What's On at UWA

Over the past two decades, Asian international mobility has literally changed the face of Australian campus, altered the socio-political dynamics of higher education, and posed many challenges for policy makers, managements, academics and students caught up in the torrents of globalization. This paper outlines the transformed higher education landscape, and contests against the ‘neoliberal cascade’ of students as customers and the marginalization of public good. It draws out the implications of the State regulatory regime’s attempts to redefine the public good of a university in market citizen terms at a time of Asia’s rise as a hub of knowledge production. The paper argues that in face of increased mobility, Australian universities have imposed uniformity in governing practices in which difference is sublimated and categorized along a developmental continuum. The paper notes what is unique about the Australian university system is its openness to the inflow of students and academics from the Global South but dominated by the hegemonic ideology of the Global North. The paper argues for a new ontology as well as a new epistemology that recognise the ‘internationalising’ effect of international students, and oblige a global cognitive justice and build an international constituency of the public good of international student mobility.

The UWA School of Social Sciences Annual Social Sciences Week Public Lecture by John Keane, Professor of Politics, University of Sydney.

Democracy urgently needs reimagining if it is to address the dangers and opportunities posed by current global realities, argues leading political thinker John Keane. He offers an imaginative, radically new interpretation of the twenty-first century fate of democracy.

In this talk Professor Keane will discuss why the current literature on democracy is failing to make sense of many intellectual puzzles and new political trends. His talk will focus on a wide range of themes, from the growth of cross-border institutions and capitalist market failures to the greening of democracy, the dignity of children and the anti-democratic effects of everyday fear, violence and bigotry.

Professor Keane will discuss the idea of ‘monitory democracy’ to show why periodic free and fair elections are losing their democratic centrality; and why the ongoing struggles by citizens and their representatives, in a multiplicity of global settings, to humble the high and mighty and deal with the dangers of arbitrary power, force us to rethink what we mean by democracy and why it remains a universal ideal.

For the first time in Perth, join ten world-leading UWA researchers as they escape their labs and lecture theatres to bring impactful talks into ten Perth City bars. Raising the Bar Perth is for one night only, so bookings are essential.

Democracy urgently needs reimagining if it is to address the dangers and opportunities posed by current global realities, argues leading political thinker John Keane. He offers an imaginative, radically new interpretation of the twenty-first century fate of democracy. In this talk Professor Keane will discuss why the current literature on democracy is failing to make sense of many intellectual puzzles and new political trends. His talk will focus on a wide range of themes, from the growth of crossborder institutions and capitalist market failures to the greening of democracy, the dignity of children and the antidemocratic effects of everyday fear, violence and bigotry. Professor Keane will discuss the idea of ‘monitory democracy’ to show why periodic free and fair elections are losing their democratic centrality; and why the ongoing struggles by citizens and their representatives, in a multiplicity of global settings, to humble the high and mighty and deal with the dangers of arbitrary power, force us to rethink what we mean by democracy and why it remains a universal ideal. This lecture is presented by the UWA School of Social Sciences and the Institute of Advanced Studies. Professor Keane’s talk will be followed by discussion with scholars from UWA’s School of Social Sciences.Discussants : • Yu Tao, Lecturer, Asian Studies • Tauel Harper, Lecturer, Media and Communication • Tinashe Jakwa, PhD Candidate in Political Science and International Relations.

About Professor Keane John Keane is Professor of Politics at the University of Sydney and at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB), and Distinguished Professor at Peking University. He is renowned globally for his creative thinking about democracy. He is the Director and co-founder of the Sydney Democracy Network. He has contributed to The New York Times, Al Jazeera, the Times Literary Supplement, The Guardian, Harper’s, the South China Morning Post and The Huffington Post. His online column ‘Democracy field notes’ appears regularly in the London, Cambridge and Melbourne-based The Conversation. Among his best-known books are the best-selling Tom Paine: A political life (1995), Violence and Democracy (2004), Democracy and Media Decadence (2013) and the highly acclaimed full-scale history of democracy, The Life and Death of Democracy (2009). His most recent books are A Short History of the Future of Elections (2016) and When Trees Fall, Monkeys Scatter (2017), and he is now completing a new book on the global spread of despotism.

