Sydney Ideas

What does it mean to urbanise? Are industrialisation and urbanisation two aspects of the same process? How do villages have a chance to thrive if a state is determined to urbanise the country?

Drawing on cases in the peri-urban area of the Pearl River Delta, this talk by Professor Luigi Tomba, Director of the China Studies Centre, The University of Sydney, discusses aspects of China’s rapid urbanisation. It will explore strategies that village collectives have put in place to defend their economic, social and cultural autonomy in the face of the desire of the state to both claim control of ever greater portions of the country’s collective land, and to urbanise as much as possible of the population.

Held as part of the Sydney Ideas program on 20 June, 2017

http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2017/professor_luigi_tomba.shtml

Belkis Wille is senior Iraq researcher in the Middle East and North Africa division, Human Rights Watch.

She discusses the worsening situation for civilians in Mosul, the prospects of justice for victims of ISIS abuses, the prospects for reconciliation in Iraq, and why the international community including Australia should do more to ensure respect for human rights in Iraq.

Held as part of the Sydney Ideas program on 15 June 2017:

http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2017/belkis_wille.shtml

Professor Yolanda Moses, Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Cultural Competence, National Centre for Cultural Competence.

Based on an article ‘Confronting the Trump Effect on Our Campuses’, recently published in Inside Higher Education, Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Cultural Competence, Professor Yolanda Moses will discuss institutional commitments to diversity, social justice and inclusion in today’s current political climate. She will make the case that an “America first “policy clashes with the core values of contemporary higher education in the U.S., and suggest some strategies and practices to resist the proposed “closing of the American mind.”

Held as part of the Sydney Ideas program on 9 June 2017: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2017/professor_yolanda_moses.shtml

Carlos Ghosn, one of the world’s most influential business leaders and was the first executive to run two Fortune Global 500 companies simultaneously, discusses the future of the automotive industry, the importance of innovation in business, and what it takes to be a truly global leader.

Mr Ghosn has been the industry's leading advocate for sustainable transportation; Renault and Nissan were the first automakers to launch a range of affordable zero-emission vehicles. He is also leading the Alliance’s pioneering effort to develop autonomous-drive and connected-car technologies and services.

Presented by the Australian Lebanese Foundation in partnership with the University of Sydney Business School and Sydney Ideas

This event was held as part of the Sydney Ideas program on 8 June 2017: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2017/carlos_ghosn.shtml

The challenges that face schools are not simple but there are local, national and international models that may provide some pathways to changing school learning and teaching practices, leadership and governance.

This panel considers how schools and schooling can benefit from new models and approaches to learning. They draw on international experience, emergent models (such as the 4Cs) and discuss the role of technology in enabling and potentially impeding learning.

Speakers: Professor Michael Anderson, School of Education and Social Work; Mrs Robyn Evans principal, Casula Public School; Dr Miranda Jefferson , Teaching Educator, Catholic Education Office Parramatta; Mr Greg Whitby, Executive Director of Catholic Education Diocese of Parramatta; Dr Phil Lambert PSM (panel chair.

Held as part of the Sydney Ideas program on 8 June 2017. http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2017/ESW_deans_lecture_series.shtml

We think we know civil war when we see it. Yet ideas of what it is, and what it isn’t, have a long and contested history, from its fraught origins in republican Rome to debates in early modern Europe to our present day. Defining the term is acutely political, for ideas about what makes a war “civil” often depend on whether one is a ruler or a rebel, victor or vanquished, sufferer or outsider. Calling a conflict a civil war can shape its outcome by determining whether outside powers choose to get involved or stand aside: from the American Revolution to the war in Iraq, pivotal decisions have depended on such shifts of perspective.

A panel of historians, lawyers and philosophers respond to David Armitage’s book 'Civil Wars: A History in Ideas', in which he offers a unique perspective on the roots and dynamics of civil war, and on its shaping force in our conflict-ridden world.

Speakers: Professor David Armitage, Lloyd C. Blankfein Professor of History, Harvard University; Associate Professor Maartje Abbenhuis, History, University of Auckland; Dr Eleanor Cowan, Lecturer in Roman History, University of Sydney; Professor Andrew Fitzmaurice, Professor of History, University of Sydney; Professor Duncan Ivison, Professor of Political Philosophy and Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research) University of Sydney; Professor Ben Saul, Challis Chair of International Law, Sydney Law School

Held as part of the Sydney Ideas program on 5 June 2017

http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2017/professor_david_armitage.shtml

In the last 50 years museums have slowly changed from exhibitions ‘about’ Indigenous peoples to exhibitions by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander curators.

As the University of Sydney embarks on the building of the new Chau Chak Wing Museum, we consider what are the next steps and continue to question how exhibitions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander collections can engage all visitors meaningfully.

Speakers:

Sharni Jones, Manager of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander collections at the Australian Museum

Stephen Gilchrist, Associate Lecturer Department of Art History, University of Sydney

Rodney Kelly, Gweagal activist for the repatriation of ancestral collections to Aboriginal ownership

Amanda Reynolds, Stella Stories artist, curator, cultural consultant and editor

Matt Poll, (panel chair) Assistant Curator, Indigenous Heritage, Macleay Museum, Sydney University Museums

A 2017 Reconciliation Week at the University of Sydney event, co-presented with the Macleay Museum. Held on 31 May 2017: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2017/reconciliation_week_arts_aboriginal_australia_forum.shtml

What’s wrong with our kidneys? And what we are doing about it at the University of Sydney.

Professor Steve Chadban reviews the state of the nation in terms of kidney health and discusses the spectrum of kidney disease in the Australian population. He then turns to the lab to explore potential solutions for key problems in kidney health.

From the lab he next moves to the clinic to examine the impact of specific interventions for people with kidney disease. Finally he returns to the population level to observe the impact of treatments for kidney disease on outcomes.

Held as part of the Sydney Ideas program on 31 May 2017: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2017/21st_century_medicine_2017.shtml

A Sydney Writers’ Festival event presented with the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

Susan Faludi is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the author of the bestselling Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man, and The Terror Dream: Myth and Misogyny in an Insecure America, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism. Her most recent book, In the Darkroom, won the 2016 Kirkus Prize for Non-Fiction and was named one of the top ten best books of the year by The New York Times. Faludi's work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Harper’s, and many other publications.

For this special Sydney Ideas event, Susan Faludi is in conversation with the University of Sydney student Anna Hush.

Anna Hush is an Honours student in Philosophy in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. She has been a vocal advocate for institutional change for student safety and has campaigned against sexual assault and harassment with the Sydney University Women's Collective. Anna is the co-founder and co-director of fEMPOWER, a program of workshops on feminism for high school students.

Held as part of the Sydney Ideas program on 25 May, 2017. http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2017/susan_faludi.shtml

Associate Professor Muireann Irish, School of Psychology and Brain and Mind Centre at the University of Sydney, gives a fascinating overview of her work exploring autobiographical memory and future thinking across various dementia syndromes. She highlights the cognitive mechanisms and neural networks that need to be functional to support these sophisticated cognitive processes and the devastating effects of losing these uniquely human functions.

Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia 2017 Paul Bourke Lecture

A Sydney Ideas event co-presented with the School of Psychology in the Faculty of Science, and the Brain and Mind Centre.

Presented as part of the Sydney Ideas program on 16 May, 2017

http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2017/2017_paul_bourke_lecture_muirann_irish.shtml