Sydney Ideas

For the 2016 Insight lecture Series Professor Yixu Lu, Head of School, School of Languages and Cultures talks about the images of China tantalised the European imagination throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and still do today. The Enlightenment produced an image of China as decadent and stagnant, and this dominated European visions of China throughout the 19th century. This lecture takes a critical survey of the making and breaking of these images and consider the enigma that China remains today. Fore speaker's biography see: tinyurl.com/zn5cqo9

The Middle Ages have never been more current. Particularly since 9/11, the term 'medieval' has been used to describe, for example, climate-change deniers, climate-change scientists, Christians, Muslims, IS, and Al-Qaeda, to name a few. In these contexts, the Middle Ages denotes ignorance, superstition and barbarism. Why this turn to the idea of the Middle Ages to explain our modern times? Our speakers will explore the long history of the 'modern' Middle Ages and its particular relevance for today's global culture.

Our greatest task is to try to imagine the future before it arrives and then to try to shape it. Will the buzzwords ‘innovation’ and ‘agility’ come to mean more than increased efficiency and wealth for the few? The future is almost within reach, but the portents are challenging; rarely has the future seemed so difficult a prospect. Coinciding with the 500th anniversary of Thomas More's Utopia, Griffith Review founding editor Julianne Schultz launches Griffith Review 52: Imagining the Future. Professor Schultz is joined by University of Sydney scientist Professor Thomas Maschmeyer and distinguished writer-journalists and Griffith Review contributors Kathy Marks, Tony Davis and Paul Daley, in a conversation around themes arising from our urgent need to address the world ahead.

This talk explores how the manifesto became a defining genre of the artistic avant-garde and other political movements across the 20th century, from Futurism and Surrealism to radical feminist manifestos by Valerie Solanas and the Riot Grrrls. It coincides with Julian Rosefeldt’s moving image 2014-2015 artwork, ‘Manifesto’,which brings to life the enduring provocation of the historical art manifesto. ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Natalya Lusty is an Associate Professor in the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney. She is the author of Surrealism, Feminism, Psychoanalysis (2007), Dreams and Modernity: A Cultural History (2013), with Helen Groth and the edited collection, Modernism and Masculinity (2014), which was shortlisted for the Modernist Studies Association book prize. She has spent the last decade writing and talking about manifestos in numerous academic contexts and public forums and is currently completing a book on feminist manifestos.

The unrivalled corpus of medieval manuscripts unearthed in the northwestern Chinese desert town of Dunhuang in the early twentieth century divulged a trove of secrets about the practice of Chinese Buddhism. Among the thousands of liturgical texts created by local monks for the performance of rituals, almost two hundred separate manuscripts contain liturgies that were spoken aloud during healing rituals. Stephen F Teiser, Professor in Buddhist Studies and Professor of Religion at Princeton University, introduces Dunhuang and its manuscripts, surveys the practice of healing in medieval Chinese Buddhism, explores how illness can be cured through karmic means, discusses the role of confession in curing, and reflects on the process of healing in Chinese Buddhism.

Why was Zika virus declared an international public health emergency by the World Health Organization? What are the implications for people living in Australia? What other infectious diseases pose a risk here, and how would we respond if there was an outbreak? Listen to a wide ranging discussion about the facts behind Zika and other mosquito-borne illnesses, the role of the media and government in keeping the public properly informed, the mechanisms for controlling the risks, and a frank assessment of where in the world we should be focusing our attention to limit the potential for epidemics.

Data is the currency of the digital age and has transformed all areas of physical life and social sciences. In all disciplines there has been an unparalleled growth in the quantity and variety of data made available by the pervasive nature of the internet and enabled by almost free digital storage. Moving beyond the expectations of ‘big data’ the focus is now on development of sophisticated and nuanced transformational data-driven ideas and algorithms. Have we reached a tipping point where new approaches to complex systems, personal health, social policy and understanding our earth can now be understood with sophisticated and nuanced data-driven discovery? What are the next fruitful steps for bringing together disparate data for applications that benefit individuals, business and our society? The University of Sydney’s new Centre for Translational Data Science is driving new and transformational advances in research through the application of data and machine-learning technologies. The Centre is also supp

This talk was a key note address for the 2016 Photography.Ontology symposium that took place at the University of Sydney in June 2016. Professor Smith considers Frederick Douglass’s propositions about the social power of photography. Looking back at Douglass’s lecture “Pictures and Progress” through the lens of contemporary artist Rashid Johnson’s homage to the nineteenth-century orator, the talk examines Douglass’s surprising celebration of photography as an objectifying medium. Douglass saw the persistence of photographs as both a conserving and a conservative force, and Johnson’s self-portrait after Douglass testifies to that doubled dynamic. But Douglass also found progressive power in the technology’s capacity to alienate the self, an unexpected position for the formerly enslaved. The talk explores Douglass’s complicated embrace of photography as a medium of objectification as well as progress, as a link to the past as well as the future.

