Is American politics dysfunctional or does it just look that way? What happens when aggressive hyper-partisanship collides with a political system that can only work co-operatively? Is the damage fatal to the democratic system?  This session was presented in partnership with The United States Studies Centre.  Shanto Iyengar holds the Chandler Chair in Communication at Stanford University, where he is also Professor of Political Science and Director of the Political Communication Laboratory. Iyengar’s areas of expertise include the role of mass media in democratic societies, public opinion and political psychology. He has received professional awards including the Philip Converse Award of the American Political Science Association for the best book in the field of public opinion, the Murray Edelman Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Goldsmith Book Prize from Harvard University. Iyengar is author or co-author of several books, including News That Matters, Is Anyone Responsible?, Explorations in Political Psychology, Going Negative and Media Politics: A Citizen’s Guide. Simon Jackman became CEO of the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney in April 2016. Born and raised in Australia, he went to the United States for his PhD (Political Science, Rochester) in 1988. From 1996 to 2016, Jackman taught Political Science and Statistics at Stanford University. Jackman’s research focuses on public opinion, political participation, and electoral systems, in both the United States and Australia. Since 2009, Jackman has been one of the Principal Investigators of the American National Election Studies, the world’s longest-running and most authoritative study of political attitudes and behaviour. Norman Ornstein is a long-time observer of US politics. He is a contributing writer for The Atlantic, a contributing editor and columnist for National Journal, and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. Ornstein served as co-director of the AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project and participates in AEI's Election Watch series. He also led a working group of scholars and practitioners that helped shape the law, known as McCain-Feingold, that reformed the campaign-financing system. His many books include The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track, and, most recently The New York Times bestseller, It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism, both with Thomas E. Mann. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is innovation overvalued? It is the dominant ideology of our era. But what if building, maintenance and repair prove much more important to our daily lives than the vast majority of technological innovations? Chaired by Natasha Mitchell  Co-founder of The Maintainers themaintainers.org, a research group focused on maintenance, repair, infrastructure and mundane labor, Lee Vinsel is an Assistant Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Stevens Institute of Technology. His research focuses on science and technology policy, and his first book examines the history of government regulation of the automobile in the United States, from the birth of the internal combustion engine to the Google Car. His work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Guardian, Le Monde, Fortune and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Natasha Mitchell is a multi-award winning journalist and presenter of flagship ABC Radio National programs including the daily morning show, Life Matters (2012-15), and the popular science, psychology & culture radio program, All in the Mind (2002-12). She was vice president of the World Federation of Science Journalists, and a recipient of the MIT Knight Fellowship.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Will we run out of water – and if so, when? Will the Earth suffer? Explore how water drives modern conflict and is not about to stop. Chaired by Sarah Macdonald Alok Jha is the science correspondent for ITV News in the UK. Before that, he did the same job at The Guardianfor a decade, where he wrote news, features, comment and presented the award-winning Science Weeklypodcast. He has also reported live from Antarctica and presented many TV and radio programmes for the BBC. Alok's latest book The Water Book  looks into water, a profoundly strange substance that defies the normal rules of chemistry, and how it has shaped the Earth, its life and our civilisation.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today the human race faces existential challenges. Our prosperity has been built on unsustainable economic and environmental practices — but our social and political processes seem incapable of fixing anything. Why are we unable to even acknowledge the truth of our predicament? Chaired by Rebecca Huntley Satyajit Das is a former financier. He anticipated the 2008 financial crisis and has been prescient in outlining subsequent developments. In September 2014, Bloomberg included him as one of the 50 most influential people in international finance. He was featured in Charles Ferguson’s 2010 Oscar-winning documentary Inside Job, the 2012 PBS Frontline series ‘Money, Power & Wall Street’, the 2009 BBC TV documentary Tricks with Risk, and the 2015 German film Who’s Saving Whom. He is the author of Traders, Guns & Money: Knowns and Unknowns in the Dazzling World of Derivatives (2006) and Extreme Money: The Masters of the Universe and the Cult of Risk(2011). His latest book is A Banquet of Consequences: Have We Consumed Our Own Future? (2015). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

