Ethics in Science

Venue: Ian Potter Auditorium, Kenneth Myer Building

Presenters: Sir Colin Blakemore FRS, FMedSci, FRSB, FBPhS, Professor Lyn Beazley PhD, AO, Professor Michael Goldberg MD, Professor David Vauz AO, MBBS, PhD.AO, Professor Jakob Howhy PhD

With the rapid advancement of science, ethical dilemmas arise frequently. These range from the use of embryonic stem cells or animals in research, deciding how much power to give robots and artificial intelligence, how far to go with clinical trials in humans or using modern technology to decide whether one should turn off the life support of someone in coma.

Though science is not infallible, it is essential that scientific research is pursued with integrity and transparency and to the highest possible standards. Scientists owe this dedication and honesty to their pursuit of truth and to the tax-payer who both funds and is the beneficiary of the research.

At this forum, five internationally renowned scientists working in different fields will address some of these ethical issues and answer questions from the floor.

The Q&A will be moderated by moderated by Bernie Hobbs from the ABC, by arrangement with Claxton Speakers International'

from
https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/9672-ethics-in-science

300,000 New Immigrants Per Year the ‘New Normal’: Immigration Minister

Canada’s Minister of Immigration, Ahmed Hussen, has said that the country will welcome at least as many new immigrants in 2018 as it expects to this year. The Minister’s comments on CBC radio show The House come just before the government is expected to publish its Immigration Levels Plan for 2018. “Three hundred thousand is […]

from
https://www.cicnews.com/2017/10/300000-new-immigrants-per-year-the-new-normal-immigration-minister-109765.html

From Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping: The Return of the Chinese Emperors?

Venue: Macmahon Ball Theatre, Old Arts

Presenters: Dr Michael Lynch

There are strong intimations that, in the midst of its remarkable economic advance, China may be returning to a form of imperial rule. Observers suggest that it is re-establishing a leadership personality cult. The centralised, personalised authority restored by Mao did not die with him but is currently being resurrected. China seems to be engaged in an astonishing attempt to modernise its economy while reverting to its traditional autocratic polity.

How accurate are these observations? What was Mao’s legacy? Does it still shape modern China?

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/9665-from-mao-zedong-to-xi-jinping-the-return-of-the

Smart Meters: Between Innovation Promise and Consumer Protection

Venue: Australian-German Climate and Energy College, Level 1, 257

Presenters: Dr Anne Kallies

Smart infrastructure such as smart meters provide the platform for the introduction of innovative, information-based energy technologies designed to promote systemic energy efficiency and to transition energy markets toward more sustainable and cost effective outcomes. Smart meters in particular carry the promise of innovation in electricity markets – as an enabler of demand-side services and a more distributed energy system.

At the same time, they present enormous challenges for policy makers. Legal frameworks have to navigate between an increasing number of potentially contestable roles and at the same time realise consumer protection as well as consumer participation.

This seminar will present three case studies of legal reform supporting smart meter introduction – two from Australia and one from Germany.

Recurrent themes that emerge from the case studies show that the innovation promise of smart meters requires the underpinning legal system to address the wider social and economic implications of these changes. Key factors requiring attention are a consideration of who bears the cost for the implementation of the technologies, and the use and security of consumer energy information.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/9662-smart-meters-between-innovation-promise-and-consumer-protection

The Age of Drones: How Unmanned Aerial Vehicles are Changing our World

Venue: Woodward Conference Centre, Law

Presenters: Dr Jake Goldenfein, Dr Suelette Dreyfus, Professor Chris Manzie, Dr Ranjith Rajasekharan Unnithan, Dr Airlie Chapman

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) offer the potential for much greater information retrieval over distributed settings than ever before. This potential is already seeing significant positive outcomes across a wide range of application domains.

Engineers are harnessing UAV capability to collect visual and thermal data over much wider areas and at much greater precision than available previously. With appropriate data analytics this information is helping farmers implement precision agriculture solutions that manage their crops and livestock, leading to water savings and improved crop yields.

By removing the need to have humans in dangerous situations, UAVs also offer significant potential in areas such as disaster management and recovery. The next frontier of UAV applications will consider how best to utilise large numbers of vehicles concurrently. As such, the unmanned systems will need to coordinate amongst themselves and with humans in effective teams that accomplish a shared task, despite the individual differences that may arise between team members and the unpredictability of the encountered scenarios.

