Crossing into 2022 to mobilise thought
In 2022 the Humanities Research Centre welcomes scholars from across the world, “across the creek”, “across the lake”, and across all disciplines to lead us in exploring a topic that will not stand still.
Our 2022 Theme: Mobilities
The HRC’s annual theme for 2022 is Mobilities. For the first time in two COVID-affected years, it will host a full complement of visiting fellows, as well as a new program of events and opportunities for public engagement, collaboration, and exchange.
‘Mobility’ and ‘mobilities’ are keywords in the humanities and social sciences, in terms of the history of Australia and/in the world – economically and politically, as well as socially and culturally.
But this year, ‘mobility’ is a word that perhaps more than any other exemplifies the possibilities as well as the challenges associated with enacting the underpinning idea socio-politically, physically, mentally, as a local or global phenomenon, in different cultures and across different historical periods.
Visiting Scholars
In 2022 the HRC’s world-leading Visiting Scholars (selected from 100 applications) will approach the concept in creative and interdisciplinary ways, and across a variety of topics including migration, asylum, tourism, transport, urban mobility, career mobility, social mobility, emotion and affect, and the exchange and transmission of goods, services, and ideas. They will help us think through the way we are likely to act and think about mobility and immobility now and into the future.
Program of activity
The theme of mobility, that means, in effect, “crossing” – boundaries, disciplines, and received modes of thinking – motivates all that we do in 2022, including our public programs that include:
- “Across the creek”, where researchers from both sides of Sullivan’s Creek – the traditional physical split at ANU between the Sciences and Humanities faculties – will come together to nut out some of the problems of humanity that need brave interdisciplinary ways of thinking.
- “Across the lake”, where professional partnerships with national cultural institutions, associations and the ABC will extend our ways of thinking and challenge many accepted norms.
- “Across the ditch”, where policy debates affecting different sectors play are given space to play out regionally, with partners in New Zealand, the Pacific, and other international spaces further afield.
Join our conversations
There are many conversations that will be announced, shared, and held throughout the year. What they will all hold in common, though, is the idea of ‘mobility’, that is, of crashing through boundaries to think anew.
The mobility of conversation and of COVID normal times also requires ambulation and refreshment. Please join us every Tuesday morning at 10.30am in the Sir Roland Wilson Building (itself a nexus between Science/the Science Dome and the Humanities/the National Film and Sound Archive) for morning to tea to join in the conversation. Everybody is welcome.
For more please see https://hrc.cass.anu.edu.au or email Kylie.Message@anu.edu.au