UDI Archives - Sydney Democracy Network

ARTICLE | Will Chinese investment sacrifice Ukraine’s dreams of democracy to economic needs?

Olga Oleinikova, University of Sydney This article is part of the Democracy Futures series, a joint global initiative with the Sydney Democracy Network. The project aims to stimulate fresh thinking about the many challenges facing democracies in the 21st century. After years of rapid economic growth, bold...

11 August, 2016 / 0 Comments

UPCOMING EVENTS

october, 2017

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17oct5:30 pm- 7:00 pmCreating a new export market out of Australia's renewable energy advantage5:30 pm - 7:00 pm Event Organized By: Institute of Sustainable Futures, UTS

Event Details

Direct replacement of Australia’s coal and LNG exports with a renewable energy alternative can be hard to grasp. After all, you can’t put the sun or the wind on a ship, can you? One feasible export pathway does just that in the form of hydrogen, produced by electrolysis of seawater and delivered to markets already familiar with Australia as a reliable supplier of sea-borne energy.

power lines

Power can come from specially built wind and solar farms near the sea, or maybe a smart option is to produce hydrogen from grid power during times of excess renewable energy generation – this has the extra benefits of preventing waste and helping the grid operator to balance supply and demand.

Another hydrogen pathway uses ammonia NH3 as the transport medium, a much easier substance to manage in liquid form. This would give the receiving market fantastic flexibility to produce electricity, liquid fuels, and fertiliser all at the same time. Creating such an industry would also have important implications for our own liquid fuel supply – presently a strategic vulnerability for which we have no apparent plan.

Is there also a no-moving-parts solution to connect electricity grids directly under the sea? This turns out to be a credible technical stretch using today’s technology. High-voltage direct-current transmission integrated with energy storage can mobilise northern Australia’s solar resource to make a secure, dispatchable power station in the Java grid, where it might complement the unmatched local geothermal resources. This export pathway opens up a deep strategic partnership with Indonesia to create a regional energy market, and launch it into an emissions-free future.

This talk is part of a series of expert talks run in partnership with EnergyLab and Freshwater Group. These events will be held at EnergyLab on the third Tuesday night of the month. Doors will open at 5:30pm and the talk will run between 6pm and 7pm. Drinks and snacks will be provided.

Time

(Tuesday) 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm

Location

Blackfriars EnergyLab

4-12 Buckland Street, Chippendale, NSW 2008

Organizer

Institute of Sustainable Futures, UTSisf@uts.edu.au Level 11 UTS Building 10, 235 Jones Street, Ultimo NSW 2007 Australia

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17oct6:00 pm- 7:30 pmSouth Africa today and the prospects for the 2019 elections6:00 pm - 7:30 pm Event Organized By: AIIA NSW

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South Africa has probably the highest standard of living in Africa, is endowed with enormous mineral wealth and is a highly industrialised country. The years of apartheid detracted from its success and, as a result, South African expatriates are spread across the world.

Since the demise of apartheid in 1994 South Africa has integrated its population but after 23 years the disparity of wealth is worse than ever. The economy is weakening, unemployment is rising and corruption is rearing its head. What are the prospects of recovery in the short term and will the election in 2019 harbinger a change for the better?

Despite the success of the ANC governments under Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki, South Africa now finds itself in the doldrums. But the future looks bright if the climate of good governance and sound economic planning is put in place.

The AABC (the Australia Africa Business Council) and the AIIA NSW are delighted to welcome HE Beryl Sisulu, South Africa’s High Commissioner to Australia to address us this evening. She is the daughter of the late Walter and Albertina Sisulu. Walter served a 26 year term on Robben Eiland with the venerable Nelson Mandela. Albertina Sisulu was probably the longest suffering woman freedom fighter against apartheid. Beryl is a seasoned diplomat having served her country as ambassador in Norway, Iceland, Japan and now in Australia. A lawyer by profession, she is an articulate speaker on conditions in her home country.

AABC members should refer to the flier emailed to them for registration.

Time

(Tuesday) 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm

Location

The Glover Cottages

124-134 Kent St, Millers Point NSW 2000

Organizer

AIIA NSW

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19oct6:00 pm- 7:30 pm50,000 YEARS OF AUSTRALIAN HISTORY: A PLEA FOR INTERDISCIPLINARITY6:00 pm - 7:30 pm Event Organized By: Sydney Ideas

Event Details

Professor Lynette Russell, Monash Indigenous Studies Centre, Monash University

The 2nd Bicentennial Australian History Lecture, hosted by the Department of History, the University of Sydney

russell CMS

Joseph Lycett – Aborigines Resting by a Camp Fire near the Mouth of the Hunter River, Newcastle, NSW. (National Library of Australia)

How do we understand, imagine, visualise and create narratives for 50,000 years of Australian history?

As commonly presented, Australia’s past seems to consist of 230 years of European colonisation and over 50,000 years of Aboriginal culture, the former the purview of historians and the latter of archaeologists. Yet it presents striking opportunities for a truly integrated and seamless deep continental history, combining disciplines and methodologies.

Such a history would consider the full range of human experience from arrival, through changes in climate, technologies and belief systems to interactions with Maccassan, Portuguese, Dutch, French and finally the British. It would stretch across 2500 unbroken generations of people birthed, nurtured and sustained: people who modified landscapes, hunted, sang songs, practised religion and buried their dead.

This lecture argues for mixing epistemologies to create historical narratives of the deep past that may be taught in schools and universities, presented in museums and popular culture, and proudly shared by all Australians.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Professor Lynette Russell is Director of the Monash Indigenous Studies Centre, Monash University, and Node Director of the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence in Australian Biodiverstiy and Heritage. She traces her Aboriginal ancestry via her grandmother from Western Victoria with connections into Tasmania and the Bass Strait islands; on the other side she is descended from transported convicts.

