Professor Kathy High, Video and New Media in the Department of the Arts, at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY Recent research into the human body biomes and fecal microbial transplants (FMT) has led to better understanding of both the important function of bacteria in our bodies and the ecological systems that sustain us. These include microbiota – ecologies within the body. Kathy High an interdisciplinary artist working in the areas of technology, science and art, explores these new developments through metaphors of interspecies love, immunology and bacteria as players. Waste Matters expands ideas around imbalances of internal biomes as a mirror to the imbalances in our larger ecological sphere, where the gut is a ‘hackable space’. 12 April 2016. Sydney Ideas event: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/professor_kathy_high.shtml

Professor Nick Couldry, London School of Economics and Political Science In earlier modernity the infrastructures of communication required for an expanding economy and society remained tied to national boundaries and broadly compatible with the values on which democracy was based. In late modernity, globalisation challenged nation-state boundaries, but not yet the values underlying democratic governance. But the era of late late modernity - characterised by the embedding of internet-based connectivity into action at all levels and scales - creates conditions incompatible with freedom, a value generally regarded as essential to the quality of human life, and democratic capabilities in particular. The internet involves the connectability of all points in space-time, which become points in an unlimited information-space. This generates a two-way bargain: if every point in information-space is connectable to every other, then it becomes susceptible to monitoring from every other point. Meanwhile, the resulting ease of information production generates an information excess which makes targeted communication ever more difficult. In response, business and government are constructing a social world based on the permanent monitoring of all actors and the processing of the resulting data. But such generalised surveillance is incompatible with the personal autonomy required for democratic agency. The result is an impending crisis in democratic norms from which we do not yet know how to escape.

Professor Yu Keping from Peking University, Beijing elaborates on the meaning of political philosophy and political thought in the Chinese context, traditionally and currently. He highlights the distinction between legitimate authority and legal power, and the ways by which power is transformed into authority. Professor Yu looks specifically at the sources and nature of power and authority, and gives his answer to the question of what kind of power and authority we need in terms of modern democratic governance.

China is a rising power in the world. Its grand strategy, regional role and foreign policy have significant impacts on global and regional affairs, and have important implications for countries such as the United States and Australia. Australia faces the challenges of balancing its relationships with both the United States and China in a sometimes volatile regional security environment, exemplified by the South China Sea disputes. How do the Chinese perceive their role and key relationships with global and regional powers? The University of Sydney brings together prominent Chinese scholars and Australian scholars to engage in open, extensive and in-depth conversations.

Without stories there is silence. Without stories told, we are voiceless. Without our stories heard, we are invisible. The topic of violence against women with disability is only now entering the conversation on gender-based violence. Recognition that violence does happen to women with disabilities and that violence causes disability is the first step in creating environments of social and economic sustainability for all women who are impacted by violence. Their lived experience is multi-faceted and formed at the intersections of their identity, gender and culture, making gender based violence difficult to resolve unless a holistic approach is undertaken. In this panel discussion we hear directly from some of the women with disability who have experienced violence and look at an inclusive and holistic approach that recognises diversity.

Aristotle (384-322 BC), together with his teacher Plato, is one of the most widely recognised and studied philosophers of all times. His work established the fundamental traditions of rationalism and scientific logic. It is also a bridge that links ancient paganism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam and many modern philosophical, political and religious movements. In this lecture, Professor Vrasidas Karalis, offers a brief presentation of Aristotle's life, work and thought, focusing on his political and ethical ideas. It will attempt an evaluation of his continuing significance in the context of contemporary cultural pluralism and philosophical diversity.

The growth in foundations and philanthropic giving in Australia draws on a rich tradition in American culture. Two of America's leading voices on philanthropic giving discuss the effective philanthropy. Stephen Heintz, president of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund addresses the question of philanthropy’s responsibility to communities and to society. Philanthropy, he says, cannot rely simply on the presumption that it will always automatically be seen as inherently good, but must think about the broader consequences of its decisions and actions. Bradford K. Smith, the president of the Foundation Center of New York details the past, current and future trends and organizations involved in US foundation giving in Australia. He demonstrates the values of openness and availability of philanthropic data for advancing the social sector through more effective philanthropy.

Assoc Professor Abbas El-Zein, School of Civil Engineering, University of Sydney and Tayanah O’Donnell, University of Canberra discuss the complexities associated with rising sea levels and the decision-making being made at a municipal level.

The idea of “East” and “West” as immutable and irreconcilable cultures, geographies and civilisations has been around for a long while. It has been used in various guises to imagine a “Middle East” that is the antithesis of – and inferior to – the “West” in values, practices and ideas. Arab migration to the “West” profoundly undermines this persistent argument, and the peregrinations of millions of Arab migrants lays bare its inherent contradictions. This talk by Professor Akram Khater (Director of the Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University) explores how Arab migration to the US shaped both the Middle East and the US, and tied them together inexorably through the movement of people, ideas and commodities over the past 150 years.

Guided by experimental tests of theory and practice, science and engineering have advanced rapidly in the past 500 years. Guided primarily by tradition and dogma, science education meanwhile has remained largely medieval. Research on how people learn is now revealing much more effective ways to teach, learn, and evaluate learning than what is in use in the traditional science class. SPEAKER: Professor Carl Wieman holds a joint appointment as Professor of Physics and of the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University. He has done extensive experimental research in both atomic physics and science education at the university level. Wieman has received numerous awards recognizing his work in atomic physics, including the Nobel Prize in physics in 2001 for the first creation of a Bose-Einstein condensate. He served as Associate Director for Science in the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the White House in 2010-12. More info: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/professor_carl_weiman.shtml