A public forum with Anson Chan and Martin Lee In 1997 the People’s Republic of China assumed sovereignty over Hong Kong, subject to The 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, which guarantees Hong Kong’s civic freedoms and autonomies and the rule of law, for fifty years. The Declaration and Hong Kong’s constitution were written in expectation of universal suffrage and of accountable corruption-free Government. Nearly twenty years on, Hong Kong faces formidable challenges, including growing disaffe...
Oct 19, 2016•1 hr 28 min
How can you obtain the best decision from a group of so-called ‘experts’ about future events such as a natural disaster or a stock market crash? Would you trust a family member’s opinion over a highly cited scientist, an economist, a successful entrepreneur, a military or political leader, or a High Court judge? Or would you trust them all equally? Or none at all? The University of Cambridge’s Professor Herbert Huppert’s research has shown that whether an expert or not, some people are better at...
Oct 17, 2016•1 hr 30 min
Which infectious diseases pose the greatest danger to a child during pregnancy, in infancy and adolescence? Most of us are aware of the dangers of whooping cough and influenza, but what about little-known and disabling micro-organisms such as cytomegalovirus (CMV) and old-nasties that re-emerge periodically like measles? What does every parent need to know about these infectious diseases? What role do family members play in passing on infections to children? How can vaccines offer protection aga...
Oct 12, 2016•1 hr 6 min
Is mindfulness all about the individual practice? What is the role of community when it come to the issues of well-being? How could institutions such as universities enhance emotional well-being of its employees and students? Dr Benjamin Veness, the University of Sydney alumnus and Churchill Fellow offers some solutions.
Oct 10, 2016•4 min
A panel of the University of Sydney experts and practitioners discuss the possible benefits and risks of mindfulness, and how it has been used in education and workplace to produce resilient students and healthy employees. Speakers: Professor Gwynnyth Llewellyn, Chair, Healthy Sydney University Professor Nick Glozier, Brain and Mind Centre Associate Professor Rae Cooper, Sydney Business School Professor Jane Burns, Faculty of Health Sciences Ms Jane Cox, consultant and leadership coach Dr Benjam...
Oct 10, 2016•1 hr 32 min
Is there a degree of suffering and degradation beyond which a man or a woman ceases to be a human being? A point beyond which our spirit dies and only pure physiology survives? And to what extent, if any, may literary culture be capable of preserving the integrity of our humanity? These are some of the questions that this lecture proposes to consider with reference to two places where extreme suffering is inflicted – the fictional hell imagined by Dante in his Inferno, and the real hell experien...
Oct 10, 2016•1 hr 29 min
What is happening in the US election campaign and where does the support for this ‘populist’ political movement come from? On the day after the second Presidential debate, a diverse panel of academics, students and election observers discussed changes in new media platforms, youth politics and activism, and the impact they are all having on the traditional election campaign processes.
Oct 10, 2016•1 hr 17 min
Don Watson and fellow Quarterly Essayist James Brown discuss the strangest election campaign the US has ever seen.
Oct 07, 2016•1 hr 34 min
Approaching death is an opportunity for individuals and those who care for them to reduce unnecessary suffering and achieve something more human and humane. Sadly, few dying people or their carers achieve these ends. What can we do differently ? In this exclusive Sydney Ideas event, Dr Bruce (BJ) Miller, a TED speaker and hospice and palliative medicine physician, reveals how The Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco is redesigning palliative care to bring compassion and imagination to the care o...
Oct 06, 2016•1 hr 27 min
The twentieth century saw the emergence of a number of authoritarian regimes – China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, the USSR – that have both challenged the global order and persisted in the face of massive external pressure and catastrophic economic downturns. Drawing on in-depth case studies and statistical analysis, Lucan Way (University of Toronto) argues that the threat and resilience of such regimes can be traced to their origins in violent revolutionary conflict. A history of violent revolutio...
