Shows
History Lab29. Truth-telling: From Country to ClassroomWhat is the work of truth-telling? How is evidence collected? What happens next?What role should schools play in teaching Australia’s full history? Australia has completed its first, formal truth-telling process — the Yoorrook Justice Commission of Victoria. We joined Commissioner Travis Lovett on his 500-kilometre Walk for Truth from Portland on Gunditjmara Country, to Parliament House on Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country in Melbourne, to hear firsthand of the Commission's work.Along the way, you'll hear testimonies from Elders and Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan, reflections from researcher Dr Matthew Keynes, and insights into...
2025-07-0825 min
History Lab28. Fishing for AnswersThis special episode from our archives speaks to this year’s NAIDOC Week themes of strength, vision and legacy.Fishing for Answers explores the sophistication of the fishing practices of Eora women in Sydney Harbour, and asks, How can we hear from the women themselves and find out what their world sounded like? Content warning: If you are an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person this episode may contain the names of people who have died.CreditsProducers: Tom Allinson and Ninah Kopel Collaborators: Anna Clark, Nathan Sentance, Tim Ella and Maddison Lyn Co...
2025-07-0737 min
History LabWhat's coming in 2025? History Lab update and previews with Tamson PietschIf you're an old friend, hello and thank you for hitting play. If you're a new listener, welcome. History Lab, as many of you will know, was Australia’s first investigative history podcast. We've made five seasons so far, and our tagline is exploring the gaps between us and the past. And while you notice that from season to season our storytelling style changes, we're still always asking questions that provoke curiosity, that are attentive to sources and their limits, and that challenge us to think about how we live in the present....
2025-03-2106 min
American Campus PodcastThe "Floating University" and American empire with Tamson PietschIn 1926, an NYU professor took to the high seas with 500 undergraduates on a worldwide learning voyage. The experimental "Floating University" docked for excursions at nearly 50 ports, where students were introduced to world leaders Mussolini, Gandhi, and others. Tamson Pietsch recounts the endeavor, unpacking the larger story of US intellectual imperialism in the 1920s.Tamson Pietsch. 2023. The Floating University: Experience, Empire, and the Politics of Knowledge. University of Chicago Press. Ross L. Jones, James Waghorne, and Marcia Langton, eds. 2024. Dhoombak Goobgoowana: A History of Indigenous Australia and the University of Melbourne. Melbourne University Press.Browse the American C...
2025-02-1931 min
History Lab24. On the Edge: a layered history of Sydney's South HeadA special History Lab episode with a soundwork that explores the history of Sydney's South Head, followed by an interview with the maker Sinead Roarty and Director of the Australian Centre for Public History at UTS, Tamson Pietsch.About the soundwork: On the EdgeThe Gap at South Head in Sydney's eastern suburbs is a place of extreme beauty. It is also famous for being Australia's most well-known suicide destination.On the Edge is a long-form binaural/VR soundwork exploring South Head’s spatial history and its varied conflicting narratives. Th...
2025-01-1628 min
All The BestSink or Swim - Part IIIIn the final instalment of Sink or Swim, we look to the future and explore how we can survive the hotter summers that lie ahead for all of us. Blacktown is facing increasingly extreme urban heat, but locals are coming up with their own solutions. We visit two cool refuges where we discover ordinary citizens and local leaders who are shaping the communities they want in the places where they live. You’ll hear from Maryam Zahid, a community leader creating spaces for newly arrived women to learn skills like swimming, and Emma Bacon, who is campaigning fo...
2025-01-0727 min
All The BestSink or Swim - Part IIAngelica has decided: this is the summer she finally takes the plunge. Go with her as she joins an adult swim class for beginners, and realises that there are plenty of other adults who share both her trepidation and her determination. Angelica’s home of Western Sydney is heating up faster than nearly anywhere else, making swimming an essential survival skill – not just for staying afloat, but for staying cool. She talks to local doctor Kim Loo to learn what extreme heat can do to the human body, and to urban planning and heat researcher Professor Seba...