Lynette has a PhD in history from the University of Melbourne and has taught and researched in historical studies for over twenty years. In 2015 she was visiting fellow at All Souls College Oxford. Her monographs include: Hunt them, Hang Them: The Tasmanians in Port Phillip, 1841-1842 (2016); Roving Mariners: Aboriginal Whalers in the Southern Oceans 1790-1870 (2012); Appropriated Pasts: Archaeology and Indigenous People in Settler Colonies, coauthored with Ian McNiven (2005); A Little Bird Told Me (2002); and Savage Imaginings: Historical and Contemporary Representations of Australian Aboriginalities (2001). She is the current President of the Australian Historical Association.

The Bicentennial Australian History Lecture is a biennial public lecture hosted by the Department of History in the School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry, University of Sydney. Distinguished historians offer engaged and critical perspectives on Australia’s past and the legacies of colonisation.

Time

(Thursday) 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm

Location

General Lecture Theatre

Quadrangle Building, University of Sydney

Organizer

Sydney Ideassydney.ideas@sydney.edu.au

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19oct6:00 pm- 7:30 pmSYDNEY ASIAN ART SERIES LECTURE BY DAVID J. ROXBURGH - PAINTING AFTER THE MASS-PRODUCED IMAGE: ART IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY IRAN6:00 pm - 7:30 pm Event Organized By: China Studies Centre

Event Details

David J. Roxburgh, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Professor of Islamic Art History, Harvard University

Thursday 19 October, 6pm

Charles Perkins Centre Auditorium, The University of Sydney

The Power Institute, the University of Sydney’s China Studies Centre and VisAsia, with support from the Art Gallery of New South Wales and Sydney Ideas, are proud to present the fourth in our Sydney Asian Art Series talks, with a lecture by David J. Roxburgh, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Professor of Islamic Art History, Harvard University. In Painting After the Mass-Produced Image: Art in nineteenth-century Iran, Professor Roxburgh will discuss the influence of new technologies on the art of the Persian Qajar dynasty.

In Iran, rulers of the Persian Qajar dynasty (1779-1925) pursued a broad range of military, bureaucratic and social reforms, formed new institutions (including the first polytechnic Dar al-Funun ‘Abode of the Sciences’), and embraced new technologies of the mass-produced image, such as photography and lithography. It was also a period of heightened exchange between Iran, India, Russia and the countries of Europe, in which greater numbers of people travelled between these regions for work, trade, diplomacy, education and tourism. Art produced under Qajar rule – for elite and middle class audiences – fully reflected this new mixture of mediums and images moved across and between them with great fluidity. While Persian artists welcomed these new mediums – freely excerpting subjects from a broad range of high through popular visual culture and combining them to produce innovative artworks – the majority of European visitors by contrast offered scathing and derisive criticism. The largely negative history of reception of Qajar art has haunted art historical scholarship until recent years. This lecture examines the processes by which Qajar artists – whether working at the royal court or in the bazaar – embraced new technologies of the image and examines the nature of their resulting intermedial artworks. What were the implications for the art of painting after the advent of photography and lithography?

David J. Roxburgh is Department Chair and Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Professor of Islamic Art History, Harvard University. His books include Prefacing the Image: The Writing of Art History in Sixteenth-Century Iran (Leiden, 2001) and The Persian Album, 1400-1600: From Dispersal to Collection (New Haven, 2005). He has also worked as a curator on the exhibitions, Turks: A Journey of A Thousand Years (London, Royal Academy of Art, 2005) and Traces of the Calligrapher: Islamic Calligraphy in Practice, c. 1600-1900M (Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, 2007). His articles take a variety of approaches to the study of aesthetics, art and culture of the book, history of collections, and written sources.

The Sydney Asian Art Series presents leading international voices on early, modern and contemporary Asian art. This three-year series of talks and events is co-presented by the University of Sydney’s China Studies Centre, The Power Institute and VisAsia, with support from the Art Gallery of New South Wales and Sydney Ideas.

Time

(Thursday) 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm

Location

Old Geology Lecture Theatre

Science Road The University of Sydney

Organizer

China Studies CentreE: csc.events@sydney.edu.au T:9114 1109

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19oct6:00 pm- 7:30 pmFOOD CHOICES AND THEIR DETERMINANTS: AN ECONOMICS PERSPECTIVE6:00 pm - 7:30 pm Event Organized By: Sydney Ideas

Event Details

Sydney Ideas co-presented with the School of Economics at the University of Sydney

The study of food choice is at the forefront of research in economics today due to its repercussion on nutritional issues for the population and consequently on public health.

Consumers display very heterogeneous preferences towards food, and react sometimes controversially to nutrition information conveyed to them via food labels or other formats.

Choices vary according to taste preferences, but also to factors such as certification of origin, geographical indication, sustainable production methods and, importantly, health concerns and psychological traits of consumers.

Understanding the sources of various forms of heterogeneity is crucial, as it allows to set up successful public health programs and strategic market policies.

About the speaker:

Associate Professor Mara Thiene is an economist at the University of Padua in the Department of Land, Environment and Forestry. She is Chief Advisor for Oceania and South Asia, in the office of the VC of International Relations at the University of Padua. Her research applies non-market valuation techniques to natural resources and ecosystem services, and she has explored methodological aspects of discrete choice models and extended them to investigate preference heterogeneity of food and wine choice.

