We are familiar with the story of feminist gains and losses in Australia over the last 40 years – the equal opportunity and reproductive health struggles, the triumphs and tribulations of the femocrats, the advance and retreat of gender equity in school systems, and more. In most of these struggles feminist research has played an [...]

“Green-on-blue” attacks are attacks by members of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) on usually unsuspecting members of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), including Australians. Green-on-blue deaths have been increasing each year in Afghanistan over the past four years. During 2012 to the end of November, 16 percent of ISAF deaths in Afghanistan have [...]

In Blow Up The Humanities, Professor Toby Miller has provocatively outlined an argument for a new model of humanities teaching and scholarship that will address the social, cultural and economic crises it faces. In England, the newly formed Council for the Defence of British Universities argues the university system is being deliberately designed to subordinate everything [...]

[ 21 November, 2012; 5:30 pm; ] On November 21, The Strategic and Defence Studies Centre (SDSC) will launch its new policy paper series: The Centre of Gravity (COG) Series. The Series will launch with a public lecture by Rory Medcalf, of the Lowy Institute for International Policy. Rory is author of the first paper in the Series, Pivoting the Map of Asia: An Indo-Pacific [...]

It may appear that women have reached parity with or even surpassed men with regard to their engagement in science education and employment. However, recent research, which the speakers will present and discuss, documents persistent gender differences not only in academic science careers but also in high school science subject choices and science-related adolescent career [...]

100 years ago Thomas Griffith Taylor sat on the verandah of the Bachelor’s Quarters on Acton Peninsula (now the ANU Heritage Early Childhood Centre), writing a letter to his Antarctic Expedition leader, Captain Robert Falconer Scott. He had no idea that the team had perished eight months earlier; he had returned home early to continue [...]

The daughter of an Aboriginal man and a ten pound pom, Alison talks about her own identity and family, which is not defined by black, white, brown, or any colour. She talks about pride where there once wasn’t any. Passionate about the living definition of culture, Alison unpacks the values at the heart of Aboriginal [...]

Building on the rich legacy of Clare Burton’s research and advocacy for women in the workforce, Jane Caro and Catherine Fox will bring their own take on the idea of “for love…”. As authors of The F Word: How we learnt to swear by feminism, their approach blends decades of experience as workers, mothers and commentators [...]

Meet Ian Rankin, one of the world’s most famous crime fiction writers, in conversation with Colin Steele.
Ian’s new book, Standing in Another Man’s Grave, sees the return of his detective, John Rebus, five years after Rebus’s retirement. Not only is Rebus as stubborn and anarchic as ever, but he finds himself in trouble with Rankin’s latest [...]

Since the 2001 detention of David Hicks in Afghanistan, increasing attention has been given to the plight of Australian citizens detained overseas and the legal and policy issues that confront the Australian Government in responding to their plight. Successive Australian Foreign Ministers during this period have acknowledged the increasing workload associated with these consular cases, [...]

Paul Daley will be in conversation with Chris Hammer on Daley’s new book, Canberra, part of the critically acclaimed City Series.
“Canberra is a city of orphans. People arrive temporarily for work, but stay on because they discover unanticipated promise and opportunity in a city that the rest of the country loathes but can’t really do without,” says [...]

The Holocaust is a water shed event in the history of the 20th century for both Jews and non-Jews. It forces us as human beings to look at ourselves and ask the eternal question: how was this humanly possible? The universal dimensions of this particular story can and do speak to us all. This presentation [...]

A Short Introduction to Climate Change by Tony Eggleton
A Short Introduction to Climate Change was written to explain climate change – one of the most important issues of our time – to everyday people with enquiring minds. It covers developments in climate science over the past 250 years and shows that recent climate change is [...]

Meet “Australia’s literary microphone mistress”. Times Literary Supplement.
Former presenter of ABC’s Radio National The Book Show, Ramona Koval, will speak about By the Book, a story about reading and living, and of the authors that have written themselves into her life: from Oliver Sacks to Oscar Wilde, Christina Stead to Grace Paley.
In it, Koval discusses her [...]

[ 1 November, 2012; 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm. ] Dr Stephen FitzGerald will discuss issues for Australia within the over-arching Australia-China relationship: the leadership of ideas, strategic views, public policy debate and decision-making, including decisions about the US that affect Australia’s relations with China. He suggests it will take a stretch of the imagination for Australia to have a real view of political China [...]

When: Thursday 1 November 2012, 6-7pm
Where: Theatre 1, Manning Clark Centre, Union Court, The Australian National University
Free and open to the public
Richard Gill is one of Australia’s best-known – and best-loved – musical figures. His career has taken him from music teacher in Sydney’s western suburbs to Music Director of the Victorian Opera. Along the [...]

When: Thursday 11 October, 6-7pm
Where: The Finkel Lecture Theatre, The John Curtin School of Medical Research, Garran Road, The Australian National University
Free and open to the public
We exist in a temporal universe. On a day-to-day basis, time is a concept familiar to us for it affects all aspects of everybody’s life. Despite this, and [...]

[ 11 October, 2012; 7:30 pm; ] A Swedish Affair – featuring The Song Company and the ANU School of Music Chamber Choir.

Music by Grieg, Grainger, Nysted, Rautavaara, Jennefelt, Wikander and others.

As part of the 2012 HC Coombs Fellowship, The Song Company joins forces with the ANU School of Music Chamber Choir in presenting an exquisite selection of music from a continent [...]

When: Friday 5 October 2012, 12-1pm
Where: Hedley Bull Lecture Theatre 1, Building 130, corner Liversidge Street and Garran Road, The Australian National University, Canberra
Rapid changes present development challenges in the Himalayan region. The frequency of floods and droughts seems to be on the rise, as is the demand for water, food and energy. In the [...]