Public Lecture: Associate Professor Nicholas Reid: Aboriginal Memories of Inundation of the Australian Coast

Venue: Elisabeth Murdoch Theatre A, Elisabeth Murdoch

Presenters: Associate Professor Nicholas Reid

18,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age, when sea level was about 120 metres below its present level, land ice started melting and sea level began rising, a process that ended some 6000 years ago around Australia. Postglacial sea-level rise transformed the coastline of this island continent, permanently inundating vast expanses of the continental shelf and severing the mainland from New Guinea, Tasmania and countless of today’s offshore islands. The drowning of Australia’s coast affected the ways in which its inhabitants – the Aboriginal peoples who arrived there 50-60,000 years ago – lived, principally by submerging lands on which they had previously lived.

The changes to the geography of coastal Australia wrought by postglacial sea-level rise were so noticeable that its inhabitants created stories – both mythical and narrative – that described the observed changes for posterity. Owing to the remarkable effectiveness of trans-generational storytelling in Aboriginal cultures, some of these stories have survived for millennia to reach us today.

Reid and Nunn have collected extant stories of coastal drowning from 21 locations around the coast of Australia. Using information about where sea level stood (relative to today) in the past, it is possible to assign age ranges to each story. Most stories are believed to date from at least 7000 years ago, making them remarkable for both their antiquity and the cultural continuity that their survival until today requires.

A few similar stories are known from some other parts of the world, including northwest Europe and India but most have been dismissed by most scientists as wholly fictional. Given the likely age of the Australian stories, the earliest of which might be 12,000 years old, it is worthwhile re-evaluating possible evidence of human memories of ancient coastal drowning elsewhere in the world.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/6351-public-lecture-associate-professor-nicholas-reid-aboriginal-memories-of-inundation

Passive Radar: An Electromagnetically Green Technology

Venue: University House at the Woodward Centre, Woodward Conference Centre

Presenters: Professor Douglas Cochran

Most modern radars are active, meaning that they transmit radio signals explicitly to accommodate their sensing objectives. This is analogous to carrying a torch on a dark night: the transmitted electromagnetic energy (light) illuminates the scene, scattering back to the receiver (eye) to enable understanding of the illuminated environment. One seldom need to carry a torch in daylight or in a well-­lighted room because ambient electromagnetic energy (from the sun, light globes, etc.) is adequate to illuminate the environment. In this case, one only needs eyes to sense in the environment. Passive radar does not transmit radio-­frequency signals, rather it exploits ambient radio-­frequency illumination provided by transmitters such as television, radio, cellular telephone towers, and active radars. Passive radar offers some advantages over active radar, particularly in covertness of operation and in not further cluttering increasingly scarce radio spectrum resources with additional transmissions (i.e., it is “electromagnetically green”). But it presents many challenges as well. This talk introduces the concept of passive radar, its features and challenges. It further explains why passive radar has garnered much recent international interest and touches on Australia’s prominence in international passive radar R&D.

Professor Douglas Cochran is Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Advanced Science and Technology, Sponsored by the Australian Defence Science and Technology Group – DSTG at Arizona State University.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/6722-passive-radar-an-electromagnetically-green-technology

A simplified way to wellbeing

Venue: Q230, Kwong Lee Dow Building

Presenters: Dr Aaron Jarden

The newly developing field of positive psychology has identified a number of activities to increase individual wellbeing such as being grateful, more mindful and utilising personal strengths. However there are many other possible interventions that have not been considered in any depth. This presentation proposes and outlines a novel and largely unexplored pathway to wellbeing – simplifying your life. The notion of simplification challenges the very essence of the existing paradigm which is to add activities to one’s life (to be more, to do more) and has the potential to be one of the most effective and efficient pathways to enhancing wellbeing.