Oct 05, 2016•1 hr 24 min
Humans are superorganisms with two genomes that dictate phenotype, the genetically inherited human genome (25,000 genes) and the environmentally acquired human microbiome (over 1 million genes). The two genomes must work in harmonious integration as a hologenome to maintain health. Nutrition plays a crucial role in directly modulating our microbiomes and health phenotypes. Poorly balanced diets can turn the gut microbiome from a partner for health to a “pathogen” in chronic diseases, e.g. accumu...
Oct 04, 2016•1 hr 29 min
Indonesia has struggled with corruption in its natural resource sector, with unchecked environmental destruction the result . Laode M Syarif, the newly elected Commissioner for Indonesia Anti-Corruption Commission (KPK) presents recent progress in the prevention and prosecution of corruption.
Sep 30, 2016•1 hr 13 min
Legal academic Professor Annalise Acorn argues that criminal punishment, devoid of all emotions of blame, is inhuman in relation to the offender and contrary to a morally robust justification for the criminal law. More info about this lecture and the speaker: tinyurl.com/zfya9qc
Sep 26, 2016•1 hr 29 min
Lecture by Professor Fran Bagenal, Co-investigator and Leader of the Plasma Teams for NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto and Juno mission to Jupiter, and Laboratory of Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado. A Sydney Ideas talk co-presented with Sydney SpaceNet at the University of Sydney, 22 September 2016. http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/professor_fran_bagenal.shtml
Sep 23, 2016•1 hr 29 min
What happens in China today – from economic to political and cultural events – already has an impact on the rest of the world. As its global influence increases, what does the future hold? Working closely with China Studies Centre and University of Sydney researchers, Sydney Ideas has provided a platform for local and international China experts to share their insights into this fascinating country over the last 10 years.
Sep 21, 2016•1 hr 35 min
Professor Richard Salomon from Department of Asian Languages and Literature at the University of Washington presents an overview of his experiences in studying the oldest manuscripts of Buddhism. These manuscripts, written on birch bark scrolls in the Gāndhārī language which was once spoken in what is now Pakistan and Afghanistan, date back as far as the first century BC. Salomon has been leading their study since they first came to light in 1995 and is now preparing an anthology of translations...
Sep 20, 2016•1 hr 2 min
Following its military successes in Iraq and Syria, and especially after the terrorist attacks in Paris and Belgium, the Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) has become a focus of media attention as the Western world attempts to understand its intentions. But is the international media capable of representing the complexity of the jihadist phenomenon without simplifying the Islamic State as a terrorist organisation only? Does political exploitation of th...
Sep 12, 2016•1 hr 16 min
Retiring from the city to the country is a popular Australia dream. But what are these retirees’ lives like, and what should we know to help improve them? Speaker: Professor Catherine Driscoll, Department of Gender and Cultural Studies THIS LECTURE WAS HELD ON 8 September, 2016 at the University of Sydney as part of the Sydney Ideas and the Insights Lectures series. For more about Insights lecture series see this page: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/Insights2016.shtml
Sep 08, 2016•59 min
For several decades after the Second World War, capitalism regulated by democratic politics proved successful. Rapid growth and equitable distribution supported by open markets ended the pessimism about instability and inequality that permeated Joseph Schumpeter’s classic Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942) written during the war against Fascism. Now doubts are rising again: in the developed countries, incomes have stopped growing for most people. Inequality is increasing. Vested interest...
Sep 07, 2016•53 min
Each year around 55,000 Australians suffer a heart attack, and almost 9,000 will die as a result. We know that obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and smoking can raise the risk of a heart attack - but what about the factors you aren’t aware of? From literally dying of a broken heart to unrecognised genetic conditions to complications from the medicines we take, our panel of experts will discuss triggers for heart attacks you didn’t know about and how to prevent them. We invite you to...
Sep 07, 2016•1 hr 40 min
Western democracies have seen a resurgence in far-right populist movements. Alongside disaffection with mainstream political parties, there has been agitation against immigration and multiculturalism. How are we to make sense of these developments? What do they mean for race relations? And what implications do they have for our democratic future? Tim Soutphommasane is Race Discrimination Commissioner and commenced his five-year appointment on 20 August 2013. Prior to joining the Australian Human...
