The Wheeler Centre

What happens to our bodies when we die? Do our bodies define who and what we are – or are they a vessel for something more? Dominique Martin, Rohit D'Costa and Pia Interlandi talk organ donation, artistic intervention, bioethics and more, hosted by Hilary Harper.

In Australia to receive the 2018 Sydney Peace Prize, Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz appears here in conversation with Mary Kostakidis at the Athenaeum Theatre in Melbourne to discuss global inequality – and what we can do about it. Is profound economic overhaul possible in advanced democracies? Which old ideas about wealth distribution are discredited, and which deserve to be revived? And how does the recent global wave of populist political movements play into, and against, the economic status quo?

This time, our live romantic advice series focusses on queer romantic conundrums. Hear outpourings, lustful brags, head scratchers and everything in between, with guest advisors Amy Middleton, Gregory Phillips and Dion Kagan, and host Jess McGuire.

Ahead of Melbourne Festival's production of Layla and Majnun, we hear from musicologist Aida Huseynova, an expert in the music and culture of Azerbaijan, who consulted on the Layla and Majnun production; and from Shokoofeh Azar, acclaimed author of The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree, who drew on Persian legends when writing her Stella Prize-shortlisted novel. With host Serpil Senelmis, the pair discuss deep, burning love in Persian storytelling, the traditions of mugham music, and the role of adaptation and interpretation in keeping traditional stories alive.

What does it mean, and what does it cost, to make a complaint? This question is at the heart of Sara Ahmed’s research into institutional power, and it forms the basis of this energetic, wide-ranging lecture.

This discussion, hosted by Ali Cobby Eckermann, showcases three emerging Victoria-based Indigenous poets – Monica Karo, Ryan Prehn and Emily Munro-Harrison – fresh from a residency at Kalang Retreat. They discuss their writing, the residency and poetic licence, and perform readings of their work.

With her new book, The Arsonist, Chloe Hooper takes readers inside the hunt for the man whose actions caused devastation throughout the Latrobe Valley during the deadliest bushfire disaster in Australia’s history. It’s a gripping and insightful investigation from one of Australia’s brightest talents. What motivates a person to start a fire? How does fear of bushfire play out in our national psyche? At the Wheeler Centre, Hooper discusses disaster and deadly mischief with host Anna Krien.

What happens when collaborating artists share no common language but sound? We ask some of the multi-disciplinary artists involved in the spectacular Chinese-Australian project One Infinity.

At the Athenaeum Theatre in conversation with Virginia Trioli, former Australian Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs discusses her life, career and convictions, as well as her relationship with her family, her experiences travelling to Manus, Nauru and Christmas Island, her relationship with government during her term – and why feminism moving forward may demand more vulgarity.

We've always built memorials to our dead. But how do our memorials and commemorations differ across cultures and how are they changing in the 21st Century? Why do we have different types of memorials for different kinds of death? In the third part of our Dead Calm series, Hilary Harper, Lyndon Ormond-Parker, Joy Damousi and Bjorn Nansen explore the role, relevance and relief offered by memorials after death and disaster. What do official and unofficial commemorations mean and how do they affect the ways we mourn?