Dr Aaron Jarden is a senior lecturer in psychology at Auckland University of Technology (AUT), and research fellow at AUT’s Human Potential Centre and will present this lecture for the Centre for Positive Psychology.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/6746-a-simplified-way-to-wellbeing

Inspiring India: Smart Cities - Art Cities

Venue: Basement Lecture Theatre 121 (Malaysian Theatre), Melbourne School of Design Building

Presenters: Mr Sanjoy Roy

Enhanced quality of life defines truly international cities be it London, New York, Singapore or Hong Kong. A key ingredient to this is access to arts and entertainment which defines the liveability of a city. As city governments create ambitious plans to attract talent and wealth – infrastructure & opportunities for arts and entertainment has to form an integral part in city planning.

In this talk Sanjoy Roy will explore this idea in relation to India. Sanjoy K Roy is Managing Director of Teamwork Films and Teamwork Arts and has directed and produced over 1000 hours of a wide range of films and television shows, including drama series, game shows, newsmagazines, and lifestyle programmes. He has received the National Award for Excellence and Best Director, for the film `Shahjahanabad The Twilight Years’.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/6735-inspiring-india-smart-cities-art-cities

Half Baked Ideas with Melbourne Writer's Festival Director Lisa Dempster

Venue: Seminar Room, Australia India Institute, The University of Melbourne

Presenters: Ms Lisa Dempster

In this talk Ms Lisa Dempster will explore the idea and focus of the MWF in curating programs that advance audiences’ cultural engagement with India and its writers.

The half-baked lunch workshop series is an opportunity for individuals to test and develop their ideas in a convivial, free-spirited, and interdisciplinary environment over lunch. The aim is to encourage speakers with a particular interest in India or Asia more broadly.

Lisa Dempster is a leader in Australia's creative sector and Director/CEO of a world class literary event, Melbourne Writers Festival. In her previous role as Director of the Emerging Writers’ Festival (2010–2012), Lisa delivered dynamic, diverse and accessible events, including several interstate roadshows. Lisa pioneered digital literary programming in Australia and was the founding Director of the Digital Writers' Conference and EWFdigital, an innovative online programming stream.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/6745-half-baked-ideas-with-melbourne-writer-s-festival-director-lisa-dempster

A Drop in the Ocean: How Did a Seascape Make Waves in China and Beyond?

Venue: Theatre A, Elisabeth Murdoch Building

Presenters: Professor Eugene Y. Wang

Professor Eugene Y. Wang, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Professor of Asian Art, Harvard University, will present a public lecture on early Chinese art.

A millennia-old tale of daughter of a prehistorical sage-king, told and retold over the centuries, has inspired poets and essayists, but not painters. For more than two thousand years, the matter has never been made the subject for painting. In the 1980s, however, the matter all of a sudden began to make waves in China. The most spectacular instance is the monumental seascape on the ceiling of the clock tower of the Tianjin Railway Station, rebuilt in 1988. It shows winged female nudes soaring amidst swirling clouds, mist, and surging waves. The traditional dearth of seascape paintings in China accentuates its novelty. Measured against the backdrop of the Eastern and Western traditions of dome decoration, its broader significance is striking. Domes both stand tall and travel afar. Embodying notions of heaven, All-Mighty, or other conceptual domains, dome designs and ceiling paintings reveal cosmologies. Underlying a seemingly universal heavenward aspiration is a nuanced spectrum of culturally specific conceptions and concerns. The dome painting recalls enduring mindsets just as it engages specific historical moments, such as the 1980s. It thus raises both broad and specific questions: what made the Tianjin Railway Station dome painting so distinct in view of the Chinese and Western traditions? How does it speak specifically to 1980s’ China of the reformist era? The dome painting has, it turns out, ultimately transcended its local context to become a global phenomenon. What is it about the painting that resonated with the Spanish in the 1990s, and subsequently, the English, and the rest of the world?