Scientists have long thought that the adult brain is unchangeable, but new evidence is emerging to challenge this belief by revealing that the brain is capable of lifelong change and adaptation. This adaptability - or neuroplasticity as it is commonly known - shows the mature brain can reorganise or ‘rewire’ itself in response to experience, disease or injury. University of Sydney researchers are at the forefront of brain and mind research. In this fascinating forum our experts will share what neuroplasticity means for degenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s, regaining speech after disease or injury, and the implications for all of us in terms of maintaining a healthy brain. Presenters: Associate Professor Michael Valenzuela, Head of the Regenerative Neuroscience Group, Brain and Mind Centre Professor Leanne Togher, Professor of Communication Disorders following Traumatic Brain Injury, Faculty of Health Sciences Dr Michael Lee, Clinical Neurophysiologist and Physiotherapist, Brain and Mind Centre and F

Constructed, neglected, rebuilt and expanded over the course of nearly a century, the Qing imperial park of Bishu shanzhuang played a central, but constantly changing, role in the history of the Manchu dynasty for nearly two centuries. Scholars of the site have focused on its final form at the end of the 18th century, taking a single vision of its design and use as descriptive of its entire history. In this talk, Stephen Whiteman explores the park’s early history under the Kangxi emperor, from its original conception as an imperial retreat to its representation through text and image, and considers the legacy of this history not only in later iterations of the landscape, but also in collective memories of the rise and fall of the dynasty itself.

Panel discussion with audience Q&A on the topic of Wiser Healthcare We all want to be able to get good healthcare when we need it. But what would it mean to provide and consume healthcare wisely? This panel discussion with Dr Iona Heath considers a radical idea: that sometimes wiser healthcare means less healthcare. Or at least, less healthcare for people who don’t need it, so we can give more healthcare to people who do.

Music’s power to form, sustain and present social identities is especially relevant in today’s changing and increasingly networked world. A panel of Indigenous researchers and performers from Australia and overseas discuss: how songs can support language revitalization; how music can help us to understand our history and our communities; and how Indigenous youth today are using Rap music to share their cultural knowledge and their lived experiences. A Sydney Ideas event on 27 May 2016. http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/music_and_contemporary_indigenous_identities_forum.shtml

Economic Modelling now plays a significant role in the development of public policy development and the conduct of public debate in Australia. Modelling has been central to the case for and against the carbon tax, the mining tax and industrial relations reform. But the widespread use of economic modelling is not matched with widespread understanding of its strengths, weaknesses and vulnerabilities. When used well economic modelling can help policy makers understand the existence, and magnitude, of likely interrelationships; when used poorly it can conceal those same linkages; and when use dishonestly it can be used as a tool to dress up the self-interest of advocates as national interest. In this address Richard Denniss outlines the use and abuse of economic modelling in Australia and argue the case for a Code of Conduct for economic modelling.

Since the global food crisis of 2007, agricultural land has become an attractive asset for large private corporations and state-owned entities wanting to secure food supplies. These investments have had varying effects. At times, they have been associated with forced removals of pre-existing landholders with weak tenure rights. On other occasions they have driven up local property prices and altered production priorities towards export markets. Either way, they have been implicated in creating a more vertically integrated food system aligned to global markets. This panel discusses these issues from international and Australian perspectives. PANEL: Emeritus Professor Geoffrey Lawrence, University of Queensland Dr Sarah Sippel, Senior Researcher, Centre for Area Studies, University of Leipzig, Germany Professor Bill Pritchard, Human Geography, School of Geosciences, University of Sydney A Sydney Ideas and Sydney Environment Institute event in the Food@Sydney series http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2

To celebrate National Archaeology Week 2016 we present two talks on the topic of archaeology and heritage in the Pacific. Wasteland and Wonderland: Bikini Atoll - from atomic bomb testing ground to World Heritage Dr Steve Brown, Lecturer in Archaeology, Master of Museum and Heritage Studies program Sydney’s Missionary Connections to the New Hebrides (Vanuatu) in the 19th Century James Flexner, Lecturer in Historical Archaeology and Heritage, Department of Archaeology More info: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/archaeology_heritage_tropical_pacific.shtml

It is now well established that digital media has given rise to new forms of political speech. Just as importantly though, the new media environment has also created space for new types of listening. Media scholar Dave Karpf discusses the role that digital listening, measurement, and experimentation play in shaping the contours of ‘analytic activism’. More info: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/david_karpf.shtml

A look into how bottles are impacting on tap water provision and the implications of accumulating plastic waste on environments and bodies. SPEAKERS: Professor Gay Hawkins, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University; Assoc Professor Kane Race, Gender and Cultural Studies, the University of Sydney; and Kylie Yeend, Education, Engagement and Partnerships Manager at Sydney Water.

The Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, dominated by President Erdogan, has governed Turkey for more than a decade. Its initial democratisation agenda, however, has taken an authoritarian turn - with minimal tolerance for dissent. The lecture by Professor Umut Azak (Okan University, Istanbul) investigates the shifts in state-Islam relations within the context of a shrinking pluralist democracy in Turkey and the broader Middle East. The AKP’s state-led Islamisation and commitment towards creating a ‘devout generation’ are examined by locating the institutionalisation of ‘state Islam’ within the foundations established by the secular Kemalist Republic. More info: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/professor_umut_azak.shtml

Did you know that at the height of 2015 forest fires, Indonesia was emitting more carbon than the entire US economy? Kiki Taufik, the Global Head of Greenpeace’s Indonesian Forests Campaign outlines why protecting Indonesia's forests is critical to global efforts to stabilise the climate and preserve biodiversity. He analyses recent developments concerning Indonesia's forests, the creation of a new agency to protect peatland, the work of the anti-corruption commission, and Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s recent bans on new forest clearance and mining. Co-presented with the Sydney Environment Institute in association with Greenpeace Australia Pacific.

Leading theatrical designers Michael Scott-Mitchell and Nick Schlieper join Associate Professor Branka Spehar, who specialises in the psychology of visual perception, to present a panel discussion about light and colour effects and their implications for performance, architecture and visual perception.