This panel will examine the wide range of drone applications and the cutting-edge cross-disciplinary UAV research currently underway at the University of Melbourne.

The speakers will also discuss the technological possibilities and limitations of drones, as well as the ethical and legal considerations of working with UAVs and how these needs can be balanced with the benefits to the environment and society that drones may offer.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/9651-the-age-of-drones-how-unmanned-aerial-vehicles-are-changing

A Changing World: The Honourable Michael Kirby and Professor Peter Doherty in Conversation

Venue: The Auditorium, Peter Doherty Institute

Presenters: The Honourable Michael Kirby AC CMG, Professor Peter Doherty

The Honourable Michael Kirby and Laureate Professor Peter Doherty will discuss climate change, human rights, and the role of science and evidence in solving the most pressing challenges facing the world.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/9661-a-changing-world-the-honourable-michael-kirby-and-professor-peter

Yellowstone (USA) National Park Travel Guide

Venue: Lecture Theatre B, Level 7, Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre

Presenters: Associate Professor Prue Cormie

Regular exercise could be considered a wonder-drug for cancer patients. Research shows it eases side effects from treatment, lower people’s relative risk of having a recurrence and, in fact, lowers their risk of dying from cancer. Despite this, most people with cancer don’t exercise regularly and exercise isn’t prescribed as part of routine cancer care.

Ex-Med Cancer is a new program designed to counteract the adverse effects of cancer and its treatment through exercise medicine. Learn more about the research evidence and this safe, effective and feasible community based service in a forum accessible for all health professionals, patients and community members.

Associate Professor Prue Cormie is an exercise physiologist whose research and clinical work focuses on the application of exercise as medicine for the management of cancer.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWk0aTEor50

Fatehpur Sikri (India) Vacation Travel Video Guide

Venue: Lecture Theatre B, Level 7, Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre

Presenters: Associate Professor Prue Cormie

Regular exercise could be considered a wonder-drug for cancer patients. Research shows it eases side effects from treatment, lower people’s relative risk of having a recurrence and, in fact, lowers their risk of dying from cancer. Despite this, most people with cancer don’t exercise regularly and exercise isn’t prescribed as part of routine cancer care.

Ex-Med Cancer is a new program designed to counteract the adverse effects of cancer and its treatment through exercise medicine. Learn more about the research evidence and this safe, effective and feasible community based service in a forum accessible for all health professionals, patients and community members.

Associate Professor Prue Cormie is an exercise physiologist whose research and clinical work focuses on the application of exercise as medicine for the management of cancer.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFCqqwcReG8

Miami (USA) Vacation Travel Video Guide

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

Presenters: Dr Alex Davis

This talk will explore a lost narrative of how the study of international affairs came to late colonial India. By exploring the intertwined lives of two institutions, it unearths colonial India’s ideational fight over the study of international affairs.

The first Chatham House affiliated institute of international relations in India was the Indian Institute of International Affairs (IIIA), established in 1936. Headed by Zafrulla Khan, the IIIA comprised Indian liberals and civil servants. In the early 1940s a rival emerged – the Indian Council for World Affairs (ICWA). The IIIA saw the ICWA as an institutional rival and a propaganda front for the Indian National Congress. The two institutes were divided on communal lines. The IIIA became dominated by Muslims and the ICWA by Brahmin Hindus. A battle for legitimacy and recognition ensued over participation in international conferences and the production of research. The ICWA successfully organized the Asian Relations Conference in March 1947. This sealed the fate of the IIIA, which moved to Pakistan with Partition and subsequently closed down unceremoniously.

Dr Alexander Davis is a New Generation Network Scholar with La Trobe University and the Australia-India Institute.

from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHszH09bHd0

Quebec to Welcome a Diverse Range of Immigrants in 2018

Pour lire cet article en français, cliquez ici. The Canadian province of Quebec has released its Immigration Plan for 2018, with strategies in place to continue welcoming a wide range of skilled workers, businesspeople, family members of Quebec residents, and refugees. This plan is scheduled to be implemented during a period of transition for Quebec, […]

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https://www.cicnews.com/2017/10/quebec-to-welcome-a-diverse-range-of-immigrants-in-2018-109750.html

Le Québec a vocation à accueillir un éventail diversifié de nouveaux immigrants en 2018

La province canadienne du Québec a publié son plan d’immigration pour 2018, précisant les stratégies en place afin de continuer à accueillir un large éventail de travailleurs qualifiés, gens d’affaires, membres des familles résidant au Québec et réfugiés. Ce plan devrait être mis en œuvre au cours d’une période de transition pour le Québec, au […]

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https://www.cicnews.com/2017/10/le-quebec-a-vocation-a-accueillir-un-eventail-diversifie-de-nouveaux-immigrants-en-2018-109754.html

Diversity, inclusion and (anti) racism in health and physical education: what can a critical whiteness perspective offer?