Professor Eugene Y. Wang's extensive publications range from early Chinese art and archeology to modern and contemporary art and cinema. He has received Guggenheim, Gettty and ACLS Fellowships.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/6724-a-drop-in-the-ocean-how-did-a-seascape-make

Marco Polos Tomatoes or on Cross-Cultural Exchange in Early European Art

Venue: Public Lecture Theatre, Old Arts

Presenters: Professor Anne Dunlop

In the last decades, the question of cross-cultural contact and exchange has emerged as a major field of research in Art History and the humanities in general. This work is driven by the need to understand the early history of our own global moment, but it is also part of a larger and more ambitious project: the attempt to write a global history of art, one that does not privilege Western production at the expense of other cultures. The importance of the project is clear, but there are many competing, and conflicting, ideas about how such a history should be written.

To explore the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches, this lecture will focus on a limit-case: the possibility that renewed contact between Italy and Eurasia after the rise of the Mongol Empire had an impact on European art. On the one hand, it is clear that this was a moment of renewed and intense contact and exchange: Marco Polo travelling to China is only one famous example of a much larger phenomenon. Artists, materials, technologies, and objects traveled across Europe, Africa, and Asia as they had not done in a thousand years. It is also clear that there were fundamental changes in Italian art in the years around 1300. Yet how can we determine cause and effect, given the limited historical evidence that survives? The challenge is to avoid anachronistic interpretation, what will be discussed here as the danger of Marco Polo’s tomatoes.

Anne Dunlop was appointed to the Herald Chair of Fine Arts in the School of Culture and Communication in 2015. Her research and teaching focus on the art of Italy and Europe between about 1300 and 1550, including the role of materials and technology in the making of art, and the relations of Italy and Eurasian in the years after the Mongol Conquests.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/6729-marco-polo-s-tomatoes-or-on-cross-cultural-exchange-in-early-european

Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space

Venue: Copland Theatre, The Spot

Presenters: Dr Janna Levin

The Carlton Connect Initiative and Faculty of Science present a combined DICE – Dialogues on Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship and Dean’s Lecture on the biggest news in physics since the discovery of the Higgs Boson.

Scientists have confirmed the existence of gravitational waves, which were first proposed by Albert Einstein almost exactly 100 years ago. Using the most sensitive measuring device ever created, the scientists recorded the ‘chirp’ of gravitational waves that were produced when two black holes smashed into each other 1.3 billion years ago.

Astrophysicist and writer Janna Levin spent two years interrogating the key players about their quest to find these elusive waves. The result is a brand new book, Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space.

Dr Levin will talk about this discovery and its implications for our understanding of the Universe at a joint Carlton Connect DICE and Faculty of Science Dean’s Lecture, in partnership with Auckland Writer’s Festival.

Dr Levin is a Professor of Physics at Barnard College of Columbia University, New York. She is the author of non-fiction book How the Universe Got Its Spots: diary of a finite time in a finite space and award winning novel A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines.

Event image: R Hurt/Caltech-JPL/NASA

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/6703-black-hole-blues-and-other-songs-from-outer-space

Keywords for India: Environment

Venue: Lecture Theatre A, Elisabeth Murdoch Building

Presenters: Professor Haripriya Rangan

Dr. Haripriya Rangan will use a comparison between environmental concerns in India and Australia as a basis for examining the changing meaning of the term ‘environment'. Drawing on research across the Indian Ocean, Professor Rangan will offer a comparative picture of how ‘the environment’ is being shaped by different institutions. This forms the basis for Haripriya’s appeal for further in-depth comparative research on nature, environment, and alternative solutions to environmental problems.

Haripriya Rangan trained in architecture and urban planning in India, and holds a doctoral degree from the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA) in urban and regional development. Haripriya has over 20 years of research and teaching experience in universities in the USA and Australia.

