Sydney Ideas

Since the fall of President Ben Ali in Tunisia, followed by those of President Moubarak in Egypt and Colonel Kaddafi in Libya, France has been one of the West’s strongest and most vocal supporters of the "Arab" street protesters against their leadership. This support, however, has proven to be more declamatory than tangible. French diplomat EU chargé d'affaires to Syria, Anis Nacrour discusses the...

Historian and commentator on women, gender and feminism in Egypt, Margot Badran joins Sydney Ideas for a conversation with the University of Sydney’s Lucia Sorbera. Held on 15 October, 2013 http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2013/margot_badran.shtml

One of Chile’s leading political scholars, Professor Ana Maria Stuven, joins Sydney Ideas for an informative presentation on the changing role of women in the public sphere in her country. Held on 3 October, 2013 http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2013/professor_ana_maria_stuven.shtml

2013 marks 150 years since the first of 55,000 Pacific Islander labourers (known as Australian South Sea Islanders or ‘ASSI’) were brought to Australia between 1863-1901, partly by kidnapping and in slave-like conditions to develop the sugar cane, pastoral and maritime industries. Over the past 20 years numerous community members have been involved in “The call for recognition” – a community initi...

The Australian Constitution has not been amended for more than 35 years. In fact, with only 8 of 44 total referendums successful, changing our Constitution is a notoriously difficult task. With a referendum proposed for the near future and the daunting task of achieving a ‘yes’ vote, what is the likelihood of constitutional change? Will Australians be ready to erase the racial discrimination in ou...

Professor Rana Mitter, History and Politics of Modern China at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of St Cross College, explores how the battered China of wartime became today’s superpower in the making – and why. For more information and speaker's biography see: tinyurl.com/jbga4ql

A fascinating conversation with novelist and journalist Ahdaf Soueif who witnessed first-hand the Egyptian Revolution of January 2011. As the events in Egypt unfolded, she reported for The Guardian newspaper and her access to insider information played a key role in outsider understanding of the Arab Spring. Her published account of her participation in the revolution ‘Cairo: My city, our revoluti...

China is undergoing a radical transformation that is changing the lives of everyone who lives there – and reporters have a ringside sea. Five years as the BBC’s correspondent in China have given Michael Bristow a unique insight into daily life and the often perplexing political system in China. For more information and speaker's biography see: tinyurl.com/jma6l5o

The incoming Director of University of Sydney’s China Studies Centre Professor Kerry Brown explores the new leadership of the Chinese Communist Party in China. He offers an assessment of the Hu and Wen period, and suggests how the future leaders will deal with a transition into an era in which the greatest challenges will be socio-political. SPEAKER: Kerry Brown, Professor of Chinese Politics at t...

Journalist Stephen Crittenden chairs a fascinating and robust conversation about the current state of Europe. What do historians say we can learn from history about how to manage the current crisis? Panellists include: Patricia Clavin, Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford; Professor Patrizia Dogliani, Professor of Contemporary and Modern European History at the University of Bologna; Dr Marco Duranti,...

Many of those who engage with the Chinese world encounter the stories that are told about China–there is the monolithic narrative of the party-state, the multiple stories of individuals, companies, communities, and then there are the array of accounts told about China, some that try to deepen understand others that evoke. Geremie R Barmé considers how some of these stories have come to be told, by...

Les Malezer is from the Butchulla/Gubbi Gubbi peoples in southeast Queensland. He has extensive experience in campaigning for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights. On the occasion of International Human Rights Day, his presentation discusses how Aboriginal Peoples and Torres Strait Islander Peoples have greater capacity to take advantage of the legal opportunities and build social capital...

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Mick Gooda charts an agenda of hope that can guide us towards a reconciled Australia. Commissioner Gooda argued that effective engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples should drive the work in the three key areas identified. His central thesis being, that without effective engagement the reconciliation agenda wi...