Venue: Theatre Q230, Level 2, Kwong Lee Dow Building

Presenters: Professor Anne Flintoff

In this presentation, Professor Anne Flintoff argues for the importance of physical educators’ critical engagement with issues of race and ethnic diversity. Despite its colonial history and close relationship to sport - where racialised discourses about the body contribute to shaping common sense ideas about race - we have yet to engage in any sustained way with issues of race in Health and Physical Education (HPE). Concerns over rises in racism, coupled with persistent gaps between a largely white profession and ethnically diverse school populations in developed countries, point to the need to support teachers’ critical engagement with race. Professor Flintoff examines the potential - and challenges - of adopting a critical whiteness perspective for this task. Antiracist perspectives, focusing on the effects of racism, position white teachers ‘outside’ of race, and contribute to a deficit view of minority ethnic students in HPE as ‘problems’ for not being ‘active or healthy enough’ in relation to an accepted white (male and middle class) norm. Critical whiteness perspectives shift the focus towards an examination of the workings of the dominant culture through a critical engagement with whiteness, centralising white teachers within processes of racialisation. Professor Flintoff will ask what such an approach might mean for HPE educators and our (antiracist) practice.

The Fritz Duras Lecture is delivered biennially as part of the Melbourne Graduate School of Education Dean's Lecture Series. The purpose of this lecture is to commemorate and carry on the significant contribution Dr Fritz Duras made to the University of Melbourne and the Australian community, especially in the areas of Health and Physical Education. Dr Fritz Duras was the Director of the first Diploma course on Physical Education at the University of Melbourne in the 1930s. He stated his firm belief in 'the important relations between physical education and preventive medicine'. The significance of this connection between education and health remains contemporary.

This event is supported by the Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation.

from
https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/7254-diversity-inclusion-and-anti-racism-in-health-and-physical-education

We’re Not Dreamers, We’re Doers: Sleep in the Neoliberal Imaginary

Venue: Forum Theatre, Arts West

Presenters: Professor Cressida J Heyes

In this talk, Cressida J Heyes explores projects that imagine a future without sleep, or with a significantly diminished need for sleep, and what these say about our understandings of temporality, agency and embodiment.

For example, militaries conduct research into minimising the human need for sleep, while transhumanists try to biohack it; science fiction presents the sleepless as a superior elite. In a sleepless utopia, human beings, we infer, could fight longer and work harder. This vision, Heyes argues, is closely linked to neoliberal work patterns: “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” busy and important people like to say.

This talk shows how sleep figures in a cultural imaginary most pronounced in the United States but alive and well, according to Heyes’ archive, in Canada, the UK and Australia, where neoliberal norms of work inflect understandings of time and agency. These norms are profoundly individualising and depoliticising, and representations of sleep are increasingly deployed within existing scripts of class, race and gender stratification. In particular, she argues that attenuated concepts of agency as merely doing – understood at the limit as simply being awake – are used to represent any paid labour as virtuous, and any form of dreaming (literal or political) as outside the realm of worthy action.

Includes a Q&A.

Cressida J Heyes is Professor of Philosophy and Political Science at the University of Alberta, Canada.

Introduced by Dr Karen Jones. Chaired by Dr Joe Latham.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/9645-we-re-not-dreamers-we-re-doers-sleep-in-the-neoliberal-imaginary

Luther and Dreams

Venue: Forum Theatre (Room 153), Arts West

Presenters: Professor Lyndal Roper

Martin Luther regularly labelled superstition, Catholic dogma and the beliefs of the Turks and the Jews as ‘dreams’. ‘Lauter somnia’, pure dreams, was one of his favourite insults, and he liked nothing better than to debunk them. Yet Luther was also fascinated by signs and portents, and though he often joked about dreams, he too noted important dreams. Dreams also happened to be recorded at key turning points of the Reformation, and they give rare insight into Luther’s deepest anxieties and feelings. Discussed collectively, Luther and his followers used dream interpretations to communicate concerns they did not discuss explicitly. This lecture explores how historians can make use of dreams to understand the subjectivity of people in the past.