Keywords for India:

The series will celebrate and explore the complexity of some of the most important words used by scholars and commentators to understand India, Australia and the relationship between India and Australia by inviting leading thinkers to make keynote addresses on individual words. By focusing on crucially important words -­- such as “Power” and “Nation” -­- the distinguished contributors to the series will illustrate why words matter, how their significance changes over time, and what they might mean in different contexts. The series will allow speakers to reflect in earnest on the changing connotations of this word, how it is used by different individuals and organisations, and how close consideration of the term might unlock understanding of aspects of India today.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/6697-keywords-for-india-environment

Breast cancer: new research, future treatments

Venue: Davis Auditorium, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute

Presenters: Dr Anne Rios, Professor Geoff Lindeman

Hear top Walter and Eliza Hall Institute breast cancer researchers discuss new frontiers in breast cancer research and treatment.

Professor Geoff Lindeman will discuss the successful research that has led to a world-first early phase clinical trial of a new breast cancer drug, offering new hope for patients.

Dr Anne Rios will take audiences through state- of-the-art three dimensional breast tissue images created using new 3D imaging technology, and explains how this technique is shedding new light on breast cancer.

Talks followed by audience question time and panel discussion with endocrine and breast surgeon, Dr Laura Chin-Lenn and consumer advocate, Ms Merryn Carter.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/6661-breast-cancer-new-research-future-treatments

Terms of Engagement: Ethics and Participatory Art

Venue: Grant Street Theatre, Grant Street Theatre

Presenters: Dr Lucas Ihlein, Ms Tal Fitzpatrick, Ms Juliana Espana Keller, Dr Kate Just, Professor David Cross, Dr James Oliver

'Community-based art', 'community practice', 'political art', 'participatory art', 'relational art and aesthetics' and 'socially engaged art' are just some of the terms used to describe the art practice of artists who engage directly in some way or other with 'the community'.

This forum brings together a number of artists whose work sits in this space to address questions related to power and accountability within community arts practice. In particular it will discuss the ethical responsibility of artists to the wider communities they practice within, and to the artists' individual 'subjects' who are left to deal with the aftermath of the 'attention' of researchers and artists.

The forum will be chaired by Dr James Oliver (VCA and MCM, University of Melbourne) with speakers including: Dr Kate Just (VCA and MCM, University of Melbourne), Tal Fitzpatrick, Dr Lucas Ihlein (University of Wollongong), Juliana Keller (University of Melbourne) and Professor David Cross (Deakin University).

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/6627-terms-of-engagement-ethics-and-participatory-art

Encore: In Conversation with Barry Conyngham

Venue: Federation Hall, Federation Hall

Presenters: Professor Barry Conyngham, Mr Adrian Collette

With his latest composition ‘Diasporas’ premiering on 21 May with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, prolific Australian composer Professor Barry Conyngham, discusses how he balances a full-time creative practice with extensive academic management position as Dean of the Faculty of Victorian College of the Arts and Melbourne Conservatorium of Music.

In discussion with Barry will be Adrian Collette, Vice Principal (Engagement), previously Chief Executive Officer of Opera Australia and eminent figure in the art and music scene. The event includes some video clips of his music including from a recent performance in Japan of his work 'Gardener of Time'.

Don’t miss your chance to see this special conversation between two leading figures of Australian music and performing arts scene.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/6660-encore-in-conversation-with-barry-conyngham

The peace process and the Constitution: Constitution making as peace making?

Venue: Woodward Conference Centre, Level 10, Law Building

Presenters: Manuel José Cepeda Espinosa

The 2016 Human Rights Lecture will be delivered by Manuel José Cepeda Espinosa, President of the International Association of Constitutional Law.

In 2015, the Colombia government entered into a transitional justice agreement with the FARC guerrilla movement that marked an important step towards ending decades of conflict in Colombia. This lecture by a member of the Commission negotiating this important part of the peace agreement brings a constitutional perspective to the peace process. The interface between peace making and constitution making and change is one of many challenges for contemporary international politics. While the relationship inevitably is context dependent to a degree the wide range of cases involving transition from conflict to forms of constitutional government make global experience a rich resource on which other states in conflict can draw. This lecture canvasses the experience of Colombia where, as the peace process unfolds, a consequential process of constitutional reform is underway. Some of the mooted changes relate to transitional justice for guerrilla forces and the military. Others concern broader developments, such as political representation and territorial autonomy. The lecture will focus on two questions in particular. The first is the way in which peace making has led to innovative institutional design. The second explores the way in which constitution making has been a tool to build peace at critical points over the last half century.