Time

(Thursday) 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm

Location

Law School LT 106

Sydney Law School, Eastern Avenue, The University of Sydney

Organizer

Sydney Ideassydney.ideas@sydney.edu.au

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23oct6:00 pm- 7:30 pmSydney Ideas - Demarchy for better public policy6:00 pm - 7:30 pm Event Organized By: Sydney Ideas

24oct9:30 am- 7:30 pmLOOKING BACK, MOVING FORWARD: SYMPOSIUM ON THE FUTURE OF AUSTRALIA-CHINA RELATIONS9:30 am - 7:30 pm Event Organized By: China Studies Centre

Event Details

This year, 2017, marks the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Australia and The People’s Republic of China, and it is a momentous year to consider the state of this relationship that has become central to Australia. The relationship between the two nations are affected by unpredictable geopolitical changes around the world, from doubts about the integrity of the European Union, to a new brand of conservatism ruling in the US, as reflected by the election of President Trump. In the context of these global developments, will Australia need to rethink its position towards China? What is the role of the US in the region, vis-à-vis China and where does Australia position itself amongst these two powers? Global economic conditions have also altered dramatically in the last 45 years, including the 2008 global economic crisis. Such transformations allows us the opportunity to ask big questions: How will changes in Chinese economic priorities affect the Australian economy? Will Australia be able to capitalise on changes occurring within China’s economy? For Beijing and Canberra, this is an increasingly mature and mutually beneficial relationship, but also one that faces many challenges.

Such questions are at the centre of a one day symposium, co-hosted by the China Studies Centre and the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. Involving scholars and practitioners, the symposium will focus on key aspects that have shaped Australia-China relations: the political, economic, social and cultural ties between the two nations. While the symposium provides an opportunity on 45 years of engagement, it is also an apt moment to present lessons learnt to shape and improve future relations.

Panel 1: Economic Relations

China today faces daunting economic challenges. To many economists, only dramatic structural transformation offers hope for escaping a looming middle-income trap. Demands are mounting for Xi Jinping to take dramatic steps reining in the bloated state sector, replace investment-led growth with domestic consumption, and tackle industrial over-capacity. The future of China, many argue, lies in the balance of its economy. The ‘bear-bull’ debate over China’s economic future has profound implications for Australia, given its extreme dependence upon Chinese prosperity. Chinese consumers, investors, students, and tourists play central roles across Australia’s economy today. What about tomorrow? What should our China policy look like going forward? How risky is economic dependence upon China? Where are Australia’s growth opportunities in China? Should we be looking to broaden our economic partners or double-down on our China bet? This panel brings together leading economists to shed light upon Australia’s current and future economic relationship with China.

Chair:
James Reilly (Department of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney)

Panellists:
Hans Hendrischke (University of Sydney Business School)
Peter Drysdale (Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU) Peter Cai (Lowy Institute)
Peter Cai (Lowy Institute)

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Panel 2: Security and International Relations

When Canberra and Beijing established diplomatic relations in 1972, China remained largely isolated, economically backward, and faced imminent threats from the Soviet Union Today, China has become the second largest economy in the world with growing military power and diplomatic influence affecting regional peace and prosperity. Australia-China relations have also evolved, underpinned by strong and mutually beneficial economic ties in trade and investment, and growing people-to-people contacts from tourism and higher education. However, there remain significant challenges in bilateral relations. Australia remains committed to its alliance with the United States, advocates rule-based order and multilateral, diplomatic solutions to disputes in the region, and promotes universal values such as the respect for human rights. On the other hand, Beijing’s increasingly assertive foreign policy, in particular its firm positons on territorial disputes in the East and South China Seas, and its challenge to US primacy in the region, poses a serious dilemma for Australia as it seeks to maintain a delicate balance between the two great powers which, in turn, will affect the direction of Australia-China bilateral relations in the coming years.

Chair:
Jingdong Yuan (Department of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney)

Panellists:
Linda Jakobson (China Matters)
Han Feng (Australian Studies Centre, China Academy of Social Sciences)
Wang Yi (Griffith University)

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Panel 3: Cultural Engagement

Forty-five years of economic and political engagement between the two nations have increased the circulation of people and ideas, exposing both to each other’s rich and culturally diverse environments. No other number allows us to understand this dimension of the relationship better than the number of Chinese students in Australia, which in 2016 surpassed 46,000 in one year, more than 25 per cent more than 2015. Aside from the economic contribution to Australia’s education sector, this phenomenon is important in ways that are sometimes difficult to fathom and need to be explored beyond their direct meaning. The visibility of, and interest in Chinese culture in Australia and vice versa are also demonstrated by important initiatives, from Chinese New Year celebrations across Australia to the Australian Writers’ Week in China; from the establishment of the White Rabbit Contemporary Chinese Art Collection to Ai Weiwei’s exhibition at National Gallery of Victoria and the Celestial Empire exhibition at the National Library. Education, culture and art have become terrains of engagement for Australia and China that add important dimensions to their relationship. Are education, cultural and artistic exchanges creating new avenues of understanding and facilitating new dialogues or are they creating other more complex issues for our two societies? Does a better understanding of each other facilitate Australians own understanding of multiculturalism? Will education, culture and art strengthen or complicate the relationship between Australia and China?

Chair:
Jocelyn Chey(Australia China Institute for Arts and Culture,Western Sydney University)

Panellists:
Nicholas Jose (English and Creative Writing, University of Adelaide)
Sophie Loy-Wilson (History, University of Sydney)
Luise Guest (White Rabbit Contemporary Chinese Art Collection)

Click here for speaker’s profile

Keynote Lecture-Australia and China:Before and Below the Nation

December 2017 marks 45 years since Australia and the People’s Republic of China established formal diplomatic relations. In celebrating such anniversaries, it is common for politicians and diplomats to note how the Australia–China relationship has developed over the intervening years – citing trade and investment figures, and tourism dollars, and the growing numbers of Chinese students at Australian universities.

But what of Australia–China relations before 1972? Before 1922? Before 1872?

In this lecture Dr Kate Bagnall considers a different history of Australia–China relations. With the first known Chinese settler in New South Wales arriving almost 200 years ago, what do we know about the men and women whose lives crossed between China and Australia, and Australia and China, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries?