Professor Lyndal Roper is Regius Professor of History, Oriel College, University of Oxford, and one of the world’s most renowned historians of early modern times.

This lecture marks the 1517–2017 quincentenary of the European Reformation, set in motion by Martin Luther in the German university town of Wittenberg.

The lecture is co-hosted by the History Discipline of the University of Melbourne.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/9635-luther-and-dreams

Sanja Pahoki Photographs: A Grainger Photographed Exhibition Public Program

Venue: Exhibition gallery, Grainger Museum

Presenters: Ms Sanja Pahoki

Join Photographer and VCA Photography Lecturer Sanja Pahoki and she explores paralells between her practice and some of the works on display in the exhibition, Grainger Photographed: Public Facades and Intimate Spaces.

Percy Grainger understood the power of the photograph to document significant events and to entice and persuade an adoring public. The exhibition will look at aspects of portrait photography through the prism of Grainger’s diverse collection and display fine formal portraits from some of the world’s most highly regarded studios alongside intimate images of Grainger’s private life.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/9655-sanja-pahoki-photographs-a-grainger-photographed-exhibition-public-program

How to Achieve... An Affordable Country

Venue: G06 (formally known as Theatre A) , Elisabeth Murdoch

Presenters: Professor Richard James, Professor Stephen Parker, Dr Gigi Foster, Mr Mark Warburton

An affordable country. Do Western governments have an appetite for funding expanding levels of tertiary education? If not, who should pay, and how and when? What is higher/tertiary education’s ‘return on investment’, and is it good enough? How do we fund a system that supports mature-age entry and re-entry, ‘second chance education' and intergenerational mobility? The push for tuition free higher education in the UK has gained traction on both sides of the political divide – why? Do online education models and emerging technologies offer new solutions to the problem of cost? In weighing up the costs, how do we balance attrition with national ambitions for access?

Chaired by Professor Richard James.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/9647-how-to-achieve-an-affordable-country

Children Under 22 Now Considered Dependents on Canadian Immigration Applications

As of October 24, 2017, children under the age of 22 are considered as dependents on all immigration programs administered by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), including for economic migrants and refugees. For the past three years, only children under the age of 19 were considered as dependent. Children who are 22 years of […]

from
https://www.cicnews.com/2017/10/children-under-22-now-considered-dependents-on-canadian-immigration-applications-109729.html

The Long Run Effects of the Social Safety Net

Venue: Basement, Copland Theatre, the Spot

Presenters: Professor Hilary Hoynes

Downing Lecture 2017

A common framework for evaluating human capital, training and early life stimulation/parenting programs is as an investment: resources are invested upfront that generate returns over the longer run (in terms of education, labor market, health, etc.).

Paradoxically, we don’t typically evaluate social assistance programs within this same lens. Instead, anti-poverty programs are typically evaluated by comparing current period benefits (to reducing poverty) to the costs (fiscal cost and distortive efficiency costs of the redistribution).

In this talk, Professor Hilary Hoynes will summarise the recent and growing literature that examines the benefits of the social safety net over the longer run. There is particular interest in evaluating the effects of childhood exposure and access to social assistance programs and how they affect later life education, labor market and health outcomes. These important findings allow us to quantify how investing when children are young can translate to private and public benefits in the longer run.

Hilary Hoynes is a Professor of Economics and Public Policy and holds the Haas Distinguished Chair in Economic Disparities at the University of California Berkeley.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/9639-the-long-run-effects-of-the-social-safety-net

Raising Children in More Than One Language

Venue: Copland Theatre, The Spot

Presenters: Dr Susanne Dopke

Raising children in more than one language is a very important process. There are many positive strategies that can be employed. The presentations in this seminar discuss issues in raising children bilingually, show you how to recognise your child’s needs in the language and provide you with important tools to foster your child’s language learning and maximise the advantages available to you.

