowledge and skills that are relevant for a society. In traditional societies with a low division of labour this implies focussing on reproducing knowledge that is stable and well known. In societies undergoing rapid change, due to factors such as digitalisation, globalisation and an increasing knowledge production, the situation will be different. Education and instruction – from preschool to university – can no longer be modelled solely on what is known but has to be forward looking and based on visions of a largely unknown future. Held as part of Sydney Ideas 'Education and Social Work Dean’s Lecture Series' on 14 February 2018 https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/sydney-ideas/2018/education-and-social-work-deans-lecture-series.html

What if getting old didn’t mean getting ill? Although we're living longer in most parts of the world, advancing age has been revealed as the major risk factor for serious diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular disease and dementia. Professor Dame Linda Partridge FRS is Director of the Institute of Healthy Ageing at University College London, and a founding director of the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne, Germany looks into the potential for intervening in the ageing process. Held as part of Sydney Ideas on 13 Feb 2018: https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/sydney-ideas/2018/is-there-a-cure-for-ageing-.html

What is the position of the translator as cultural mediator? A panel of distinguished scholars explore the significance of translation, its impact on encounters between people, and its contribution to social cohesion, especially in multicultural and multi-faith societies like Australia.

A forum with Tim Wright, Asia-Pacific director of ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons), winner of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for its part in spearheading the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons; the first Treaty to outlaw the development, stockpiling, possession, transfer, hosting, testing, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons. He is joined by Tim Ayres, the National Research Coordinator of the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union; and Tara Gutman, the Acting National Manager, International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and Advocacy at Australian Red Cross. Together they discuss the work that still needs to be done and the vital role of the peace and humanitarian movements in Australia. Held on 30 November 2017 as part of the Sydney Ideas program co-presented with the School of Social and Political Sciences, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the Evatt Foundation and the Council for Peace and Justice: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2017/nu

Gideon Levy is an Israeli journalist, writing opinion pieces and a weekly column for the newspaper Haaretz often focusing on the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. In 2004, Levy published a compilation of articles entitled Twilight Zone – Life and Death under the Israeli Occupation(2004). His weekly talk show, A Personal meeting with Gideon Levy, was broadcast on Israeli cable TV. Levy defines himself as a "patriotic Israeli". He criticises what he sees as Israeli society's moral blindness to the effects of its acts of war and occupation. He has referred to the construction of settlements on private Palestinian land as "the most criminal enterprise in [Israel's] history". Response by Antony Loewenstein, an independent journalist and author of My Israel Question, The Blogging Revolution and Disaster Capitalism: Making A Killing Out Of Catastrophe. Chaired by Professor Dirk Moses, Department of History, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Held as part of Sydney Ideas on 29 November 2017:

The makers of Venezuela's leading satirical news site El Chigüire Bipolar discuss the politics of satire with the makers of Australia’s in no way leading satirical news site The Chaser. Held as part of Sydney Ideas on 28 November 2017: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2017/chaser_el_chiguir_bipolar.shtml