What do we know of the connections of people and place forged before and below the nation-to-nation ties of the late twentieth century? And how might a focus on the personal and intimate in the past contribute to better understanding in the future?

About the speaker:

Dr Kate Bagnall is an ARC DECRA Research Fellow in the School of Humanities and Social Inquiry at the University of Wollongong, where she is working on a comparative study of Chinese colonial citizenship in Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

She has published on various aspects of Chinese Australian history and is co-editor, with Sophie Couchman, of Chinese Australians: Politics, Engagement and Resistance (2015). Much of her research explores the lives of the women, children and families of Australia’s early Chinese communities and the transnational connections and qiaoxiang ties of Chinese Australians before 1940. She is @baibi on Twitter and you can find her research blog at www.chineseaustralia.org.

Click here to register for the keynote lecture.

Time

(Tuesday) 9:30 am - 7:30 pm

Location

Law School Foyer

Level 2, Sydney Law School, Eastern Avenue, The University of Sydney

Organizer

China Studies CentreE: csc.events@sydney.edu.au T:9114 1109

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24oct6:00 pm- 7:30 pmTHE LIMITS OF GLOBALIZATION IN ART HISTORY6:00 pm - 7:30 pm Event Organized By: Sydney Ideas

Event Details

Professor James Elkins Art History, Theory and Criticism, and Visual and Critical Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Presented by the Power Institute for the Keir Lectures on Artseries

Gospel Book (detail)

Image credit: Gospel Book (detail), 1504 to 1505, Tempera on parchment, Leaf: 34.5 × 26.5 cm. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

This lecture is not concerned with global art per se, but with the global writing of art history. Current initiatives supporting the international practice of art history, such as the Clark Art Institute’s Mellon Foundation-funded projects, are aimed at the exchange of information and the facilitation of travel and study. Such programs, Elkins argues, can promote a homogenised approach. In this lecture, Elkins challenges the assumption that there are traditions of art-historical scholarship different from those that are widely acknowledged, suggesting instead that scholarly practices exist, but not as art history as it is currently known; rather, they may appear in other forms, such as art criticism or as source documents.

According to Elkins, the real diversity in art-historical practices belies the incremental assessments of quality of research, argument, and choice of topic that commonly determine whether a text, or a scholar, is accepted in international venues.

This talk surveys that problem with special attention to the unacknowledged dissemination of European and North American models of art-historical writing (including the symposium and seminar formats, the institution of departments of art history, and the de facto definitions of the discipline) and the global use of principally western European theoretical models.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Professor James Elkins is Professor Art History, Theory and Criticism, and Visual and Critical Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His writing focuses on the history and theory of images in art, science, and nature. Some of his books are exclusively on fine art What Painting Is, and Why Are Our Pictures Puzzles? Others include scientific and non-art images, writing systems, and archaeology The Domain of Images, On Pictures and the Words That Fail Them, and some are about natural history How to Use Your Eyes. Recent books include What Photography Is, written against Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida; Artists with PhDs, second edition; and Art Critiques: A Guide, third edition.

James Elkins’ lecture is coordinated by the Power Institute as part of the Keir Lectures on Art series, supported by the Keir Foundation and presented in partnership with The University of Melbourne.

Time

(Tuesday) 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm

Location

The Great Hall

The Quadrangle, University of Sydney, Camperdown NSW 2006

Organizer

Sydney Ideassydney.ideas@sydney.edu.au

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24oct6:00 pm- 7:30 pmSydney Ideas - Australia and China: Before and Below the Nation6:00 pm - 7:30 pm Event Organized By: Sydney Ideas

Event Details

The keynote lecture for the Looking Back, Moving Forward: Symposium on the future of Australia-China relations hosted by the China Studies Centre

December 2017 marks 45 years since Australia and the People’s Republic of China established formal diplomatic relations. In celebrating such anniversaries, it is common for politicians and diplomats to note how the Australia–China relationship has developed over the intervening years – citing trade and investment figures, and tourism dollars, and the growing numbers of Chinese students at Australian universities.

But what of Australia–China relations before 1972? Before 1922? Before 1872?

In this lecture Dr Kate Bagnall considers a different history of Australia–China relations. With the first known Chinese settler in New South Wales arriving almost 200 years ago, what do we know about the men and women whose lives crossed between China and Australia, and Australia and China, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries?

What do we know of the connections of people and place forged before and below the nation-to-nation ties of the late twentieth century? And how might a focus on the personal and intimate in the past contribute to better understanding in the future?

About the speaker:

Dr Kate Bagnall is an ARC DECRA Research Fellow in the School of Humanities and Social Inquiry at the University of Wollongong, where she is working on a comparative study of Chinese colonial citizenship in Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

She has published on various aspects of Chinese Australian history and is co-editor, with Sophie Couchman, of Chinese Australians: Politics, Engagement and Resistance (2015). Much of her research explores the lives of the women, children and families of Australia’s early Chinese communities and the transnational connections and qiaoxiang ties of Chinese Australians before 1940. She is @baibi on Twitter and you can find her research blog at www.chineseaustralia.org.

Image: Chinese picnic at Emmaville, c.1908

Time

(Tuesday) 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm

Location

Law School Foyer

Level 2, Sydney Law School, Eastern Avenue, The University of Sydney

Organizer

Sydney Ideassydney.ideas@sydney.edu.au

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24oct6:30 pm- 8:00 pmIQ2 DEBATE: HUMANITY IS DESIGNING ITS OWN DEMISE6:30 pm - 8:00 pm Event Organized By: The Ethics Centre

Event Details

If Bob Dylan had written his classic song today, he might have called it ‘The Times They Are A-Makin My Head Spin’.

Thinking about the future can make you feel optimistic or hopeless. Who knows what it holds?

From our politics to the very resources we rely on, we haven’t yet found a balance between our needs and wants, and the things that sustain them.