Includes free afternoon tea.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/9643-raising-children-in-more-than-one-language

Happiness and Meaning in a Technological Age

Venue: Conference Centre, Jasper Hotel

Presenters: Professor Michael Steger PhD

One of the puzzling facts about humans is that even as we learn to parse apart subatomic particles, send research devices beyond Pluto’s orbit, and measure gravitational waves, we still struggle with many of the same basic questions our ancient forebears did. How do we become happy? Why are we here? Why must life change so quickly?

This talk attempts to use the world’s oldest written story to present a framework for understanding our happiness levers, especially in the context of the many rapidly advancing changes in gadgets, communication, medicine and parahuman technology. A dual-process model of happiness and meaning is presented as a lens to help people anticipate, and influence, how the technological age may impact their wellbeing.

Michael Steger is Professor of Psychology at Colorado State University, USA.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/9634-happiness-and-meaning-in-a-technological-age

Out of the Ordinary: Objects, Agency and Performance

Venue: Macmahon Ball Theatre, Macmahon Ball Theatre

Presenters: Associate Professor Sara Jane Bailes

Macgeorge Fellowship Public Lecture

‘Ordinary’ objects – what we might call unremarkable and domestic objects, such as the chair, mattress, table, shoes, the light bulb, or electricity itself as conducted matter – play an interesting role in performance, dance and the visual arts. They can locate or intensify meaning, or evoke a particular mood. In staged performances as distinctive from, say, the vernacular of the everyday, the decontextualised presence, circulation, and established meaning of objects can shift radically according to local and geopolitical contexts and the cultural and social concerns that dominate or recede in any given time or place.

Drawing on works by a range of artists, such as Pina Bausch’s seminal 1978, Café Müller, Judson Dance Theater’s 1960s choreography with mattresses and Mona Hatoum’s rehabilitation and disturbance of domestic objects, this lecture examines the function and use of unremarkable everyday objects and explores how they might, in the inventive and unbound contexts of performance, become political, intimate, accommodating, threatening or world-building.

Sara Jane Bailes is Associate Professor in Theatre and Performance Studies, School of English, the University of Sussex.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/9626-out-of-the-ordinary-objects-agency-and-performance

Ex-Med Cancer: prescribing exercise, the cancer wonder-drug

Venue: Lecture Theatre B, Level 7, Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre

Presenters: Associate Professor Prue Cormie

Regular exercise could be considered a wonder-drug for cancer patients. Research shows it eases side effects from treatment, lower people’s relative risk of having a recurrence and, in fact, lowers their risk of dying from cancer. Despite this, most people with cancer don’t exercise regularly and exercise isn’t prescribed as part of routine cancer care.

Ex-Med Cancer is a new program designed to counteract the adverse effects of cancer and its treatment through exercise medicine. Learn more about the research evidence and this safe, effective and feasible community based service in a forum accessible for all health professionals, patients and community members.

Associate Professor Prue Cormie is an exercise physiologist whose research and clinical work focuses on the application of exercise as medicine for the management of cancer.

from
https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/9628-ex-med-cancer-prescribing-exercise-the-cancer-wonder-drug

Making Good Energy Choices: The Role of Energy Systems Analysis

Venue: Singapore Theatre, Melbourne School of Design

Presenters: Professor Sally Benson BA, MSc, PhD

2017 Distinguished Lecture Series

Driven by concerns about global warming, air pollution and energy security, the world is beginning a century-long transition to a decarbonized energy system. Building blocks for decarbonization include dramatic efficiency improvements, renewable energy, electrification, nuclear power, natural gas as a substitute for coal, and carbon capture and storage.

Given the long-term nature of the energy transition, the question becomes: how do we make good energy choices? Energy systems analysis can augment economic analysis by proving additional perspectives for answering questions such as:

• Is storing renewable energy in batteries a good idea and which batteries are best?
• How fast can the photovoltaics industry grow before it consumes more energy than it produces?
• What’s better, a battery electric vehicle or a fuel cell vehicle?
• For new technologies, what aspects need to improve the most: efficiency, lifetime, materials, or cost?

This lecture will provide examples of the important role energy systems analysis plays in revealing good energy choices.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/9623-making-good-energy-choices-the-role-of-energy-systems-analysis

Making Diversion Work: How to Manage the Effective Diversion of Offenders

Venue: Ground floor auditorium, Peter Doherty Institute

Presenters: Dr Peter Neyroud

Dr Peter Neyroud will discuss his work in the UK on making complex field interventions work better. He will focus on leveraging evidence to inform the selection of diversion strategies.

