Past events
Works that Shaped the World: The “Gweagal” shield: Cook at Kamay (Botany Bay) 1770
Lecture
Violence marred the encounter between the British and Gweagal at Kamay (Botany Bay) in 1770. Approaching the shore, Lieutenant James Cook shot at two indigenous men. Although wounded, one man went to retrieve a shield to defend himself. By the time he returned, the sailors had scrambled ashore. Two…
Habit's Pathways: Repetition, Power, Conduct
Seminar
How are we to understand the political roles that habit has played in the exercise of different forms of power? In this lecture, Prof Bennett develops two lines of argument in relation to the question. The first considers how conceptions of habit as a form of repetition following the course of a…
Works that Shaped the World: Sarah Bellamy (1770-1843) and Women Transported to Botany Bay
Lecture
Born in 1770, 250 years ago, Sarah Bellamy was one of the longest lived first fleeters by the time of her death in 1843. Owing to the dearth of records, hers and the lives of other women transported from England to arrive in Botany Bay in 1788 have been described as ‘unthinkable history’. Bellamy…
HMI Data, AI & Society Seminar 08 ‘Big Data and Compounding Injustice’
Seminar
HMI DAIS 08 - Deborah Hellman, University of Virginia Public online seminar, 9am 1 October 2020 AEST Deborah Hellman, University of Virginia, will give the eighth HMI Data, AI and Society public seminar. Deborah Hellman is the David Lurton Massee, Jr. Professor of Law at the University of…
Books that Canged Humanity: The Quiet American
Lecture
The world may yearn for a ‘quiet’ American in 2020, but 65 years ago, the English novelist, Graham Greene presaged its dangers in The Quiet American (1955). In an age where US leadership has all but flamed out, its remnant pyre illuminating mostly failure, Greene’s perfectly structured novel warned…
Conversations across the Creek: Pill Testing
Seminar
Pill testing, or drug checking, is a medically supervised intervention focussed on providing reliable and non-discriminatory information to people who intend to use drugs. The ACT government sanctioned trials of pill testing at the Groovin the Moo festival in 2018 and 2019, and publicity…
Works that Shaped the World: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)
Lecture
From nationalism to liberalism to communism, the German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel inspired a variety of modern ideologies that share at least one thing in common: the notion that history is rational, and that it becomes ever more so the more we recognize it as such. This talk will explore this theme…