We are in a new era. Of growing and changing population, economic failings and headwinds, changes to our environments and the mix of biodiversity on our planet. We are unsure of our resources, whether its land, energy, food or water.

Technological advances are delivering ethical minefields. And with each change, our choices expand and others get left behind.

We don’t know if we’ll have jobs. Or what those jobs will look like. We don’t even know what we will look like – our communities, families, our children, even our own reflections.

Perhaps we’re designing our own end. Or maybe we’re in the messy process of future-proofing humanity.

Can we weather the storms ahead like the generations before us?

SPEAKERS

FOR

Clive Hamilton is a philosopher, author and professor of Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University. His most recent book is Defiant Earth: The Fate of Humans in the Anthropocene. He argues humanity’s influence on Earth is so great we have irreversibly changed the planet and created a new geological epoch – to our detriment.
Follow Clive: @CliveCHamilton

AGAINST

Signe Dean is science and health journalist, broadcaster and deputy editor at ScienceAlert. Her work has been published in National Geographic, Australian Geographic and SBS Science Online, which she launched. The former Executive Producer of SBS Latvian radio sees an optimistic future for humanity and marvels at our capacity to design new medical technologies and cures.
Follow Signe: @nevertoocurious

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Time

(Tuesday) 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm

Location

Sydney Town Hall

483 George Street, Sydney, NSW,

Organizer

The Ethics Centre

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25oct6:00 pm- 7:30 pmSydney Ideas - Globalisation6:00 pm - 7:30 pm Event Organized By: Sydney Ideas

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The Thinker’s Guide to the 21st Century series of forums brings together the University of Sydney thinkers from the disciplines of History, Politics, Economics, and Philosophy to help us navigate the key concepts tossed around in the contemporary political debate and news.

Wednesday 25 October – GLOBALISATION

There is no word with more purchase in present political discourse than Globalisation. But what does it mean, and why is it so important? This panel surveys the extent of today’s globalization, and asks: How globalised is the world really? What is the significance of this idea for politics? Is globalisation good for us? Does the European Union still represent a future in which the world is growing closer together? Or have we arrived at an impasse and begun to fragment around nationalist economics and ideologies?

Join Professor John Romalis, a University of Sydney specialist in international economics, and Sabina Selchow, a political scientist who studies the global, to consider these questions, and find some alternative views, at the last of our Thinkers panels for 2017.

Speakers:

Thomas Adams, Lecturer in American Studies and History at the United States Studies Centre Dept of History, the University of Sydney
Professor Glenda Sluga, ARC Laureate Fellow and Professor of International History, the University of Sydney
Professor John Romalis, Sir Hermann Black Professor in Economics, School of Economics, the University of Sydney
Dr Sabina Selchow, Fellow in the Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit, Department of International Development, London School of Economics

Time

(Wednesday) 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm

Location

General Lecture Theatre

Quadrangle Building, University of Sydney

Organizer

Sydney Ideassydney.ideas@sydney.edu.au

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25oct6:15 pm- 8:00 pmDesigning for Humans6:15 pm - 8:00 pm Event Organized By: Faculty of Architecture, Design & Planning, University of Sydney

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Please join the Alumni Association for the University of Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning for an interactive panel discussion, Designing for Humans.

Solving the numerous problems presented in the design process is often termed â€˜design thinkingâ€™. Can the user focused methodology of the designer be applied to contemporary issues and offer new creative solutions to intractable problems?

This panel discussion, facilitated by Heather Whitely Robertson, Head of Learning and Participation, Art Gallery of New South Wales, brings together architects, designers and communication experts to explore how the application of design thinking as a mindset can be used to solve problems creatively. Case studies from the speakers own practice will be presented and discussed.

Panelists:

Heather Whitely Robertson (Facilitator)
Head of Learning and Participation, Art Gallery of New South Wales
Heather Whitely Robertson is a creative leader in the field of arts learning and audience engagement. Trained as an architect and educator, she has spent her career working on museum redevelopment projects in Australia and the UK.

She has held multiple roles in the industry including Director of Audiences and Creative Learning at the Museum of Contemporary Art; Learning Manager for the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; Head of Learning at Open House London; Curator of Family and Community Programmes at Tate Modern, and Education Officer at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne.

Elizabeth Carpenter
Managing Principal, fjmt Studio
Elizabeth Carpenter has extensive professional experience in Australia and South East Asia, having led many multi-award winning projects for both public and private clients. Her ability to successfully move between various typologies allows her to operate across a wide span of projects, including educational, museums, performing arts complexes, residential and commercial.

A graduate of the University of Sydney, Elizabeth received the 2014 University of Sydney Alumni Award for Professional Achievement and the 2005 NAWIC (Australia) Stockland Award for Achievement in Design. She continues her involvement in education through her role as guest critic, juror and tutor at various universities and institutions as well as championing gender equality in Architecture.

Brooke Carson-Ewart
Head of Digital Engagement, Art Gallery of New South Wales
Brooke Carson-Ewart is particularly interested in the intersection between digital and physical spaces, cultivating innovation and experimentation in teams, and change management around digital transformation. In her role at Art Gallery of New South Wales, she manages core digital activities including online, mobile, apps and in-gallery components.

Brooke has worked in the cultural sector for over 20 years, 15 of those building and leading the digital capabilities of two of Sydneyâ€™s major cultural institutions, The Australian Museum and the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Michael Ford
Creative Director of Technology, Ogilvy
As Ogilvy’s Creative Director of Technology, Michael Ford ensures technology ideas always address real needs of people and brands by focusing on human-centred design principles.

The start of his career coincided with the emergence of the internet in Australia, and being fascinated by this new technology led to eight years working in front end development and project management on large scale projects for match.com and Ford of Europe.

Michael’s switch to a creative role came after he graduated from the Master in Interaction Design and Electronic Arts at the University of Sydney.