2024-12-3027 min
All The BestSink or Swim - Part ISydney holds a strong identity as the capital of sandy shores, ripper waves and thefinest swimmers in the world. But this idealistic depiction of a devoted swimmingculture doesn’t connect to many locals like Angelica who has never learned how toswim. Come and join Angelica on her personal quest to overcome the deep blue waters.Along the way, she talks with her local community of Blacktown. A part of Sydneythat lacks the postcard beaches whilst the limited swimming spots fail to meet thegrowing demand. ...
2024-12-2432 min
The New Social Contract1. Universities and the public in the 20th centuryHow Australian universities will fare in a post pandemic world depends on an influential but rarely talked about relationship. This is the relationship between the state, its institutions, and the public: what’s often referred to as “the social contract”. The social contract universities had when COVID-19 erupted, was one that patched together a variety of largely unstated hopes and expectations and this has enormous consequences for where we find ourselves today. What is the new social contract for Australian universities in the 21st century and how did we arriv...
2024-09-1839 min
The World of Higher Education2.10: The Floating UniversityWith us today is Tamson Pietsch, author of a new book on the Floating University from the University of Chicago Press. Her book covers a number of facets of this story: the extraordinary journey itself to over 40 ports around the world, the students’ curriculum and on-shore activities (which included meeting an extraordinary number of world leaders), and the extraordinary shenanigans that went on between NYU and Lough that threatened to stop the voyage before it even began. It’s a multi-faceted story, concentrating to a significant extent on the politics of educational tourism: which students got to take part, what...
2023-11-2328 min
The University of Chicago Press PodcastTamson Pietsch, "The Floating University: Experience, Empire, and the Politics of Knowledge" (U Chicago Press, 2023)A globe-trotting and scandal-ridden story of American empire and higher education, The Floating University: Experience, Empire, and the Politics of Knowledge (University of Chicago Press, 2023) tells the story of one of the first ‘semesters at sea’. Led by the New York University Professor of Experimental Psychology James E. Lough, the SS Ryndam departed from Hoboken, New Jersey in 1926, bringing over 500 American students to nearly fifty global ports and meetings with Benito Mussolini, Mahatma Gandhi, and Pope Pius XI. Along the way, the students came to terms with the contours of American empire and, through direct experience, learned subjects ranging from b...
2023-11-0558 min
New Books in Higher EducationTamson Pietsch, "The Floating University: Experience, Empire, and the Politics of Knowledge" (U Chicago Press, 2023)A globe-trotting and scandal-ridden story of American empire and higher education, The Floating University: Experience, Empire, and the Politics of Knowledge (University of Chicago Press, 2023) tells the story of one of the first ‘semesters at sea’. Led by the New York University Professor of Experimental Psychology James E. Lough, the SS Ryndam departed from Hoboken, New Jersey in 1926, bringing over 500 American students to nearly fifty global ports and meetings with Benito Mussolini, Mahatma Gandhi, and Pope Pius XI. Along the way, the students came to terms with the contours of American empire and, through direct experience, learned subjects ranging from b...
2023-11-0558 min
New Books in EducationTamson Pietsch, "The Floating University: Experience, Empire, and the Politics of Knowledge" (U Chicago Press, 2023)A globe-trotting and scandal-ridden story of American empire and higher education, The Floating University: Experience, Empire, and the Politics of Knowledge (University of Chicago Press, 2023) tells the story of one of the first ‘semesters at sea’. Led by the New York University Professor of Experimental Psychology James E. Lough, the SS Ryndam departed from Hoboken, New Jersey in 1926, bringing over 500 American students to nearly fifty global ports and meetings with Benito Mussolini, Mahatma Gandhi, and Pope Pius XI. Along the way, the students came to terms with the contours of American empire and, through direct experience, learned subjects ranging from b...
2023-11-051h 01
The New Social Contract8. The future of higher education - who will set the settings?In the season finale of The New Social Contract, host Tamson Pietsch is joined by Dr Gwilym Croucher, Senior Lecturer at the Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education, to consider for the final time how the relationship between universities, the state and the public might be reshaped as we live through the COVID-19 pandemic. In this episode we look beyond Federal Education Minister Tehan’s proposals to ask three questions: What is the vision for higher education that lies behind the Coalition Government’s plans? What bigger questions about universitie...
