Sydney Ideas

Is mindfulness all about the individual practice? What is the role of community when it come to the issues of well-being? How could institutions such as universities enhance emotional well-being of its employees and students? Dr Benjamin Veness, the University of Sydney alumnus and Churchill Fellow offers some solutions.

Don Watson and fellow Quarterly Essayist James Brown discuss the strangest election campaign the US has ever seen.

Approaching death is an opportunity for individuals and those who care for them to reduce unnecessary suffering and achieve something more human and humane. Sadly, few dying people or their carers achieve these ends. What can we do differently ? In this exclusive Sydney Ideas event, Dr Bruce (BJ) Miller, a TED speaker and hospice and palliative medicine physician, reveals how The Zen Hospice Proje...

The twentieth century saw the emergence of a number of authoritarian regimes – China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, the USSR – that have both challenged the global order and persisted in the face of massive external pressure and catastrophic economic downturns. Drawing on in-depth case studies and statistical analysis, Lucan Way (University of Toronto) argues that the threat and resilience of such regi...

Humans are superorganisms with two genomes that dictate phenotype, the genetically inherited human genome (25,000 genes) and the environmentally acquired human microbiome (over 1 million genes). The two genomes must work in harmonious integration as a hologenome to maintain health. Nutrition plays a crucial role in directly modulating our microbiomes and health phenotypes. Poorly balanced diets ca...

Indonesia has struggled with corruption in its natural resource sector, with unchecked environmental destruction the result . Laode M Syarif, the newly elected Commissioner for Indonesia Anti-Corruption Commission (KPK) presents recent progress in the prevention and prosecution of corruption.

Legal academic Professor Annalise Acorn argues that criminal punishment, devoid of all emotions of blame, is inhuman in relation to the offender and contrary to a morally robust justification for the criminal law. More info about this lecture and the speaker: tinyurl.com/zfya9qc

Lecture by Professor Fran Bagenal, Co-investigator and Leader of the Plasma Teams for NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto and Juno mission to Jupiter, and Laboratory of Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado. A Sydney Ideas talk co-presented with Sydney SpaceNet at the University of Sydney, 22 September 2016. http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/professor_fran_bagenal.sh...

What happens in China today – from economic to political and cultural events – already has an impact on the rest of the world. As its global influence increases, what does the future hold? Working closely with China Studies Centre and University of Sydney researchers, Sydney Ideas has provided a platform for local and international China experts to share their insights into this fascinating countr...

Professor Richard Salomon from Department of Asian Languages and Literature at the University of Washington presents an overview of his experiences in studying the oldest manuscripts of Buddhism. These manuscripts, written on birch bark scrolls in the Gāndhārī language which was once spoken in what is now Pakistan and Afghanistan, date back as far as the first century BC. Salomon has been leading...

Following its military successes in Iraq and Syria, and especially after the terrorist attacks in Paris and Belgium, the Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) has become a focus of media attention as the Western world attempts to understand its intentions. But is the international media capable of representing the complexity of the jihadist phenomenon witho...

Retiring from the city to the country is a popular Australia dream. But what are these retirees’ lives like, and what should we know to help improve them? Speaker: Professor Catherine Driscoll, Department of Gender and Cultural Studies THIS LECTURE WAS HELD ON 8 September, 2016 at the University of Sydney as part of the Sydney Ideas and the Insights Lectures series. For more about Insights lecture...

Each year around 55,000 Australians suffer a heart attack, and almost 9,000 will die as a result. We know that obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and smoking can raise the risk of a heart attack - but what about the factors you aren’t aware of? From literally dying of a broken heart to unrecognised genetic conditions to complications from the medicines we take, our panel of experts wil...

For several decades after the Second World War, capitalism regulated by democratic politics proved successful. Rapid growth and equitable distribution supported by open markets ended the pessimism about instability and inequality that permeated Joseph Schumpeter’s classic Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942) written during the war against Fascism. Now doubts are rising again: in the develope...

Western democracies have seen a resurgence in far-right populist movements. Alongside disaffection with mainstream political parties, there has been agitation against immigration and multiculturalism. How are we to make sense of these developments? What do they mean for race relations? And what implications do they have for our democratic future? Tim Soutphommasane is Race Discrimination Commissio...

As a modern idea, national conscience dates back to the anti-slavery campaign of the late eighteenth century. Its origins were Christian, yet they arose from notions of national character. Alan Atkinson’s suggests that, in an age of reviving nationalism, when several of the world’s main problems depend on the will of governments, national conscience has a new relevance and a new urgency. Alan Atki...

Professor Sabine Lee, the University of Birmingham. Starting from a drawing ‘Schattenkinder ‘ by the Dutch painter Knut Weise, whose half-sister is a Russenkind (child of Russian soldier fathered during or after Second World War in Germany) this paper explores the integration of children born of war into post-conflict societies by investigating children fathered by foreign soldiers in several conf...

For more than half a century, the fragile and frozen continent of Antarctica has been protected by ‘post-sovereign’ governing arrangements that are unusual by global standards. There are now clear signs of their breakdown. State rivalries, environmental damage and a dash for resources, including tourism revenues, are pushing the continent towards a highly uncertain future. This public forum tackle...

This panel considers the diverse cultural expressions of mosque design, past and present, in areas where Muslim populations are both minorities and majorities. It explains the history and reasons behind traditional gender segregation in mosques and how this segregation plays itself out in mosque architecture and affects ultimately the spiritual experience of the community. Panellists Dr Sam Bowker...

The Holocaust is one of the most researched events of the twentieth century. Yet it continues to spark popular interest and scholarly controversy. In this lecture Professor Michael Berenbaum, former Project Director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and internationally renowned Holocaust historian will reflect on the current state of research. Challenging prevailing scholarly consensu...

Since they were first revealed in 1863, the casts from Pompeii which preserved the forms of the victims in their moment of death have generated huge interest. Stories of their supposed lives and deaths have proved to be persistent not just in novels and movies, but also in some academic treatments of the site. As part of the Great Pompeii Project of 2015, the Superintendency organised the restorat...

Drawing from his new book - part historical detective story, part family history, part legal thriller - Professor Philippe Sands QC, explains the connections between his work on 'crimes against humanity' and 'genocide', the events that overwhelmed his family during the Second World War, and the remarkable, untold story that lay at the heart of the Nuremberg Trial: how Rafael Lemkin and Hersch Laut...

Professor Mark Dadds from the Sydney Child Behaviour Research Clinic at the University of Sydney covers some of the current scientific evidence behind the building blocks of evidence-based parenting interventions: including rewards, punishment, and attachment. A Sydney Ideas event for Sydney Science Festival 2016.

Politics at the End of the World: A Public Forum on the Future of Antarctica A panel of experts and those passionate about preserving Antarctica give a fascinating overview of both the history of Antarctica, especially around the legal questions of sovereignty, and progress on the lobbying for a marine park and ultimate preservation of the environment. Speakers include Professor Gillian Triggs, Gr...

The most common causes of death in Australia are chronic non-communicable diseases related to lifestyle. Despite great improvements in treatments and outcomes, more Australians are developing diseases like type 2 Diabetes than ever before, and the total cost to the health system of diabetes alone is around $15bn per year. How do these illnesses interact? What are the factors associated with increa...