Sep 06, 2016•47 min
As a modern idea, national conscience dates back to the anti-slavery campaign of the late eighteenth century. Its origins were Christian, yet they arose from notions of national character. Alan Atkinson’s suggests that, in an age of reviving nationalism, when several of the world’s main problems depend on the will of governments, national conscience has a new relevance and a new urgency. Alan Atkinson is the inaugural Australian Book Review RAFT Fellow, and this major public lecture is the culmi...
Sep 05, 2016•1 hr 13 min
For more than half a century, the fragile and frozen continent of Antarctica has been protected by ‘post-sovereign’ governing arrangements that are unusual by global standards. There are now clear signs of their breakdown. State rivalries, environmental damage and a dash for resources, including tourism revenues, are pushing the continent towards a highly uncertain future. This public forum tackles the pressing questions: What do scientists working in Antarctica have to teach us? Are military an...
Sep 01, 2016•1 hr 1 min
Professor Sabine Lee, the University of Birmingham. Starting from a drawing ‘Schattenkinder ‘ by the Dutch painter Knut Weise, whose half-sister is a Russenkind (child of Russian soldier fathered during or after Second World War in Germany) this paper explores the integration of children born of war into post-conflict societies by investigating children fathered by foreign soldiers in several conflicts spanning much of the 20th and 21st centuries: the Second World War, the Vietnam War, the Bosni...
Sep 01, 2016•1 hr 31 min
This panel considers the diverse cultural expressions of mosque design, past and present, in areas where Muslim populations are both minorities and majorities. It explains the history and reasons behind traditional gender segregation in mosques and how this segregation plays itself out in mosque architecture and affects ultimately the spiritual experience of the community. Panellists Dr Sam Bowker and Reem Sweid discuss the arabisation of mosques and the extent to which contemporary Australian a...
Aug 31, 2016•1 hr 30 min
The Holocaust is one of the most researched events of the twentieth century. Yet it continues to spark popular interest and scholarly controversy. In this lecture Professor Michael Berenbaum, former Project Director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and internationally renowned Holocaust historian will reflect on the current state of research. Challenging prevailing scholarly consensus, he will revisit the unfolding of events that culminated in the genocide of European Jewry and she...
Aug 30, 2016•1 hr 31 min
Since they were first revealed in 1863, the casts from Pompeii which preserved the forms of the victims in their moment of death have generated huge interest. Stories of their supposed lives and deaths have proved to be persistent not just in novels and movies, but also in some academic treatments of the site. As part of the Great Pompeii Project of 2015, the Superintendency organised the restoration of 86 of the 103 casts. Estelle Lazer and her team were given the opportunity to generate CT sca...
Aug 25, 2016•1 hr 24 min
Drawing from his new book - part historical detective story, part family history, part legal thriller - Professor Philippe Sands QC, explains the connections between his work on 'crimes against humanity' and 'genocide', the events that overwhelmed his family during the Second World War, and the remarkable, untold story that lay at the heart of the Nuremberg Trial: how Rafael Lemkin and Hersch Lauterpacht - the two prosecutors who brought 'genocide' and 'crimes against humanity' into the Nurember...
Aug 24, 2016•1 hr 4 min
Professor Mark Dadds from the Sydney Child Behaviour Research Clinic at the University of Sydney covers some of the current scientific evidence behind the building blocks of evidence-based parenting interventions: including rewards, punishment, and attachment. A Sydney Ideas event for Sydney Science Festival 2016.
Aug 18, 2016•1 hr 26 min
Politics at the End of the World: A Public Forum on the Future of Antarctica A panel of experts and those passionate about preserving Antarctica give a fascinating overview of both the history of Antarctica, especially around the legal questions of sovereignty, and progress on the lobbying for a marine park and ultimate preservation of the environment. Speakers include Professor Gillian Triggs, Greens leader Bob Brown and Jeff Hansen of theSea Shepherd Conservation Society, THIS LECTURE TOOK PLA...
Aug 17, 2016•1 hr 38 min