2023-07-1243 min
The New Social Contract2. The context of the crisisCovid-19 has torn at the fabric of our higher education institutions but were the threads of that fabric already wearing thin? In episode two of The New Social Contract we discuss the context of the crisis - what are the challenges and how did we get here? Is the pandemic likely to force a reckoning with online education and why does the closure of the country's borders have such a profound impact on Australian universities? This podcast is hosted by Associate Professor Tamson Pietsch and produced by Impact...
2023-07-1233 min
The New Social ContractWhat does COVID-19 mean for universities?The New Social Contract seeks to contribute to a national conversation on how the relationship between universities, the state and the public might be reshaped as we live through the COVID-19 pandemic. Join us as we discuss the kind of higher education sector our society needs. Episode One is dropping Monday 4th of May 2020. This podcast is hosted by Associate Professor Tamson Pietsch and produced by Impact Studios at the University of Technology Sydney. For show notes and transcripts visit: https://www.uts.edu.au/partners-and-community/initiatives/impact...
2023-07-1202 min
History of Education Society UK Podcast2.9 - The history of knowledge with Tamson Pietsch and Joel Barnes (Replay)I'm taking a few weeks off this summer to work on my dissertation, so instead of new episodes we'll be sharing some of our favorite interviews from the archive. We'll also have some guest episodes from other history of education podcasts.In today's episode, Bethany White speaks to Dr. Tamson Pietsch and Dr. Joel Barnes about their work on the connections - and tensions - between the fields of the history of knowledge and the history of education. We discuss how the focus and methods of the history of knowledge can help us think through how knowledge...
2022-06-0729 min
The Whisper Collective PodcastRe-imagining the future of the university ... by looking to the pastIn this fireside chat with Associate Professor Tamson Pietsch, a historian and expert on the history of universities, Inger asks lots of questions about the future of the university. Recently, Tamson produced an award winning podcast about the impact of Covid on Australian universities called 'The new social contract'. Tamson's deep knowledge of how higher education took the shape it has now sheds new insights on what the future might be. This is a wide ranging chat about all aspects of university funding, research, mission and, of course, collegiality. Tamson Pietsch is Associate Professor in...
2021-04-2548 minHistory of Education Society UK Podcast02. The history of knowledge and the history of education with Tamson Pietsch and Joel BarnesTo kick off 2021 we're joined by Dr. Tamson Pietsch and Dr. Joel Barnes to talk about their work on the connections--and tensions--between the fields of the history of knowledge and the history of education. We discuss how the focus and methods of the history of knowledge can help us think through how knowledge is produced and legitimated; understand the role of institutions; and develop our perspectives on post-colonial and indigenous knowledges. We also mention the recent collaborative seminar, 'History of knowledge meets history of education', held jointly the Australian Centre for Public History and the Lund Centre...
2021-01-3127 min
History Lab11. Bonus Cast - The Law's Way of Knowing?History Lab host Dr Tamson Pietsch hands over the mic to Dr Alecia Simmonds, an interdisciplinary scholar of law and history at the University of Technology Sydney. In this bonus episode they dissect how it is the law ‘knows’ and discuss how both history and the law rely on traces from the past to draw conclusions in the present. If truth is uncertain in historical archives - is it even harder to find in the courtroom?Season 3 of History Lab will be taking a short break returning February 4 2020.Episode two 'Making a fortune' is dropping in t...
2019-12-1830 min
Forty Years of 2SERHistory Lab and the New York Festivals Radio AwardsWhile it’s always an honour to be nominated for an award, it’s even sweeter to win one (or two or three). Here Tamson Pietsch, the Director of the Centre for Public History at UTS, talks about the Centre’s 2SER podcast series and shows GLAMCity! and History Lab (with the later winning a number of gongs at the New York Festivals Radio Awards in 2019). The relationship between the academy and the station has always been vital – but it’s nice to get it recognised at one of the biggest audio events in the world!