This seminar is part of the Making Diversion Work symposium co-hosted by the University of Melbourne, the Centre for Evidence and Implementation, and the Campbell Collaboration.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/9598-making-diversion-work-how-to-manage-the-effective-diversion-of

A Fortunate Career: The Science, the People and the Enterprises

Venue: Auditorium, Peter Doherty Institute

Presenters: Professor Edwina Cornish

This year's Grimwade Medal for Biochemistry award winner, Professor Edwina Cornish, will reflect on her career from post-doctoral research, to her leadership in biotechnology pioneering the development and commercialisation of the first genetically engineered flowers, and her contributions as a university senior executive fostering partnerships with government, industry and the community.

The Grimwade Medal for Biochemistry is funded by the Russell and Mab Grimwade Miegunyah Fund to promote the discipline of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Melbourne.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/9611-a-fortunate-career-the-science-the-people-and-the-enterprises

The Brain and Mind on Campus: Translating the Science of Learning for Higher Education

Venue: Babel-305 (Chisholm Theatre), Babel

Presenters: Dr Jason Lodge

The last decade has seen enormous advances in understanding how learning occurs in the brain and mind. Despite this progress, little of this research has filtered through to higher education practice. It is difficult to translate the growing understanding of learning in the brain to complex physical and virtual classroom environments. The distance from neuron to classroom has been described as ‘a bridge too far’.

In this seminar, cutting-edge research on the science of learning will be discussed. A particular emphasis will be placed on the development of deep conceptual understanding, which is critical in the higher education context. Research from the laboratory is uncovering many ways for enhancing student learning in higher education. Some of these findings challenge long-held wisdom about certain learning and teaching practices and necessitate careful consideration.

The seminar will conclude with a discussion about possibilities for evidence-based innovation.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/9610-the-brain-and-mind-on-campus-translating-the-science-of

End-to-End Encryption and Interception

Venue: Herbert Wilson Theatre, Doug McDonell

Presenters: Fergus Hanson, Scott Ludlam, Dr Vanessa Teague

This panel discussion will address the Australian government's proposal to insist on government access to encrypted data.

The Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Attorney General George Brandis want to introduce laws that would compel technology companies to ensure their systems are capable of decrypting terrorists’ communications. We haven't yet heard exactly how this will be achieved.

In this panel we try to understand what the proposal is, how it relates to the UK Investigatory Powers Act (on which it might be based), and what the unintended consequences might be. We'll review some important examples such as the Apple-FBI case, and some important failures such as the FREAK attack and the Wannacry ransomware. We'll ask how we equip our police officers with the tools they need to keep us safe, and how we ensure that citizens have the protections we need for the security of our data.

Moderated by Suelette Dreyfus.

The panelists:

• Fergus Hanson, head of the international cyber policy centre at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute
• Scott Ludlam, former WA Greens Senator
• Vanessa Teague, cryptographer in the department of computing and information systems, University of Melbourne.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/9613-end-to-end-encryption-and-interception

Resilience and Reconstruction: The Agency of Women in Rebuilding Strong Families, Communities and Organisations

Venue: Kathleen Fitzpatrick Theatre, Arts West

Presenters: Ms June Oscar AO

2017 Narrm Oration

The Uluru Statement has inspired Indigenous people and many other Australians to think big about our sense of Australian nationhood and the potential for Indigenous recognition and inclusion in Australian nation building. Within this thinking, we must address the fundamental importance of rebuilding Indigenous communities whose cultural, social and economic fabric have been shattered by colonisation over many generations.

June Oscar has devoted much of her life to community reconstruction in areas such as capacity building, asserting Native Title rights, revitalising language, economic development and ensuring that women and children are safe. Throughout her life’s work she has been guided by the strength of Indigenous communities’ adherence to their culture and traditional values.

Women have played a critical role in nurturing broken families and communities. It is so often women who have led the process of healing and reconciliation within our communities. We should see the social tragedy facing Indigenous communities within contemporary Australia as akin to societies recovering from the trauma of war and conflict. Consistent with experience throughout the world, it is so often women who resiliently protect the vulnerable in our communities and ensure that cultural knowledge is passed on to the next generation.

