Sydney Ideas

China is undergoing a radical transformation that is changing the lives of everyone who lives there – and reporters have a ringside sea. Five years as the BBC’s correspondent in China have given Michael Bristow a unique insight into daily life and the often perplexing political system in China. For more information and speaker's biography see: tinyurl.com/jma6l5o

The incoming Director of University of Sydney’s China Studies Centre Professor Kerry Brown explores the new leadership of the Chinese Communist Party in China. He offers an assessment of the Hu and Wen period, and suggests how the future leaders will deal with a transition into an era in which the greatest challenges will be socio-political. SPEAKER: Kerry Brown, Professor of Chinese Politics at the University of Sydney

Journalist Stephen Crittenden chairs a fascinating and robust conversation about the current state of Europe. What do historians say we can learn from history about how to manage the current crisis? Panellists include: Patricia Clavin, Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford; Professor Patrizia Dogliani, Professor of Contemporary and Modern European History at the University of Bologna; Dr Marco Duranti, University of Sydney; and Glenda Sluga, Professor of International History, University of Sydney. For more info and speaker's biography see this page: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2012/why_history_matters_forum_2012.shtml

Many of those who engage with the Chinese world encounter the stories that are told about China–there is the monolithic narrative of the party-state, the multiple stories of individuals, companies, communities, and then there are the array of accounts told about China, some that try to deepen understand others that evoke. Geremie R Barmé considers how some of these stories have come to be told, by whom and for whom, and what this may mean for those who pay attention. This lecture will also introduce The China Story, a publishing and Internet project being launched by the Australian Centre on China in the World. For speaker's biography see: tinyurl.com/jma6l5o

Les Malezer is from the Butchulla/Gubbi Gubbi peoples in southeast Queensland. He has extensive experience in campaigning for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights. On the occasion of International Human Rights Day, his presentation discusses how Aboriginal Peoples and Torres Strait Islander Peoples have greater capacity to take advantage of the legal opportunities and build social capital through ‘Indigenous Knowledges’, increasingly recognised in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. For more info and speaker's biography see this page: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2011/les_malezer.shtml

Pablo Picasso painted his large scale Guernica (1937) in response to the bombing of the Spanish town by German and Italian forces during the Spanish Civil War. Art historian T J Clark discussed Guernica, examining how a work of such enduring political resonance emerged. He looked at the step-by-step creation of Guernica, taking advantage of the set of photographs of the work in progress taken by Dora Maar. For more info and speaker's biography see this page: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2011/professor_t_j_clark.shtml

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Mick Gooda charts an agenda of hope that can guide us towards a reconciled Australia. Commissioner Gooda argued that effective engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples should drive the work in the three key areas identified. His central thesis being, that without effective engagement the reconciliation agenda will stall. For more info and speaker's biography see this page: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2011/mick_gooda.shtml

What do we learn when we revisit scientists' past worlds? How might one write a life as famous as Charles Darwin's? Why is biography the best-selling genre of all? Pre-eminent Darwin scholar and Harvard Professor of the History of Science Janet Browne, talks with University of Sydney historian Professor Iain McCalman, about the challenges and delights of the biographical genre for historians. In conversation with Alison Bashford, this is an evening that probes the intellectual life of these keen observers and interpreters of the world of Victorian science. For more info and speaker's biography see this page:http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2010/why_biography_matters.shtml

Do we need our history to be global? Work, leisure, war and peace, these are some of the themes that historians are now mapping onto a global past. Join historians David Armitage, Joyce E. Chaplin and Erez Manela from Harvard University, along with Sunil Amrith from Birkbeck College, University of London, in a conversation led by Glenda Sluga from the University of Sydney, as they talk about how they approach the past globally, and hear the stories that they have to tell about our round world. For more info and speaker's biography see this page: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2010/why_history_matters_forum_2010.shtml

The award-winning author and University of Sydney Alumna Kate Jennings, with her brother, Mambo founder Dare Jennings, discuss how they combine their creative passions and imaginations with a unique entrepreneurial spirit. Dare might be the most obvious entrepreneur but writers are entrepreneurial: every day the blank page, every day an act of invention. Anyone can try out an idea and throw it into the ether. But what does it take to make an idea work? ABC Radio broadcaster, writer and musician James Valentine hosts the discussion. For more info and speaker's biography see this page: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2010/kate_jennings.shtml