2019-10-0502 min
History Talks - HCNSW PodcastsDr Stephen Gapps - Newcastle Writers Festival 2019Send us a textThe impulse to memorialise people and events has led to the establishment of a range of monuments in urban landscapes. Increasingly, monuments have been verbally or physically attacked and, in some cases, removed. This masterclass focuses on the ongoing histories of monuments, testing the implications of preservation and removal, and how memorials can be revived, reinterpreted or replaced. The three speakers address Captain Cook, counter-memorials and the ‘statue wars’; the memorial to the band on the Titanic in Broken Hill; and the coal monument in Newcastle.Join the History Council of NSW...
2019-05-2215 min
History Talks - HCNSW PodcastsRichard Neville - HCNSW Panel at the Newcastle Writers Festival 2019Send us a textThe impulse to memorialise people and events has led to the establishment of a range of monuments in urban landscapes. Increasingly, monuments have been verbally or physically attacked and, in some cases, removed. This masterclass will focus on the ongoing histories of monuments, testing the implications of preservation and removal, and how memorials can be revived, reinterpreted or replaced. The three speakers will address Captain Cook, counter-memorials and the ‘statue wars’; the memorial to the band on the Titanic in Broken Hill; and the coal monument in Newcastle.Join...
2019-05-2208 min
History Talks - HCNSW PodcastsA/Prof Nancy Cushing speaking at the Newcastle Writers Festival about Memory & MonumentsSend us a textThe impulse to memorialise people and events has led to the establishment of a range of monuments in urban landscapes. Increasingly, monuments have been verbally or physically attacked and, in some cases, removed. This masterclass will focus on the ongoing histories of monuments, testing the implications of preservation and removal, and how memorials can be revived, reinterpreted or replaced. The three speakers will address Captain Cook, counter-memorials and the ‘statue wars’; the memorial to the band on the Titanic in Broken Hill; and the coal monument in Newcastle.Join...
2019-05-2214 min
History Talks - HCNSW PodcastsEntire session - HCNSW - Newcastle Writers Festival 2019Send us a textThe impulse to memorialise people and events has led to the establishment of a range of monuments in urban landscapes. Increasingly, monuments have been verbally or physically attacked and, in some cases, removed. This masterclass will focus on the ongoing histories of monuments, testing the implications of preservation and removal, and how memorials can be revived, reinterpreted or replaced. The three speakers will address Captain Cook, counter-memorials and the ‘statue wars’; the memorial to the band on the Titanic in Broken Hill; and the coal monument in Newcastle.Join...
2019-05-2144 min
History Lab7. Invisible handsWhere do jelly babies come from?Mass-produced things are all around us. But they all start with a single object. In this episode, Olivia goes looking for the patternmakers, whose invisible hands are the original creators of much of the stuff we use every day. They see a world no-one else can see. So why are they disappearing? And what will we lose when they are gone?Producer: Olivia RosenmanCollaborating historian: Jesse Adams SteinHost: Tamson PietschExecutive Producer: Tom Allinson
2018-12-0435 min
Think: Business FuturesEpisode 16- The Bank, the Sergeant and his bonusIn 1817, the Bank of New South Wales opened as the first financial institution in the Australian colonies. But when the first customers arrived for the grand opening, they found someone had already made a deposit. Where did the money come from? Our producers, Jason and Nicole, follow the record trail and discover the uncertain foundations of Australia’s first bank.This episode is a collaboration between the UTS Business School, The Australian Centre for Public History and 2ser Radio in Sydney. We'll have two bonus episodes on banks, trust and money in the coming we...
2018-11-2733 min
GLAMcitySex, money, globalisation and gummi bears: Welcome to season two of HistoryLabAustralia's first investigative history podcast, HistoryLab is returning for a second season.The podcast takes you into archives and documents the making of history from the discovery of first person accounts, the evaluation of sources and the unfurling of narrative.In season two, HistoryLab is delving into broad subjects, Australia's first bank deposit, the sex industry, the dying craft of industrial pattern making and the creation of nation.On this final episode of GLAMcity, we get a first listen to some...