The Australian nation must invest in a strengths-based approach to Indigenous community rebuilding and recovery, and recognise that our female leaders are the greatest agents for change and empowerment in this country. There is much to celebrate when we consider the great work being done by Indigenous women, and by the non-Indigenous women who have supported our aspirations and partnered with us in building a better tomorrow. As we as we begin to unlock our collective potential, Ms Oscar knows that there is so much more yet to come.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/9607-resilience-and-reconstruction-the-agency-of-women-in-rebuilding-strong

The Invention of Sin

Venue: Elisabeth Murdoch Theatre A, Elisabeth Murdoch

Presenters: Professor David Konstan

What if English lacked the word “sin,” with its religious connotations and Judeo-Christian heritage, and had only words like “fault,” “error,” “crime” and the like? For this is the precise case with the ancient Greek word hamartia – a perfectly common term meaning “fault” (as in Aristotle’s famous “tragic flaw”), but which, when it appears in English translations of the Bible, is almost invariably rendered as “sin.”

Is there something in the Biblical context that justifies the use of a special word in English? How do we know that hamartia should be translated differently in pagan and Judeo-Christian contexts?

In this lecture, Professor David Konstan addresses the question of when, how, and whether error and wrongdoing acquired the specific sense that we associate with the word “sin".

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/9590-the-invention-of-sin

Linking sea level rise and socioeconomic indicators

Venue: Level 1, 257

Presenters: Mr Alex Nauels

In order to assess future sea level rise and its societal impacts, we need to study climate change pathways combined with different scenarios of socioeconomic development.

The new scenario generation of Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) allows to more directly link scenario-specific emission and socioeconomic indicators to sea level rise projections. Recently published findings indicate that year-2100 sea level rise could be limited to around 50cm if year-2050 CO2 emissions since pre-industrial times stay below around 850 GtC, coinciding with the global phase-out of coal.

In this lecture, sea level rise projections for SSP storylines and different year-2100 radiative forcing targets are presented based on a new sea level model. Results confirm that rapid and early emission reductions are essential for limiting sea level rise.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/9586-linking-sea-level-rise-and-socioeconomic-indicators

Precision public health: is DNA the way for bowel cancer prevention?

Venue: Sunderland Lecture Theatre , Medical Building

Presenters: Professor Mark Jenkins

Every year 15,000 Australians are diagnosed with bowel cancer and 4000 Australians die from it even though this cancer and deaths can be prevented by screening. The National Bowel Cancer screening program offers free screening to all Australians from age 50 yet most decline to do the test. An increase of just 10% in screening participation will prevent an additional 24,000 deaths over 25 years and decrease health systems expenditure by $300 million. But not everyone is at the same risk of bowel cancer, so this one-size-fits all approach is not ideal.  

We have been developing a DNA test which can be combined with bowel cancer risk factors in a tool to determine who is at highest risk of the disease, so encouragement to screen can be focused on people who need it most. This precision public health approach idea is new to cancer and while promising, raises many issues around mass DNA testing and personalised approach to screening. 

Professor Mark Jenkins will present the David Danks Oration 2017.

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https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/9587-precision-public-health-is-dna-the-way-for-bowel-cancer

Images flow in an unorthodox manner: online and in museums

Venue: Gallery, Grainger Museum

Presenters: Ms Naomi Cass

In an era of 'tumbling' images, Naomi Cass will address two exhibitions that use photography in unorthodox ways. Grainger Photographed: Public Facades and Intimate Spaces and An unorthodox flow of images at Centre for Contemporary Photography both engage with visual culture, finding new meanings through a historical juxtapositions, more akin to how people use photography in a contemporary setting.

Naomi Cass is Director of the Centre for Contemporary Photography.

Free, bookings required.

from
https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/9589-images-flow-in-an-unorthodox-manner-online-and-in-museums

Malaria: Modern Tactics to Combat an Ancient Disease

Venue: Gene Technology Access Centre, University High School, Gene Technology Access Centre, University High School

Presenters: Associate Professor Justin Boddey

Malaria is thought to have killed more humans than any other infectious disease, and today remains a disease a profound public health importance. A malaria vaccine is desperately needed but none have yet been licensed for use. Antimalarial drugs are the frontline defence against this terrible disease. Unfortunately, current antimalarials are becoming less useful as the parasite develops resistance. In this talk we will discuss some new possibilities on the horizon for new treatments for malaria.

