The late Joan Kirner was a social justice campaigner and a successful politician and she’s the inspiration behind an annual lecture. Another former politician, Nicola Roxon, delivers this year’s Joan Kirner Social Justice Oration. And the campaign to educate girls, end female genital mutilation and child marriage in Kenya.

Pack your bags! Come with us on a journey of the mind…to destinations both near and far-flung, the familiar and the unexpected… in search of what the tourist never sees. An armchair travel show that scratches the surface of the world around us.

David Williamson is our most prolific playwright. His frank and revealing memoir was published last year to mark his five decades as a writer for stage and screen. In that time he's delivered stories about Australian masculinity , identity , sexual politics and power. David Williamson talks to Kerry O'Brien about his life and work.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) will revolutionise medicine, and help to combat climate change. But it also threatens to usher in a new age of automated drone warfare. With smart machines poised to take more decisions out of our hands, how can we ensure these decisions are ethical, moral, and in our interest? Paul Barclay talks to Professor Toby Walsh.

Tensions with China have caused Australia to think again about other friends in the region. India is now a greater focus both strategically and as a trade partner. But it’s not a straightforward relationship despite our joint membership of the Quad Security Dialogue. India is juggling close ties with both Russia and the US-led western alliance.

Caste based discrimination and oppression is a daily reality – not only in contemporary India but even in Indian communities in the US and Australia. That’s why journalist Yashica Dutt has hidden her Dalit heritage, the caste of the ‘untouchable’, the ‘impure’ for many years ... until she ‘came out’. In her book

Coming out as Dalit she describes the guild of denying her history and the inequities of the caste system.

If you love overseas travel, and you’re used to jumping on a plane, the pandemic’s been especially trying.  International borders opened and closed , airlines reduced flights and quarantine rules could see you stranded in a hotel for two weeks at your own expense. British journalist Monisha Rajesh believes it’s the journey not the destination and as the pandemic gathered steam she decided to tour the world by train.

Universities are not what they used be. Some argue they are now quasi-businesses, competing with one another for market share, and revenue. How have universities drifted from their original mission? Might the covid pandemic, and the climate emergency, trigger a conversation about how we can reimagine higher education? Richard Hil and Kristen Lyons hope so

When it comes to understanding human behaviour do you lean towards nature or nurture? Social scientists tend to put more emphasis on the nurture side of the equation. But genetic discoveries have the potential to change the balance in the nature-nurture debate. An American psychologist believes genetics should be understood as another tool in addressing social inequality.

Have we recently seen prove of alien life from a distant star? Avi Loeb thinks so,and he is one of Harvard University’s top astronomers. He argues that a strange object sighted in the skies over Hawaii might be an artificial piece of technology created by a civilisation from outside our solar system. What

implications would such a visitation have - for science, for religion, and for the future of our species and our planet?