2018-11-1928 min
GLAMcitySex, money, globalisation and gummi bears: Welcome to season two of HistoryLabAustralia's first investigative history podcast, HistoryLab is returning for a second season.The podcast takes you into archives and documents the making of history from the discovery of first person accounts, the evaluation of sources and the unfurling of narrative.In season two, HistoryLab is delving into broad subjects, Australia's first bank deposit, the sex industry, the dying craft of industrial pattern making and the creation of nation.On this final episode of GLAMcity, we get a first listen to some of the characters you'll hear in HistoryLab’s second season. We go behind the scenes wi...
2018-11-1928 min
GLAMcityThe Grim Reaper of Art ArchivesSteven Miller is the Head of the National Art Archive and Capon Research Library at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, so how did he come to be known as The Grim Reaper of art archives?Part of Steve's role is to contact artists and request that they leave their archives- their sketchbooks, letters, journals and photos to the Art Gallery which he says has led to the moniker as, "if I have a visit, artists normally think oh my god, he must think I'm about to die." ...
2018-11-1227 minGLAMcityThe Grim Reaper of Art ArchivesSteven Miller is the Head of the National Art Archive and Capon Research Library at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, so how did he come to be known as The Grim Reaper of art archives?Part of Steve's role is to contact artists and request that they leave their archives- their sketchbooks, letters, journals and photos to the Art Gallery which he says has led to the moniker as, "if I have a visit, artists normally think oh my god, he must think I'm about to die." Steve is passionate about his work for the Gallery...
2018-11-1227 min
History Lab5. Fishing for answersSydney's iconic Opera House plays host to musicians and dancers, actors and singers. But beneath the notes of their voices, another song echoes across the city’s waters.Indigenous Eora fisherwomen passed down their knowledge through their songs while paddling their canoes, a cooking fire at one end and their kids on their shoulders.Historian Anna Clark and host Tamson Pietsch go looking for the fisherwomen’s world, and discover that, if you listen closely, the past of Sydney Harbour still sings.CreditsProducers: Tom Allinson and Ninah Kopel Collaborators: Anna Clark, Natha...
2018-07-2436 min
History Lab4. Bonus episode | The making of History Lab |What does it take to make History Lab?This bonus interlude episode lifts the curtain on all that goes into making history for your ears!Executive Producer Emma Lancaster steps out from behind the headphones and asks you to listen hard as she and host Tamson Pietsch discover that in the gap between historians and journalists, great things can happen.The History Lab final episode for Season One 'Fishing for Answers' will be available 25 July 2018.To find out more about the History Lab pitching process head to https://historylab.net/pitch/
2018-07-1030 min
History Lab1. Lindy Chamberlain and the afterlife of evidenceWhat happens to evidence after a criminal trial?Tamson goes looking for answers and finds them in the shadow of one of the worst miscarriages of justice in Australian history - the Chamberlain trials.Credits Producer: Olivia Rosenman Collaborating historian: Katherine Biber Host: Tamson Pietsch Executive Producer: Emma Lancaster History Lab is a production of UTS Impact Studios.
2018-05-2828 min
GLAMcityCuration - setting the scene with Holly WilliamsThis week Tamson Pietsch and Anna Clark chat with Holly Williams, co-founder of The Curators Department.They dissect what it means to be a curator in 2017, including how to create a sense of wonder while organising information and generating experience, and consider if it’s the curators job to set the scene in order for artists to deliver stories.Holly tells GLAMcity about a number of exhibitions she has recently worked on, including Creative Accounting, which examines our relationship with money, how bank notes can be an amazing art form as...