This occasion will launch the Constitutional Transformation Network, a special project of the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/6557-the-peace-process-and-the-constitution-constitution-making-as-peace

Chopin's Piano: A Path Through the Romantic Century

Venue: Melba Hall, Melbourne Conservatorium of Music

Presenters: Dr Paul Kildea

Author and conductor Dr Paul Kildea uses a single piano – the instrument on which Chopin completed his groundbreaking Preludes – to forge a path through the history of Romantic music. Kildea outlines the fate of the piano and the famous pieces written on it, from Majorca in the winter of 1838–9, to Paris in 1940, when it was looted by the Nazis, to its postwar restitution following its discovery in a salt mine. Drawing on his new book, to be published by Penguin in 2017, Kildea talks about Romanticism, industrialisation, the history of the modern piano, Chopin reception, and the changing meaning of music over time. He is joined by mezzo-soprano Sally Wilson.

Dr Paul Kildea holds degrees from The University of Melbourne and a doctorate from Oxford University. He is former artistic director of Wigmore Hall, London. He lives in Berlin.

He is a 2016 Miegunyah Distinguished Visiting Fellow.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/6653-chopin-s-piano-a-path-through-the-romantic-century

Hiding in Plain Sight: Nursing Solutions in Health Care Reform

Venue: Auditorium, Ground Floor, Peter Doherty Institute

Presenters: Professor Glenn Gardner

The Australian Health care system has achieved remarkable gains for the health of our population in terms of longevity and technological and scientific advances in management and cure of common diseases. These healthcare gains, however, are not available to all and there is stark contrast in health status between various population sectors. Furthermore, advances in health care have come at a cost; there is general and broad agreement that Australia cannot continue with the current rate of health expenditure. Treasury projections of increasing levels of health spending into the future have pundits questioning the sustainability of Australia's healthcare system.

These observations are generally acknowledged, and have been roundly debated and reported by various advisory groups, commissions, reform bodies and taskforces. Most of these have been constituted by a succession of worried governments seeking ready solutions to the twin problems of escalating health care costs and equitable and timely access to health care.

Many of the proffered solutions are comfortable for governments that are seemingly seeking change with little disruption to existing structures. But our health care system has moved beyond the luxury of incremental and comfortable change – radical change is called for if we are to begin to halt spiraling health care costs and achieve sustainable improvement in access to high quality, safe health care for all sectors of the population.

Nursing is the largest single health discipline, and advanced practice models are well positioned to play a role in health service reform. To date, the contribution of nursing remains largely invisible and under-utilised. Professor Gardner's objective in this lecture is to discuss the above contextual features of contemporary health care as they intersect with evidence based solutions to workforce reform. Gardner's focus will be on revealing the potential of advanced practice nursing and nurse practitioner service to contribute to patient-centred multidisciplinary care for Australian communities.

Dr Gardner is Professor of Nursing at Queensland University of Technology, Australia.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/6649-hiding-in-plain-sight-nursing-solutions-in-health-care-reform

The Eye Sees Not Itself: Shakespeare and Aristotle on Friendship

Venue: 4th Floor Linkway, John Medley

Presenters: Mr Patrick Gray

In a conversation in Troilus and Cressida between Ulysses and Achilles, Shakespeare presents a remarkably sophisticated account of the relationship between the self and the other, adumbrating the concept of intersubjective “recognition” (Anerkennung) more commonly associated with Hegel, as well as other, later Continental philosophers such as Sartre, Ricoeur, and Levinas.