Alexander Symes
Registered Architect, Alexander Symes Architect
Alexander Symes established Alexander Symes Architect in 2014 after several formative years practicing architecture where he felt unsatisfied with his architectural approach to sustainability. Motivated to change this, he joined multi-disciplinary technical services firm Arup and in 2010 begun a process of up-skilling himself as a building physicist and facade engineer. At Arup, Alex learnt the fundamentals of environmental quantification, sustainability governance frameworks and developed his capability to detail striking facades that were also responsible.

Alex has delivered a number of award winning projects for Austinmer beach house, butterfly house and Dresden mobile. He was also awarded the 2016 Sustainability Awards Best Newcomer Award.

Time

(Wednesday) 6:15 pm - 8:00 pm

Location

Art Gallery of New South Wales

Art Gallery Rd, Sydney NSW 2000

Organizer

Faculty of Architecture, Design & Planning, University of Sydney

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25oct8:30 pm- 9:30 pmRAISING THE BAR | US POLITICS: A MEME MADE IN HEAVEN8:30 pm - 9:30 pm Event Organized By: The US Studies Centre

Event Details

We live in an era where the president of the United States could feasibly start a war – not by firing missiles, but in firing off ill-advised tweets. To investigate the link between the internet and politics, our very own Rodney Taveira will delve into the twisted psyche of American popular culture and pose the question: does American democracy exist if no-one is there to like it, retweet it or turn it into a meme?

Ask Rodney Taveira anything to do with American popular culture and odds are he has come across it in his research. Rodney’s expertise spans the glossary of Americanisms, covering literature to film to memes, and everything in-between. Having joined the United States Studies Centre in 2011, he’s currently working on a book examining the influence of visual culture on post-war American fiction.

Featuring

Dr Rodney Taveira

Lecturer in American Studies, United States Studies Centre

Rodney Taveira was awarded his PhD in English from the University of Sydney in 2010 and has published on contemporary American fiction, book reviews, and television, and the interrelation of cinema, photography, painting, and literature. His areas of expertise include American literature, American and European film (silent era to present), US television, comedy in the US, US popular culture, and queer and sexuality studies.

Time

(Wednesday) 8:30 pm - 9:30 pm

Location

The Carrington

565 Bourke St, Surry Hills

Organizer

The US Studies Centre

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26oct12:00 pm- 1:30 pmGIR COLLOQUIUM SERIES | UNDERSTANDING POST-WAR JEWISH REFUGEE MIGRATION THROUGH THE FIRST HOLOCAUST SONGBOOK12:00 pm - 1:30 pm Event Organized By: Department of Government & International Relations

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Abstract:

In the concentration camps and ghettos of Nazi-occupied Europe, Jews wrote songs to maintain a sense of dignity in the face of relentless dehumanisation, pass the time, and satirise the enemy. Mostly written in Yiddish, these songs often drew upon extant Jewish folk tunes but added new messages pertinent to the harsh times and conditions. Out of the Depths: The First Holocaust Songbookprovides a translation and analysis of what is believed to be the first published collection of songs written by Jews of the concentration camps of Poland, Ukraine and Lithuania during the Second World War and published shortly thereafter in June 1945 by survivors near a refugee camp in Bucharest, Romania.

This seminar paper analyses and performs several of the songs from this songbook. It also draws upon original archival research in Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Centre in Israel and interviews conducted with remaining song authors and their descendants in Israel to trace the post-World War Two emigration of Europe’s Holocaust survivors. This research demonstrates that contrary to historical depictions of post-war Jewish refugee flows that cast such migration as facilitated by robust and established international laws, such migration was often ad hoc, illegal, dangerous and where permitted, generally on discretionary grounds.

About the speakers:

Dr Anna Boucher is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government at the University of Sydney. She is the author of Gender, Migration and the Global Race for Talent (2016, MUP) and Crossroads: Comparative Immigration Regimes in a World of Demographic Change (forthcoming, CUP). Her current projects are on migrant worker rights and a book project on the Holocaust and subsequent Jewish emigration.

Joseph Toltz is a Research Fellow at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Artistic Director for “Out of the Shadows: rediscovering Jewish music and theatre” and co-Investigator for “Performing the Jewish Archive”, funded by the British Arts & Humanities Research Council. He is working with material of the Austrian refugee composer Wilhelm Grosz and co-authoring a book on the first collection of Holocaust songs (Indiana). Recent publications appear in Southerly (2016), Music’s Immanent Future (Routledge, 2016) and Perspectives in Artistic Research in Music (Lexington, 2017).

Location: New Law Annex Seminar Room 107, Eastern Avenue, Camperdown

Time

(Thursday) 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm

Location

New Law Annex Seminar Room 107

New Law Annex Building, Eastern Avenue, Camperdown, The University of Sydney

Organizer

Department of Government & International Relations

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26oct4:00 pm- 5:30 pmFeaturedLearning Lessons from Europe’s Multiple Crises4:00 pm - 5:30 pm Event Organized By: Sydney Democracy Network and Sydney Ideas

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Sydney Ideas co-presented with the Sydney Democracy Network

Professor Loukas Tsoukalis, Professor of European Integration at the University of Athens and President of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP)

Europe and the European project were hit by successive crises in recent years, which had a cumulative effect, morphing into an existential crisis for regional integration as a whole. Does the European Union suffer from overstretch? Was the creation of the euro a terrible mistake that is now almost impossible to undo, or is the European project just the victim of collateral damage caused by globalisation and the technological revolution?

We first need to understand what went wrong in recent years. But we also need to understand what keeps the Union together in times of big crisis and against the predictions of all kinds of doomsayers. True, the UK has decided to leave, but no other country is looking for the exit to the apparent disappointment of President Trump. Will the more favourable economic and political environment lead to a new relaunching of European integration?

