Big Ideas

How do nations work together to control access to our vast universe, negotiate who gets what resources, or even who gets to set up new colonies on far away planets? And how do we ensure that we don’t just export earthly conflicts on take-off? ‘Unlocking Cooperation: Space Diplomacy’ is a talk from the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. 

Speakers

Dr Diane HowardFormer Director of Commercial Space Policy at the National Space Council in The White House

Mai'a CrossDirector at the Center for International Affairs and World Cultures at Northeastern University

Ann C ThresherAssistant Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University

What's happening in Gaza is horrifying and shocking. As the world watches on, how are different Jewish communities reckoning with a war being waged in their name by Israel, against Hamas and the Palestinian people?

This event was recorded at The Wheeler Centre on 27 May 2025 in partnership with the Jewish Council of Australia.

Speakers

Peter BeinartAuthor, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning and The Crisis of ZionismProfessor of Journalism and Political Science at the City University of New YorkEditor-at-Large of Jewish Currents MagazineFellow, Foundation for Middle East PeaceRegular contributor, New York Times and MSNBC

Sarah Schwartz (host)Co-founder, Executive Officer, Jewish Council of AustraliaLegal Director, Human Rights Law CentreLecturer, University of Melbourne Law School

A workforce we rarely hear about, lives in limbo, and stories from the coalface. From economic gains and cultural exchanges to exploitation and absconding,  what are the successes and problems of the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme? Who picks and processes those yummy strawberries you're about to put in your shopping trolley, or the crisp veggies you might stir-fry tonight? Did you know it could be a nurse or a police officer from a Pacific Island or Timor Leste on a temporary seasonal visa? 

Join Natasha Mitchell and guests for this event organised by Griffith University and the Australian National University, and held at the ANU.

Speakers

Dr Kaya BarryCultural Geographer, artist, senior lecturer, DECRA Research FellowCentre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University

Nunes CosbarMusician, photographer, horticultural employee in Australia on a PALM visa. Band member with Lian Husi Timor

Ken DachiCoordinator, Welcoming Workplaces with Welcoming Australia

Ema VuetiPresident, Pacific Islands Council of Queensland (PICQ)

Thanks also to James Lees (Griffith University), Dr Matt Withers (ANU South Asia Research Institute), and Dr Kirstie Petrou (School of Humanities and Social Sciences, UNSW Canberra)

Further information

Timorese abattoir workers perform at Port Fairy Folk Festival after call for musos (ABC Australia short film)

Words can mean everything, or nothing at all: it all depends on how they're delivered. This relationship between writer, script, actor and audience creates a particular tension that lies at the heart of performance. Who gives meaning to the words, interprets the creative material, who holds the power?

This is a lecture, but not as you know it, by members of the multi award-winning British theatre company Forced Entertainment.

The 15th annual Rex Cramphorn Memorial Lecture was delivered at the University of Sydney on Tuesday 18 March, 2025.

Speakers

Terry O'ConnorPerformer and co-founder, Forced Entertainment

Tim EtchellsArtistic Director and co-founder, Forced Entertainment

Ian Maxwell (host)Chair of Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Sydney

Gina Chick made her name as the inaugural winner of Alone Australia, but her story begins a long time before that. It involves unimaginable hardship, death grief, illness and injury. How has she learnt to sit with all that life has thrown at her, and remain joyful and true to herself, in the face of adversity?

This event was recorded at the Athenaeum Theatre in Melbourne, with thanks to Readings Books.

Speakers

Gina ChickAuthor, We Are the Stars (Winner of the Australian Book Industry's Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year)

Hugh Van Cuylenburg (host)Founder, The Resilience ProjectHost, The Imperfects podcast

Your personal safety is big business, so much so that it’s given rise to “security capitalism”, a phenomenon where attempts to buy personal safety shape the world around us. As security becomes just another status symbol, do these gadgets make us safer or do they create a whole new list of anxieties – a self-fulfilling prophecy of perceived threat and risk aversion? This conversation 'Trapped: Does the security industry make us less safe?' was recorded at the CUNY Graduate Centre. 

