Sydney Ideas

The winners of the Australian Book Review prestigious Calibre Essay Prize this year, Michael Adams and Darius Sepehri, read extracts from their Prize-winning essays, and discuss the themes of grief and mortality found in both pieces. Michael Adams, an associate professor of Human Geography at the University of Wollongong, won first prize for ‘Salt Blood’, a remarkable and highly original meditatio...

Experts in law, security, and international relations consider why have cultural, religious, and national issues reappeared in the new international order. Speakers: - Professor James Der Derian, Centre for International Security Studies, the University of Sydney - Professor Christian Reus-Smit, Professor of International Relations at the University of Queensland - Professor Anne Orford, Laureate...

Causes of compulsive behaviour are complex and unexpected. What are they? Our researchers reveal the mental, physical and social origins of addiction and highlight discoveries that are improving people’s lives. Panelists: - Professor Nick Lintzeris, Clinical Professor, Discipline of Addiction Medicine, Central Clinical School, University of Sydney, and Director and Senior Staff Specialist, Drug an...

A multi-award Iraqi film director, producer and civil activist in in conversation with Dr Lucia Sorbera from the Department of Arabic Language and Cultures on social power of cinema.

How did Jane Austen, a no-name author in her own day, become an international literary icon? It started long before Colin Firth’s wet-white-shirt Darcy. Devoney Looser will introduce you to some of the unsung innovators who first turned ‘Miss Austen’ into a household name, from artists and activists to actors and audiences, looking at how they made and remade her image before popular audiences. Ju...

This forum explores the shifts in assumptions, mindsets and ways of thinking that are required to achieve gender equality and how symbols, such as portraits may assist. The topics are discussed by Professor Emerita Margaret Harris, Dr Ann Stephen, Dr Scott Hill and the artist Celeste Chandler. Held as part of the Sydney Ideas program on 19 July, 2017: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/201...

Millennials, those born in the final decades of the twentieth century, have come of age in an unsettled world – one that offers few clear or established pathways to a secure future. But what exactly are they up against, and how are they responding to the societies they've grown into? Griffith Review 56 writers Natalie O'Brien, Frances Flanagan, Michael Newton, and Adam Peaston join assistant edito...

Our culture is our identity. It is multiple expressions of plural identities. Nobody owns it. We share it with each other. More…or less. The stories that resonate, the luminous moments, are our inheritance from the past and our bequest to future generations. The endeavour for the storyteller is to illuminate experience. For the executive like me, the endeavour is to enable the storyteller. Dr Ruth...

Fusion power is one of a very few sustainable options to replace fossil fuels as the world's primary energy source. Although the conditions for fusion have been reached, much remains to be done to turn scientific success into commercial electrical power. Fusion has progressed from the insight of Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington in 1920 and Fermi's speculations in 1946 to the threshold of fusion burn a...

A phenomenal mathematician, Hanna Neumann achieved her success in the face of the Nazis, an imprisoned husband, and entrenched misogyny. She arrived in Australia in 1963 to take academic positions at the Australian National University, and was made chair of pure mathematics in 1964, making her the first female Professor of Mathematics in Australia. Her most widely known work 'Varieties of Groups'...

The civil war in Syria has entered its seventh year. With death toll estimates ranging from 220,000 to 400,000 casualties and more than 11 million civilians internally displaced or seeking refuge abroad, it has been described as the world’s deadliest conflict of recent times. In this forum, a panel of experts will explore political, cultural and humanitarian dimensions of the Syrian tragedy. The p...

What is the impact of Hillary Clinton's loss and will it discourage or motivate women to become more politically engaged? In conversation with Geraldine Doogue, current host of ABC Radio National’s Saturday Extra, Anna Greenberg who has over 15 years of experience polling in the political, non-profit and academic sectors, charts a way forward for women in politics in both the United States and Aus...

What does it mean to urbanise? Are industrialisation and urbanisation two aspects of the same process? How do villages have a chance to thrive if a state is determined to urbanise the country? Drawing on cases in the peri-urban area of the Pearl River Delta, this talk by Professor Luigi Tomba, Director of the China Studies Centre, The University of Sydney, discusses aspects of China’s rapid urbani...

Belkis Wille is senior Iraq researcher in the Middle East and North Africa division, Human Rights Watch. She discusses the worsening situation for civilians in Mosul, the prospects of justice for victims of ISIS abuses, the prospects for reconciliation in Iraq, and why the international community including Australia should do more to ensure respect for human rights in Iraq. Held as part of the Syd...

Professor Yolanda Moses, Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Cultural Competence, National Centre for Cultural Competence. Based on an article ‘Confronting the Trump Effect on Our Campuses’, recently published in Inside Higher Education, Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Cultural Competence, Professor Yolanda Moses will discuss institutional commitments to diversity, social justice and inclusion in to...

Carlos Ghosn, one of the world’s most influential business leaders and was the first executive to run two Fortune Global 500 companies simultaneously, discusses the future of the automotive industry, the importance of innovation in business, and what it takes to be a truly global leader. Mr Ghosn has been the industry's leading advocate for sustainable transportation; Renault and Nissan were the f...

The challenges that face schools are not simple but there are local, national and international models that may provide some pathways to changing school learning and teaching practices, leadership and governance. This panel considers how schools and schooling can benefit from new models and approaches to learning. They draw on international experience, emergent models (such as the 4Cs) and discuss...

We think we know civil war when we see it. Yet ideas of what it is, and what it isn’t, have a long and contested history, from its fraught origins in republican Rome to debates in early modern Europe to our present day. Defining the term is acutely political, for ideas about what makes a war “civil” often depend on whether one is a ruler or a rebel, victor or vanquished, sufferer or outsider. Call...

In the last 50 years museums have slowly changed from exhibitions ‘about’ Indigenous peoples to exhibitions by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander curators. As the University of Sydney embarks on the building of the new Chau Chak Wing Museum, we consider what are the next steps and continue to question how exhibitions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander collections can engage all visitors m...

What’s wrong with our kidneys? And what we are doing about it at the University of Sydney. Professor Steve Chadban reviews the state of the nation in terms of kidney health and discusses the spectrum of kidney disease in the Australian population. He then turns to the lab to explore potential solutions for key problems in kidney health. From the lab he next moves to the clinic to examine the impac...

A Sydney Writers’ Festival event presented with the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Susan Faludi is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the author of the bestselling Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man, and The Terror Dream: Myth and Misogyny in an Insecure America,...

Associate Professor Muireann Irish, School of Psychology and Brain and Mind Centre at the University of Sydney, gives a fascinating overview of her work exploring autobiographical memory and future thinking across various dementia syndromes. She highlights the cognitive mechanisms and neural networks that need to be functional to support these sophisticated cognitive processes and the devastating...

The extraordinary growth of the past thirty years is due to unprecedented globalisation and accelerating technological change. Connectivity has been associated with rising creativity and accelerating change. The speed, scale and complexity of this integration has far-reaching implications for business and for individuals and societies. Professor Ian Goldin (Oxford University Professor of Globalisa...

Pain is both personal and global and despite all that we know about its origins and treatments, countless people live with chronic pain. In this health forum, University of Sydney experts will highlight new treatments and share insights that are changing people’s lives for the better, especially for those experiencing pain linked to chronic diseases such as arthritis, cancer, injuries, and brain d...

With an audience of over 180 million viewers each year, the Eurovision Song contest is one of the longest running and most watched television events in the world. Since its inception in 1956 it has been used as a vehicle to unite Europe, but throughout its history Eurovision has also highlighted deep divisions in the European project. With this year’s theme ‘celebrate diversity’, politics threaten...