About the speaker

Loukas Tsoukalis has taught in universities in Europe and North America, including Oxford, LSE, Sciences Po in Paris, Athens, College of the Europe, European University Institute in Florence and SAIS Johns Hopkins. He is the author of many books and articles on European integration and international political economy. He has advised the former President of the European Commission and the former President of the European Council.

He is the president of Greece’s leading think tank the Hellenic Foundation for European & Foreign Policy ELIAMEP. His latest book In Defence of Europe: Can the European Project Be Savedwas published by Oxford University Press in 2016. Last year, he was visiting professor at the Kennedy School, Harvard University and received the Légion d’honneur of the French Republic for his contribution.

Please RSVP here

Time

(Thursday) 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Location

Philosophy Room S249

Southern Vestibule; Lobby D; level 2 (ground), Quadrangle Building, University of Sydney

Organizer

Sydney Democracy Network and Sydney Ideassdn@sydney.edu.au

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26oct6:00 pm- 7:30 pmABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER MENTAL HEALTH6:00 pm - 7:30 pm Event Organized By: Sydney Ideas

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Joe Williams

Joe Williams, Indigenous mental health campaigner

The forum will bring together expert First Nations Community and University speakers to discuss the importance of increasing awareness about mental illness within the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

Joe Williams, a First Nations mental health campaigner and former elite athlete, will share his story and discuss his current work in the keynote address. He will be joined in a panel discussion by University of Sydney academics Dr Vanessa Lee and Percival Knight, which will be facilitated by actor and local Aboriginal Community member Luke Carroll.

About the keynote speaker:

Joe Williams is a proud Wiradjuri, 1st Nations Aboriginal man born in Cowra, raised in Wagga NSW, Australia. Joe played in the National Rugby League for South Sydney Rabbitohs, Penrith Panthers and Canterbury Bulldogs before switching to professional Boxing in 2009. Joe is a 2x WBF World Jnr Welterweight champion and recently won the WBC Asia Continental Title.

Although he had forged a successful professional sporting career, Joe battled the majority of his life with suicidal ideation and bipolar disorder. After a suicide attempt in 2012, Joe felt his purpose was to help people who struggle with mental illness. In 2017 Joe was named as finalist in the National Indigenous Human Rights Awards for his work with suicide prevention and fighting for equality for Australia’s First Nations people.

Wagga Wagga Citizen of the Year in 2015 for his work within the community, mental health and suicide prevention sectors, Joe is also a published author, contributing to the book Transformation; Turning Tragedy To Triumph and his very own autobiography titled Defying The Enemy Within – which will be in stores early 2018. Recently Joe has also been involved in filming of the worldwide documentary, Suicide the Ripple Effect from director and fellow advocate, Kevin Hines.

Panellists:

Dr Vanessa Lee, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney. Dr Vanessa Lee is a member of the Yupungathiand Meriam people, but resides on the land of the Gadigal people. She is a social epidemiologist who has focused on health issues affecting the Indigenous community, as well as broader questions of cultural competence. Dr Lee is a board member of Suicide Prevention Australia and Chair of Public Health Indigenous Leaders in Education Network
Percival Knight, PHD Candidate, Wingara Mura Leadership Program, Sydney Business School. Percival Knight is the first Indigenous PHD Candidate within the University of Sydney Business School and has qualifications in Indigenous Social Emotional Wellbeing and a Masters in Applied Science. Percival is an ambassador for the Black Dog Institute/NRL in delivering the ABC connect programs on Mental Health to Indigenous Communities in rural NSW. He is also a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Aboriginal Policy and Economic Research (CAEPR), ANU.

Facilitator:

Luke Carroll is a proud Wiradjuri man and is a busy film, television and theatre actor. He has just completed a successful season of Black is the New White at the Sydney Theatre Company and he played the lead role in The Hanging and The Battle of Waterloo for STC. Luke’s television credits include Black Comedy, The Gods of Wheat Street and Redfern Now for the ABC – the latter earned him a 2012 AACTA Award Nomination for ‘Best Guest or Supporting Actor in a TV Drama’. Other roles include Heartbeat, Home and Away, The Alice and AFI-nominated roles in R.A.N and the feature film Australian Rules. He is also a much loved presenter on Playschool. Luke is proud to be an ambassador for the Cathy Freeman Foundation.

Time

(Thursday) 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm

Location

MacLaurin Hall

The Quadrangle The University of Sydney

Organizer

Sydney Ideassydney.ideas@sydney.edu.au

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26oct6:00 pm- 7:30 pmUnwinnable Wars: Afghanistan and the limits of western military power6:00 pm - 7:30 pm Event Organized By: Sydney Ideas

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Unwinnable Wars: Afghanistan and the limits of western military power

Professor Theo Farrell, Executive Dean of Law, Humanities and the Arts at the University of Wollongong

The Michael Hintze lecture presented by the Centre for International Security Studies, School of Social and Politcal Sciences.

At sixteen years and counting, Afghanistan is the longest war for western states of the post-Cold War period, and NATO’s first overseas war. At its height, the US and its NATO allies deployed 130,000 troops in its efforts to stabilise the country. NATO combat forces withdrew by December 2014 having failed to defeat the Taliban insurgency.

This lecture will explore what went wrong in Afghanistan and tease out the lessons for the utility of western military power. In essence, it will be argued that whilst Afghanistan demonstrates that western militaries are able to develop the capabilities to achieve tactical success in counterinsurgency wars, they are unable to translate battlefield gains into strategic success due to the intrinsic political challenges of such conflicts.

The lecture will go on to explore how military culture limits the effectiveness of the NATO mission in Afghanistan. It will conclude on the prospects for peace in Afghanistan and on the future of western military intervention.