Speakers

Mark MaguireProfessor of anthropology at Maynooth University, co-author, Trapped: Life Under Security Capitalism and How to Escape It

Setha LowProfessor of psychology, anthropology, earth and environmental sciences, and women's and gender studies at the CUNY Graduate Center, co-author, Trapped: Life Under Security Capitalism and How to Escape It

Alex Vitale (host)Professor of sociology and coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center

The ghost people arrived by boat. They never left. But the stories of first encounters and what came next live large, 250 years later, in First Nations families and communities. An ambitious journey to reclaim the names and stories disappeared by Captain James Cook, but never lost.  A deeply personal excavation of herstories and the women wrenched from their Country by colonial sealers. A Polish freedom fighter and the fight for the mountain that bears his name. Join Big Ideas host Natasha Mitchell to talk ghosts, reclaimation and revival with four authors at the 2025 Sorrento Writers Festival.

Speakers 

Darren Rix and Dr Craig Cormick, co-authors of Warra Warra Wai: How indigenous Australians discovered Captain Cook and what they tell about the coming of the Ghost People (Scribner Australia. 2024)

Tasma Walton, actor, screenwriter, novelist and author of  I am Nannertgarrook (S&S Bundyi, 2025) Anthony Sharwood, journalist and author of Kosciuszko: The Incredible Life of the Man Behind The Mountain (Hachette Australia, 2024)

Thanks to festival founder and director Corrie Perkin and the Sorrento Festival production team.

At the time of colonisation, there were more than 250 Indigenous languages spoken in Australia, but these days, all are considered endangered. Many First Nations people are working hard to revive and reclaim their mother tongues. In the anthology, Words to Sing the World Alive: Celebrating First Nations Languages, 40 Indigenous Australians share words and phrases that are meaningful to them.

This event was recorded at the Clunes Booktown Festival on on Dja Dja Wurrung Country on 22 March 2025.

Speakers

Evelyn AraleunPoet, researcher, and co-editor of Overland Literary magazineAuthor, Dropbear (Stella Prize winner 2022)Bundjalung speaker

Vicki CouzensSenior Knowledge Custodian for Possum Skin Cloak Story and Language Reclamation and Revival in her Keerray Woorroong mother tongue

Jeanine LeanePoet, essayist and criticPoetry editor for Meanjin magazineAuthor, Purple Threads (2010 David Unaipon Award for Indigenous Writing), Gawimarra: Gathering (winner, 2025 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Poetry)Wiradjuri speaker

Jane Harrison (host)Playwright and novelist, Stolen, Rainbow's End and The VisitorsFormer director, Blak & Bright First Nations Literary Festival

Music has been around for at least as long as humans, and possibly even longer. How have forces like religion, the economy, society and technology, shaped music over time? And why, in lullabies and concert halls, songlines and streaming services, have humans always been irresistibly drawn to making it?

This event was recorded at Sydney's Gleebooks.

Speakers

Andrew FordHost, The Music Show, ABC Radio NationalAuthor, The Shortest History of Music, and moreAward-winning composer

Kirsty McCahon (host)Double bassistStrategic Relations Manager, Sydney Conservatorium of Music

From wars with global consequences to violent crimes in the suburbs, trauma underpins so much of the news cycle. It’s something award-winning journalist Bruce Shapiro came to understand intimately when, as a young crime reporter, he was stabbed. It changed his whole perspective on his profession, dedicating a large part of his career to the question of how trauma in yourself - or your source - changes the way you approach a story. Hear how trauma became newsworthy, how reporters learned to better tell those stories, and what it all means in 2025. 

The Annual Humanities Horizons Lecture is organised by Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. The Lecture was established in 2013 to provide reflection on and advocacy for the Arts and Humanities. The content of the lecture is the intellectual property of the speaker Bruce Shapiro. 

Speaker

Bruce ShapiroExecutive Director of the Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma at the Columbia Journalism School