Sydney Ideas

Professor David Armitage is an internationally acclaimed historian and a world expert on empire-building and British history. In this thoughtful and well-researched lecture, the Lloyd C. Blankfein Professor of History at Harvard University turns his attention to the compelling area of civil war, a war he describes as one of the “most ferocious forms of human conflict” in history.

“Civil war remains a global scourge and one that shows no sign of disappearing any time soon.” – Professor Armitage

For further information and additional content see this page: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2008/civil_war_rome_iraq.shtml

Executive Director of New York-based Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth gives compelling evidence of the way some of the world’s greatest human rights violators are calling themselves democrats. And, he argues, it is the west’s willingness to “close one’s eye” to these regimes that allows them to do so.

“What they get away with is this label of legitimacy and in many ways I guess the question to ask is: why do we let them?” – Kenneth Roth at Sydney Ideas

For further info see this page: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2008/despot_masquerading_as_democrats.shtml

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 speaker's biography see this page: http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=1974

An Australian-born University of Oxford ethicist, who argued for allowing drugs in sport, speaks on the controversial ethics of cloning, stem-cell research and human enhancement.

Professor Savulescu argues that a "new science", which uses radical techniques such as genetic engineering, is needed in order to enhance people's lives rather than just prevent and treat disease.

For further info and speaker's biography see this page: http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=1848

The London-based historian, political campaigner and prolific author Tariq Ali argues that Middle East should look to Latin America.

Pointing to the success of Venezuela's leadership under the seven-times elected President Hugo Chávez, the author of Pirates of the Caribbean: Axis of Hope (2006), said that a new level of unity lead by radical new leaders has had a "massive impact" on South America.

New pride has emerged in Latin American countries, said Ali. "You can see it in the way they walk." At the same time, the contrast to the Middle East "couldn't be greater."

Alis said that hope came in the knowledge that political and social change was constant and discussed the future impact China's economy will have on the dominance of America as a world power.

For further information and speaker's biography see this page: http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=1795

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 divided and without the social vision to unite people.

For more info and speaker's biography see this page: http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=1795

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 life in exile, losing the landscape of your childhood," she said.

For more info and speaker's biography see this page: http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=1333

Dr Jordi Bonet, the Spanish architect who is completing the Sagrada Família Church, Gaudí's unfinished masterpiece in Barcelona, shares his incredible knowledge of the ongoing renovation project.

For more info and speaker's biography see this page: http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=1083

Are we running out of planet? Do economies self-correct or self-destruct when operating as if resources are limitless? How do we meassure our footprint and what do we do once we know this?

In this 2006 Sydney Ideas lecture Mathis Wackernagel, co-creator of the Ecological Footprint concept explored these questions and demonstrated how the meassuring tools can help in better management of our ecological assets.

Robert Fisk, arguably the most distinguished foreign correspondent of his generation, has witnessed many of the most important and savage events in recent history, reporting on two US wars in Iraq, two Afghan wars, the Israel/Palestine conflict, Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, and the civil war in the former Yugoslavia.

Fisk has also been the most compelling voice against British and American intervention in the Middle East.