About the speaker

Professor Theo Farrell is Executive Dean of Law, Humanities and the Arts at the University of Wollongong. He was previously Head of the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. He served on a number of high-level campaign reviews in Afghanistan, and held several talks with senior Taliban. He is author of Unwinnable: Britain’s War in Afghanistan, 2001-2014(2017).

(Image: A US Marine walks during an early morning guard shift in southern Afghanistan. (AP Photo / Brennan Linsley)

Time

(Thursday) 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm

Location

General Lecture Theatre

Quadrangle Building, University of Sydney

Organizer

Sydney Ideassydney.ideas@sydney.edu.au

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28octAll DayA Requiem for Anastasia’ – Artist Talk and Showing(All Day: saturday) Event Organized By: Sydney Environment Institute

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Sydney Envrionment Insititute in partnership with The Living Room Theatre presents an artist talk and showing of ‘A Requiem for Anastasia’ – the first artistic output from a SSSHARC funded Pop-up Research Lab.

The aim of the Pop-up lab is to translate the recent work of the Sydney Environment Institute to the public in an impactful way, specifically through examining how academic knowledge on climate change and heat waves can be communicated through the medium of performance.

The talk and showing by Michelle St Anne will offer insight into the earliest stages of the theatrical knowledge translation process, exploring this idea of performance as an innovative means of mobilising research surrounding shock climate events and their impact on vulnerable communities.

Using the premise of the “enduring image” – how it arrives, is sustained and is deconstructed – Michelle examines the purgatory just after death, where she plays with the sound of heat, the feel of heat, the unease and isolation of heat and its effect on the vulnerable.

St Anne will reveal fragments of imagery and sounds from the rehearsal floor, which will ultimately form the foundation of the completed work ‘Anastasia’ (showing from March 2018). ‘Anastasia’ will be performed in various venues across Sydney, reimagined for each unique space, and informed by academic research from the Pop-up Lab.

Artist:
Michelle St Anne, The Living Room Theatre and Sydney Environment Institute

Find out more about the SSSHARC Pop-up research project here.

Time

All Day (Saturday)

Location

East Sydney Arts and Community Centre

34 Burton St, Darlinghurst, NSW 2010

Organizer

Sydney Environment InstituteMichelle St Anne +61 2 9351 5445 michelle.stanne@sydney.edu.au anastasia.mortimer@sydney.edu.au

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30oct2:00 pm- 5:00 pmTHE PROSPECT OF LIVE EXPORT OF DONKEYS IN AUSTRALIA: A STRATEGIC ADVOCACY WORKSHOP2:00 pm - 5:00 pm Event Organized By: HARN

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During the thousands of years that we have records of human-donkey interactions, donkeys have survived, and died, principally by virtue their use value in human projects: war, mining, agriculture, transport, and most recently in Australia, guarding other commercially valued non-human animals. The federal government has now identified another use value, the benefits of which would be distributed in a shockingly asymmetrical way: donkeys to be exported live so that the skin of their now dead bodies can be used at the other end of the journey to produce ‘ejiao’, a medicinal product promoted as enhancing (human) skin and vitality.

The prospect of the live export of donkeys raises issues familiar in animal advocacy in Australia: the politics and ethics of regulatory standards; the power of different lobby groups; the contests between normative and economic considerations; and, the tensions between advocating in relation to non-human animals and buying into xenophobia and racism. This workshop will bring together activists, scholars, vets, animal welfare and animals rights organizations and people who live in the world of donkeys with a view to sharing experiences, insights and knowledges to create a strategy for addressing this threat.

Short presentations from:

Christine Berry (Donkey Welfare with Heart Sanctuary)
Dr. Jill Bough (University of Newcastle)
Dr. Lynn Simpson (Ex Shipboard Live Export Veterinarian)
Dr. Jedd Goodfellow (RSPCA)
Glenys Oogjes, CEO, Animals Australia

This event is convened by the Human Animal Research Network (HARN).

Please rsvp for catering purposes, and direct any questions to Professor Dany Celermajer: Danielle.celermajer@sydney.edu.au

Location: Edward Ford Seminar Room 101, Fisher Road, University of Sydney

Time

(Monday) 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Location

Edward Ford Seminar Room 101

Fisher Road, University of Sydney

Organizer

HARN

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30oct6:00 pm- 8:00 pmSays Who? Education & equality: Unfinished business?6:00 pm - 8:00 pm Event Organized By: UNSW Arts & Social Sciences

30oct6:00 pm- 7:30 pmFeaturedBOOK LAUNCH | Nicole Curato - A Duterte Reader - Monday 30th October6:00 pm - 7:30 pm Event Organized By: Sydney Democracy Network

Event Details

A Duterte Reader is a collection of critical essays by leading public intellectuals in the field offering timely, incisive and well-grounded analysis of the rise to power and controversial early presidency of Rodrigo Duterte.

The book offers a penetrating portrait of a volatile administration poised between a troubled past and an uncertain future. The research is thorough; the writing eloquent; and the insights myriad. This is critical reading for anyone who wishes to understand this perplexing moment in the ever-changing, ever-fascinating politics of the Philippines.

About the speakers:

Nicole Curato, the book’s editor, is sociologist at the University of Canberra, best known for her work on deliberative democracy and her prominent TV and online commentary on Philippine politics with CNN Philippines and Rappler. Joining Nicole are two of the contributing authors to the book, Anna Cristina Pertierra from Western Sydney University, and Adele Webb from the University of Sydney.

In conversation with the authors is Ginny Stein, ABC foreign correspondent whose recent in-depth reporting on Duterte’s war on drugs has featured on Lateline and Background Briefing.

The launch of the book is organized by the Sydney Democracy Network at the University of Sydney.

ORDER THE BOOK

Please RSVP on Gleebooks

Time

(Monday) 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm

Location

gleebooks

49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe, NSW, 2037

Organizer

Sydney Democracy Networksdn@sydney.edu.au

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