The idea that the other, especially, the friend or lover, is a mirror or “glass,” enabling and mediating self-definition, reappears inJulius Caesar, as well as Antony and Cleopatra; even as early as King John. Shakespeare anticipates Hegel here not only because he himself influences Hegel’s thought, but also because both he and Hegel are drawing on a common source, Aristotle’s account of the role of friendship in his moral philosophy.

More specifically, the image of the friend as mirror can be traced to a treatise attributed to Aristotle, the Magna Moralia, now considered of doubtful authenticity, as mediated through influential commentaries on Aristotle’s ethics by Shakespeare’s English contemporary, John Case: the Speculum Moralium Quaestionum (1585) and the Reflexus Speculi Moralis (1596). Case further complicates Aristotle's original metaphor by emphasizing the eye of the other as providing the most revealing reflection of the self, drawing upon related conceits in Plato’s First Alcibiades and Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations.

Patrick Gray is Lecturer in Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature in the Department of English Studies at Durham University. He is the co-editor with John D. Cox of Shakespeare and Renaissance Ethics (Cambridge UP, 2014) and guest editor of a forthcoming special issue of Critical Survey on Shakespeare and war. His essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Shakespeare Survey, Shakespeare Jahrbuch, Critical Survey, Comparative Drama, and Cahiers Shakespeare en devenir. He is currently working on a monograph on shame and guilt in Shakespeare, as well as co-editing a collection of essays on Shakespeare and Montaigne. In April and May 2016, Patrick Gray is Early Career International Research Fellow at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, 1100-1800.

Presented as part of Shakespeare 400 Melbourne shakespeare400.unimelb.edu.au

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/6639-the-eye-sees-not-itself-shakespeare-and-aristotle-on-friendship

Seven Sonnets and A Song: A Conversation with Paul Kelly & Richard Flanagan

Venue: Theatre B117, Melbourne School of Design

Presenters: Paul Kelly, Richard Flanagan

To coincide with the day Shakespeare died 400 years ago, Paul Kelly has released a mini-album Seven Sonnets & A Song. It features him singing six Shakespeare sonnets and a song from Twelfth Night, as well as a Sir Philip Sidney sonnet sung by Vika Bull.

Richard Flanagan and Paul Kelly, two great Australian storytellers, come together to talk about Kelly’s literary journey in music and poetry, the influence of literature on his writing, and his influence on literature. Paul will also discuss his new album of Shakespeare’s sonnets and perform a selection.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/6628-seven-sonnets-and-a-song-a-conversation-with-paul-kelly

Human Evolutionary History in a Global Context: Progress and Challenges

Venue: B117 (Basement Lecture Theatre), Melbourne School of Design

Presenters: Professor Bernard Wood

For nearly two centuries we have been accumulating fossil and other evidence that bears on our evolutionary history. As we review the history of that accumulation and all that we have learned from it, we must recognise that there is yet much to be learned. We need to be realistic about what we can know, and what we may never be able to know, about our evolutionary history.

This lecture will consider how well we have been able to answer some fundamental questions about our origins. How good, for example, are we at telling our recent ancestors and close relatives from those of the apes? How can we know how many species preceded our own? Can we tell which of those species are our ancestors, and which are non-ancestral close relatives? After considering the current state of our knowledge, the lecture will reflect on ways we might improve our ability to answer such questions. Following from this, the lecture will explore how knowledge about our past can help us negotiate current challenges, such as climate change and dwindling biodiversity.