2017-09-2430 minGLAMcityCuration - setting the scene with Holly WilliamsThis week Tamson Pietsch and Anna Clark chat with Holly Williams, co-founder of The Curators Department.They dissect what it means to be a curator in 2017, including how to create a sense of wonder while organising information and generating experience, and consider if it’s the curators job to set the scene in order for artists to deliver stories.Holly tells GLAMcity about a number of exhibitions she has recently worked on, including Creative Accounting, which examines our relationship with money, how bank notes can be an amazing art form as well as government propaganda, an...
2017-09-2429 min
GLAMcityHistory with boots onThis week Tamson Pietsch and Anna Clark spoke with the President of the History Council for NSW, Tanya Evans to find out how #historyweek17 went. They also chatted with the winner of the NSW Premier’s History awards, Peter Hobbins about his award-winning book Stories from the Sandstone, that saw historians and archaeologists team up to unlock the secrets of over 1600 engravings carved into the rocks and walls around the Manly Quarantine Station during its 150-year history.
2017-09-1929 minGLAMcityHistory with boots onThis week Tamson Pietsch and Anna Clark spoke with the President of the History Council for NSW, Tanya Evans to find out how #historyweek17 went. They also chatted with the winner of the NSW Premier’s History awards, Peter Hobbins about his award-winning book Stories from the Sandstone, that saw historians and archaeologists team up to unlock the secrets of over 1600 engravings carved into the rocks and walls around the Manly Quarantine Station during its 150-year history.
2017-09-1929 min
GLAMcityAre museums safe places for dangerous ideas? Michael Harvey from the Australian National Maritime Museum thinks soThis week Anna Clark and Tamson Pietsch chat with Michael Harvey from the Australian National Maritime Museum, located in Darling Harbour.The museum was opened in 1991 and its core mission is to share Australia's maritime heritage.Michael's love for maritime history spans both his professional and personal life. He says you can't really understand Australia, including its economy, environments, people, national defence and geopolitics, unless you view it through the lens of its relationships with the seas, oceans and rivers within and around the nation. Yo...
2017-09-1228 minGLAMcityAre museums safe places for dangerous ideas? Michael Harvey from the Australian National Maritime Museum thinks soThis week Anna Clark and Tamson Pietsch chat with Michael Harvey from the Australian National Maritime Museum, located in Darling Harbour.The museum was opened in 1991 and its core mission is to share Australia's maritime heritage.Michael's love for maritime history spans both his professional and personal life. He says you can't really understand Australia, including its economy, environments, people, national defence and geopolitics, unless you view it through the lens of its relationships with the seas, oceans and rivers within and around the nation. You can find out what's on at th...
2017-09-1228 min
GLAMcityThings that go POP! - National History week with Dr Michelle ArrowTamson Pietsch and Anna Clark chat with Associate Professor Michelle Arrow about her highly anticipated Annual History Lecture, the premier event of the History Week Festival run by the History Council of NSW.This week we ponder how pop culture make sense of social change in Australia, how our everyday life is shaped by POP! And what histories can be told and who tells them.Michelle is set to deliver her talk Tuesday 5 September, 6pm at Sydney Living Museums’ The Mint. Book your tickets here
2017-09-0429 minGLAMcityThings that go POP! - National History week with Dr Michelle ArrowTamson Pietsch and Anna Clark chat with Associate Professor Michelle Arrow about her highly anticipated Annual History Lecture, the premier event of the History Week Festival run by the History Council of NSW.This week we ponder how pop culture make sense of social change in Australia, how our everyday life is shaped by POP! And what histories can be told and who tells them.Michelle is set to deliver her talk Tuesday 5 September, 6pm at Sydney Living Museums’ The Mint. Book your tickets here
2017-09-0428 minGLAMcityGLAMcity - COMING SOONJoin historians Tamson Pietsch and Anna Clark from the Centre for Public History at the University of Technology Sydney to find out what’s going on in Sydney’s cultural scene.Each week they speak to the people in the know from the 'GLAM' sector including Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums.
2017-08-2700 min
Speaking with...Speaking with: Joanne Orlando on children and technologyA traditionalist view of childhood has created certain fears among adults regarding children and technology. www.shutterstock.comIs technology bad for kids?