#BlackLivesMatter has become the call to action for a generation of US human rights activists to denounce the violence and prejudice still experienced by African Americans. In the wake of the violent deaths of African Americans Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner and many others call for change is insistent and consistent.  So what does need to change in politics, in the media and in everyday lives to transform race relations and ensure justice and recognition for all? Following the 2013 acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, Alicia Garza took to social media to express her outrage. With Opal Tometi and Patrisse Cullors, she turned the powerful words “Black Lives Matter” into a social media phenomenon and an organizing network that boasts more than 26 chapters internationally. Currently the Special Projects Director for the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Alicia previously served as Executive Director of People Organized to Win Employment Rights, where she led the charge on significant initiatives, including organizing against the chronic police violence in black neighborhoods. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Popular culture is obsessed with easy sex and the importance of dating, implying that we live in a new enlightened age of sexual promiscuity.  As an investigative journalist, if you penetrated the inner sanctum of a secret society and discovered the key to picking up women would you use it for good or bad?  Can too much sex and dating damage you irreparably?  What is the deep psychology behind our quests and fears of love and sex and who are the people making use of this knowledge. Chaired by Sarah MacDonald  Neil Strauss is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Game and Rules of the Game. He is also the co-author of three New York Times bestsellers—Jenna Jameson’s How to Make Love Like a Porn Star, Mötley Crüe’s The Dirt, and Marilyn Manson’s The Long Hard Road Out of Hell. Strauss' highly anticipated The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book about Relationships came out in October 2015. A writer for Rolling Stone, Strauss lives in Los Angeles. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What is the place on our stages and in public life for performers who don’t fit the conventional view of what an artist should be? In the past, ‘natural born freaks’ were the stars of sideshow performances, but this is now buried as the embarrassing past. Why should we ignore this history of performers with disability? And if we do, how can we celebrate the unique artistry of those who are different, who are ‘freaks like me’? Sarah Houbolt is an accomplished international circus and physical theatre performer, trained in aerials, acrobatics and hula hoop. By day she works at Accessible Arts in Sydney, and by night she is KooKoo the Birdgirl. Her show reel consists of everything from Cirque du Soleil to corporate aerials to starring as Hairy Maclary in children's theatre. Sarah loves bed of nails, angle grinding and blockhead. Sarah worked with Sideshow Wonderland at Adelaide Fringe 2015, and has created a one-woman show based on KooKoo the Birdgirl, a character from the controversial film Freaks (1932). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What is art if not a place where we can push the boundaries of what we know, what we do and what we can say? As his pioneering dance company DV8 developed and broke boundaries, choreographer Lloyd Newson found out that even in art there are limits, and times when no-one wants to speak out. What don’t we want art to talk about? Born in Australia, Lloyd Newson studied psychology and social work at Melbourne University before embarking on a professional career as a dancer and choreographer. He has led and directed DV8 Physical Theatre’s work since its inception in 1986, winning over 50 national and international awards for his dance-theatre and film productions. In 2013 he was awarded an OBE for services to contemporary dance. Newson’s work straddles dance, text, theatre and film. Since 2007 he has specifically focused his attention on making work that combines verbatim text and movement, focusing on issues such as sexuality and religion in To Be Straight With You and Islam and Free Speech in Can We Talk About This? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shaken by a court's decision to acquit George Zimmerman over the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, Alicia Garza wrote, "Black people, I love you. I love us. Our lives matter." From there, the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter was born and then a social movement. It is a world away from the life she had growing up with her mother, stepfather, and brother, where they ran an antique shop in Marin County in San Francisco. Standing firmly in the national spotlight today in a divided America, she is a leading voice in what's widely viewed as America's new civil rights movement. This is the second episode of It's A Long Story - the new podcast project by Sydney Opera House Talks and Ideas. For more episodes search for It's A Long Story:  On iTunes: http://apple.co/2eY1bLY   On Stitcher: http://bit.ly/2ge2mwt Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Everything about the Arctic Inuit communities’ way of life depends on ice and snow, so is the failure of the world to act on climate change a gross violation of Inuit human rights? Sheila Watt-Cloutier currently resides in Iqaluit, Nunavut. She was born in Kuujjuaq, Nunavik (northern Quebec), and was raised traditionally in her early years before attending school in southern Canada and in Manitoba. Ms. Watt-Cloutier was an elected political spokesperson for Inuit for over a decade. She is the past Chair of Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC), the organization that represents internationally the 155,000 Inuit of Canada, Greenland, Alaska, and Chukotka in the Far East of the Federation of Russia and was previously the President of ICC Canada. During the past several years, Ms. Watt-Cloutier has worked through the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to defend Inuit human rights against the impacts of climate change. She has received many awards in recognition of her work. In November, 2015 she was one of 4 Laureates to receive “The Right Livelihood Award” considered the Nobel Alternative, awarded in the Parliament of Sweden. Her recently published book The Right To Be Cold has been shortlisted for the B.C. National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for political writing and the Cobo emerging writer prize. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.