What do we learn when we revisit scientists' past worlds? How might one write a life as famous as Charles Darwin's? Why is biography the best-selling genre of all? Pre-eminent Darwin scholar and Harvard Professor of the History of Science Janet Browne, talks with University of Sydney historian Professor Iain McCalman, about the challenges and delights of the biographical genre for historians. In c...

Do we need our history to be global? Work, leisure, war and peace, these are some of the themes that historians are now mapping onto a global past. Join historians David Armitage, Joyce E. Chaplin and Erez Manela from Harvard University, along with Sunil Amrith from Birkbeck College, University of London, in a conversation led by Glenda Sluga from the University of Sydney, as they talk about how t...

How to modernise art for a modern China? What ideas and practices should China adapt from the West? Such questions figured prominently in intellectual debate about modernisation at the start of the twentieth century. Within a few decades, art in China had undergone dramatic change, from conception through production to reception. This public lecture will look at Chinese art practice and art debate...

This forum and open discussion with Australia’s leading China commentators was hosted by Dr James Reilly, Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. Participants included: Professor Michael Wesley, Executive Director of the Lowy Institute for International Policy Dr Richard Rigby, Executive Director of the ANU China Institute Dr John Garnaut, China correspond...

Confucius (traditional dates 551-479 BCE) lived during the waning years of the Zhou dynasty. He was deeply troubled by the disorder of his age and took it upon himself to teach others about Zhou virtues as well as to instruct them on how to cultivate such virtue in themselves. Confucius’s efforts mark the beginning of the traditional Chinese emphasis on education and the crucial role of self-impro...

In 2004, construction began in Jerusalem on the local branch of the Los Angeles-based Museum of Tolerance, designed by the leading American architect, Frank Gehry. The museum is now being built over the remains of what had been the largest and most important Muslim cemetery in Palestine, which had been in continual use from the time of the Crusades up until 1948. Professor Saree Makdisi examines t...

SPEAKER: Professor David Goodman, Professor of Chinese Politics, and Director, Institute of Social Sciences Mao Zedong (1893-1976) is best known as the founder of the People’s Republic of China. He led the Chinese Communist Party from 1935 until his death, and brought it to political power in 1949. Mao is well known as a revolutionary, a guerrilla leader, a political and military strategist and ic...

How does the past shape the present? Should history play a role in shaping politics today? Should we be held accountable for the wrongs of the past? Does history divide or unite us? Join prominent Australian and American scholars for an open discussion of these and other issues. Panellists will also explore how and what we remember collectively, and how this contributes to our sense of patriotism,...

Dr Sara Roy, a senior research scholar at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University, explained how the "stunning" economic and social changes of the past decade in Israel and the Occupied Territories have undermined the possibility of peace in the region. Dr Roy was in Australia to deliver the University of Adelaide's Edward Said Memorial Lecture. For more info and speaker's biog...

Prominent Palestinian-British author and academic, Dr Ghada Karmi, had just released her book - Married to Another Man: Israel's Dilemma in Palestine, when she spoke at Sydney Ideas in 2007 to say the two-sate solution promoted by the West is no longer viable. Dr Karmi was in Australia as the presenter of the 2007 Edward Said Memorial Lecture at the University of Adelaide. For more info and speake...

UK activist, historian and author Tariq Ali took the Sydney Ideas audience through a world divided between privilege and poverty and demonstrated the situation in Latin America could not be more different to the Arab world. Both Latin America and the Arab world have sparked intense hostility from the West by challenging neoliberalism, but according to Ali, the resistance in the Middle East is divi...

In Australia to deliver the University of Adelaide's Edward Said Memorial Lecture, eminent Israeli academic, author and linguist Tanya Reinhart argued that speaking out against Israel's handling of the Palestinian conflict is the best act of solidarity one can show towards Israelis and the Jewish people. "When I think of Edward Said, I not only think about a voice of reason and justice, but also a...