As more devices and software applications are made specifically for an increasingly younger audience, there is concern about the appropriateness of children using technology – and debate over when it should be introduced into their lives.
Yet at the same time, personal devices and touch screens are everywhere. Kids love them for the same reasons we do, and many argue that learning to use them will likely be important to their education and em...
2015-03-1718 minSpeaking with...Speaking with: Tim Jones on child sexual abuse within religious institutionsReligious institutions have consistently struggled to respond to child sexual abuse cases appropriately. L'Osservatore Romano/EPAThe Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse reconvened this week. Announced in 2012, the commission was established due to growing concerns over consistently inadequate responses to child abuse cases by institutions.
Although the current Royal Commission is focused on cases within living memory in a wide range of institutions, the hearings reveal that Australian churches have a long and sad history of abuse and cover-up. Religious interpretations, changing legal definitions and evolving societal attitudes have all influenced the way...
2015-02-0615 minSpeaking with...Speaking with: Kerry Brown on China, Australia and diplomacyAustralia’s ability to influence China will largely depend on how it engages with China’s complex and growing diplomatic machinery. ShutterstockThe emergence of China as a 21st-century superpower has already had profound impacts on Australia. As China reshapes the balance of power, not only in the Asia-Pacific region but globally, its influence on Australia is likely to increase.
China’s economic and military growth will also challenge the world’s other superpower – and Australia’s traditional security ally – the United States. Caught between these two superpowers, Australia’s ability to manage this difficult diplomatic balancing act could well d...
2015-01-3015 minSpeaking with...Speaking with: Duane Hamacher on Indigenous astronomyThe science of astronomy has existed for thousands of years and forms a vital part of Indigenous Australian culture. Ben Ashmole/flickr, CC BY-NCAboriginal and Torres Strait islander people have between 40,000 and 60,000 years of pre-colonial history that includes stories of constellations they observed in the night sky and traditions that align with the stars and the moon. But until recently, these stories were largely dismissed by the scientific community.
Researchers are now finding that Indigenous oral traditions contain vast environmental and scientific intelligence. These complex knowledge systems have helped Indigenous people survive Australia for tens of...
2014-12-1914 minSpeaking with...Speaking with: Sarah Sorial on free speech and democracy CeBIT Australia/Flickr, CC BY-SAFreedom of speech is often seen as a cornerstone of democracy, but the unfettered right to express opinions can infringe other fundamental rights. Minority groups are especially at risk of verbal attacks and intimidation, and some countries, including Australia, have legislated protections that limit free speech.
When Attorney-General George Brandis ordered a review of the Racial Discrimination Act and introduced amendments in a failed attempt to remove some of these protections in March this year, he ignited a passionate debate on the importance of free speech and its intersection with other human...
2014-12-0315 minSpeaking with...Speaking with: Nick Rowley on democracy in Antarctica Alan Light/FlickrAntarctica is the coldest, driest and possibly the most inhospitable place on Earth. It is also the only continent designated entirely as a natural reserve, used purely for peaceful and scientific purposes.
For many decades, Antarctica has been the final frontier for scientific research, governed by a treaty system signed in 1959, that protects the continent from exploitation and military action. But as countries begin to eye off Antarctica’s wealth of natural resources, will this be enough to stop territorial disputes in the region?
Tamson Pietsch speaks with Nick Rowley about democracy on...
2014-11-1911 min
Sydney IdeasWar, Death and Memory: Beyond 1914- The University of Sydney and the Great WarAn expert panel on 'War, Death and Memory' with leading Australian historians explores consequences of the Great War on individual lives and the national psyche.
The panel discussion marked the launch of the new University of Sydney 'BEYOND 1914' website, an interactive biographical database of students, staff and alumni who served in the First World War.
Panellists: Joy Damousi, Professor of History University of Melbourne; Professor Stephen Garton, Provost and Deputy Chancellor University of Sydney; Associate Professor Julia Horne, the University Historian and co-organiser of 'Beyond 1914 – The University of Sydney and the Great War'; Brad Manera, Executive Manager of the AN...
2014-09-091h 34