Associate Professor Justin Boddey is a Laboratory Head in the Infection and Immunity Division at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute.

from
https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/9522-malaria-modern-tactics-to-combat-an-ancient-disease

James Elkins: Limits of the Criticism of Writing in the Humanities

Venue: Forum Theatre, North Wing Level 1, Arts West

Presenters: Professor James Elkins

Ever since new criticism, literary study has been developing ideas of close reading. Since the inception of poststructuralism there has been wide acknowledgment of the constructed nature of the text. In the last 15 years there have been even more models for understanding texts, including 'distance reading' and 'surface reading'.

Given that amazing richness of interpretive possibilities, it is strange that the humanities continue to teach writing on a rudimentary level, stressing clarity, concision, and organisation – basic pedagogy that was already out of date 100 years ago.

This talk is an informal survey of the absence of the tools of literary theory and rhetoric in fields such as sociology, anthropology and art history, with special reference to examples such as Rosalind Krauss, Alex Nemerov, T.J. Clark, Stephen Greenblatt, Steven Pinker and Saul Kripke.

James Elkins’ lecture is coordinated in partnership with the Power Institute, University of Sydney, as part of the Keir Lectures on Art series, supported by the Keir Foundation.

Image: Argenteuil, Edouard Manet, 1874

from
https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/9566-james-elkins-limits-of-the-criticism-of-writing-in-the

Living the Dream: 27 Years of Fieldwork in the Egyptian Sahara

Venue: Forum Theatre 153, Arts West

Presenters: Dr Gillian Bowen

This is a story of living the dream; achieving what Dr Gillian Bowen once considered impossible. By telling her story, she hopes to inspire not only young academics, but also students of all ages, particularly those who feel disillusioned and that a fulfilling career is out of reach. From an early age she was fascinated by the ancient world and dreamed of working in that field. In 1980, thanks to Whitlam’s free access to higher education, she joined numerous other mature-age students and began to study Ancient History at Monash University. Following her Honours year, a fortuitous meeting with Colin Hope and a subsequent invitation to join his archaeological team in Egypt’s Dakhleh Oasis, led to the fulfilment of a life-long passion: excavating in Egypt. It also provided her with an ideal PhD topic.

In this talk Bowen will look at the highlights of her research in Dakhleh Oasis, which focuses upon the early Christian monuments of the region. It includes an introduction to the ancient village of Kellis which was abandoned at the end of the 4th century and preserves some of the earliest surviving churches as well as a wealth of evidence of everyday life. Bowen will also look at our interaction with the local communities and the men we rely on to undertake the hard excavation work.

from
https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/9543-living-the-dream-27-years-of-fieldwork-in-the-egyptian

Trading the Word: Gutenberg Bibles and English Libraries

Venue: The Oratory, Newman College

Presenters: Mr Shane Carmody

Shane Carmody will tell the stories of the seven Gutenberg Bibles in English Libraries and some that got away. The first book printed with moveable type in Europe, Gutenberg's bible was a major turning point from the medieval to the modern world, and brought a technology that spread knowledge, controversy and ultimately revolution. The stories of these bibles reflect this cultural shift as well as the rise of book collecting and the trade that supports it.

from
https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/9563-trading-the-word-gutenberg-bibles-and-english-libraries

Design Sensibility: Viennese émigrés in Australia

Venue: Forum Theatre, Arts West

Presenters: Professor Harriet Edquist

Annual Duldig Lecture for 2017

Situated between international modernism and local debates about 'Australian' architecture and design, Viennese designers negotiated the values of European design within a fast-changing postwar Australian environment.

In this lecture Professor Harriet Edquist will show how personal histories of émigré and refugee Viennese designers throw into question Australian design history’s often limited definition of design as a purely modernist professional practice beholden to a national agenda. She will argue that on the contrary, geographical and cultural boundaries are fluid, that learning never stops, that memory was often central to the émigré expression of “home” and that the ideology of the avant-garde could be avoided.

Inaugurated in 1986, the Annual Duldig Lecture on Sculpture commemorates the life and work of the artists Karl Duldig and Slawa Horowitz Duldig. This lecture is supported by the Duldig Studio, museum + sculpture garden.

Image courtesy of Duldig Studio: Sitting Room of Duldig Studio showing Viennese furnishings.

from
https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/9549-design-sensibility-viennese-emigres-in-australia