Professor Bernard Wood is a world renowned paleoanthropologist and foremost scientific commentator on research relating to human evolution. With more than 40 years of innovative research, published through 17 books and more than 200 scholarly papers, he has pushed disciplinary boundaries in relation to hominin systematics, paleobiology, and evolutionary ecology.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/6622-human-evolutionary-history-in-a-global-context-progress-and-challenges

Reducing the Burden of Mental Illness: A perspective from India

Venue: Seminar Room, Australia India Institute, The University of Melbourne

Presenters: Dr Rajesh Sagar

The global burden of mental illness is on sharp increase. More than 13% of the global burden of disease is due to neuropsychiatric disorders out of which three-quarters lies in low and middle income countries. Particularly in India, a significant number of the population has some form of serious untreated mental disorders. Such a gap is evident across other domains of services, being it treatment, resources, inequitable distribution of resources or budget allocation. Approximately 90% of global mental health resources are located only in high-income countries (WHO, 2005) and a huge gap exists. However, WHO has taken tremendous efforts towards bridging the mental health gap through implementing the “Action”, “Intervention” program and “Mental Health Action Plan” (2013-2020) aimed at scaling up mental health services in low and middle income countries. The steps taken by Indian government is also worth highlighting. With the formulation of “Mental Health Policy of India”, “National Mental Health program”, “District Mental Health Program” and proposed legislation “Mental Health Care Bill” are few significant efforts which have been taken to reduce distress, disability and to strengthen the leadership in the mental health sector at the national, state, and district levels. There have been important initiatives with regard to training and building the capacity for managing mental disorders such as conducting the Training of Trainers (ToTs) for medical doctors. Thus, it is clear that there have been rising efforts and promising measure taken globally as well indigenously to work towards bridging the gap effectively.

Dr. Rajesh Sagar is Professor, Department of Psychiatry, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/6604-reducing-the-burden-of-mental-illness-a-perspective-from-india

Making a World of Difference: The First 1000 Days for Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Children

Venue: Ian Potter Auditorium, Kenneth Myer Building

Presenters: Professor Kerry Arabena

6th Vera Scantlebury Brown Memorial Lecture

Making a World of Difference: The First 1000 Days for Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Children and the launch of Dr Heather Sheard’s life of Vera Scantlebury Brown ‘A Heart Undivided’

The rates of death and illness common in the early twentieth century have decreased dramatically, due mostly to preventive strategies implemented by Vera Scantlebury Brown and her colleagues.

Australia is a signatory to covenants that protect the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children including rights to culturally determined health and wellbeing and to be cared for in safe homes and families. Whilst this is the experience for many of our children, there are still those who experience vulnerability.

International research has shown that health in the first 1000 days of life, from conception to age two, has great impact on later life health. The First Thousand Days is a global movement addressing child development, nutrition, immunology and cognitive development.

Just as Vera Scantlebury Brown set out to improve the health of children in Victoria after the First World War, Professor Kerry Arabena is building a preventive approach to closing the gap for Indigenous children and communities in Australia.

The Australian Model of the First 1000 Days will offer families an Indigenous-led, holistic and ecological framework of twelve interventions to improve the health and wellbeing of their children.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/6599-making-a-world-of-difference-the-first-1000-days-for

Chopin's Piano: A Path Through the Romantic Century

Venue: Melba Hall, Melbourne Conservatorium of Music

Presenters: Dr Paul Kildea

Miegunyah Lecture

Author and conductor Paul Kildea uses a single piano – the instrument on which Chopin completed his groundbreaking Preludes – to forge a path through the history of Romantic music. Kildea outlines the fate of the piano and the famous pieces written on it, from Majorca in the winter of 1838–9, to Paris in 1940, when it was looted by the Nazis, to its postwar restitution following its discovery in a salt mine. Drawing on his new book, to be published by Penguin in 2017, Kildea talks about Romanticism, industrialization, the history of the modern piano, Chopin reception, and the changing meaning of music over time. He is joined by mezzo-soprano Sally Wilson.

A former Young Artist at Opera Australia, Paul Kildea has conducted throughout Australia and Europe, including guest appearances with the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, Ensemble 2e2m (Paris), Nash Ensemble (London), West Australian Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Opera Australia, Victorian Opera, Australian Youth Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Britten–Pears Orchestra.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/6596-chopin-s-piano-a-path-through-the-romantic-century