Harold Rowell was an experienced pilot with MacRobertson Miller Airlines (MMA). He had served as a pilot in the Second World War and joined MMA as a commercial pilot in 1948. The introduction of jet aircraft to service the Pilbara and the North West in the 1970s meant that many of the gravel airstrips, suited to propeller-driven aircraft, were unacceptable for the new jets.

Harold Rowell, who knew the Kimberley like the back of his hand, was forced to land a jet aircraft, in the dark, on the gravel strip at Fitzroy Crossing, when Derby airport was closed to fog. Instead of being hailed as a hero for preserving the company’s safety record and saving the lives of 53 passengers, he was stood down, and pilloried by his employer and the Department of Civil Aviation.

In 2017, the Australian Federation of Air Pilots commissioned the Harold Rowell Award for outstanding airmanship.

Dr Hough has contributed entries to the Biographical Dictionary of the Australian Senate, the Australian Dictionary of Biography and The New Grove Dictionary od Opera. His first full-length biography, A Man of His Time: the public life of Robert Mitford Rowell, will be launched in November. A Dream of Passion: the centennial history of His Majesty’s Theatre (2004) was shortlisted for the WA Premier’s History Prize, and his Boans for Service: the story of a department store 1895-1986 (2009) was a best-seller.

Members: Free, Guests: $5 donation

In an era marked by Brexit, Pauline Hanson One Nation, the election of US President Donald Trump, and many years of problematic governance in parts South East Asia and South America, we are beginning to learn what right-wing populism is, how it comes about, and puts at risk some of the core institutions of a just and ethical society and obscures some of the alternatives used to describe future societies.

But how do we challenge and combat populism? is it enough to say we just don't like it? Do we Argue for the solidification of liberal institutions, or do we push for even more radical social and governmental systems? In what ways are different groups, organisations and communities actively combatting populism already? What can the humanities and social sciencs learn from existing real-world experience, and how can we better work together to address one of the world's significant social and political problems?

Please join Professor John Keane (The University of Sydney), Professor Mark Beeson (UWA) and other speakers from The University of Western Australia and the community for lively discussion on how we address right-wing populism and protect social justice and ethical societies.

The Conservatorium of Music invites you to join us for the first Perth International Classical Guitar Festival.

Over five days, enjoy a jam-packed program featuring local, national and international artists including Craig Ogden, Jonathan Fitzgerald, Josinaldo Costa and the Perth Guitar Quartet, as well as the cream of Western Australia’s young emerging artists.

Be treated to a variety of performances from soloists, duos and ensembles, as well as the Australian Premier of Andy Scott’s Concerto for Guitar and Chamber Orchestra (2017), co-commissioned by the Conservatorium of Music.

The Festival will also include masterclasses, workshops, open rehearsals and demonstrations – allowing you to dive in and immerse yourself in all things guitar!

Full program details available here: www.perthguitarfestival.com

A public lecture by Dr Jo Jones, Lecturer in Literary and Cultural Studies, Curtin University.

Questions of narrative and linguistic form have preoccupied novelists, historians and theorists for at least a century and, most particularly, since the 'Crisis of the Representation' in the post-war period. This was a response, among other things, to widespread atrocity. When confronted with a national past framed by acts of atrocity, Australian novelists have taken on challenges of history and form that have yielded varied aesthetic and political results.

The relative formal freedoms offered through historical novels, when compared to conventional history writing offer the chance to confront the past in all of its contradiction and complexity. The terrain of the postmodern and historical sublime — of loss and uncertainly — is one in which historical fiction can perform an important political and ethical role.

Here, Jo Jones discusses the way novels engage Australian history, from novels written in the Bicentenary year to the present time. Jones explores the journeys that authors have made, through one or more novels, into both openly recognised and hidden histories. These authors include Richard Flanagan, Rodney Hall, Kate Grenville, David Malouf and Kim Scott.

Jo Jones is a lecturer in Literary and Cultural Studies at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia. She has a PhD on Australian historical novels and the History Wars and has taught extensively at various universities including the University of Tasmania and The University of Western Australia. At present, Jo is working on recent versions of Australian Gothicism and, also, the connection between literature, modernity and place. She has recently published an co-edited volume, Required Reading: A History of Secondary English Syllabus Lists with Tim Dolin and Patricia Dowsett, Monash UP, 2017.

This talk is based on the topic of Jo Jones’ latest book, 'Falling Backwards: Australian Historical Fiction and the History Wars', published by UWA Publishing.

Copies of the book will be available on the night, or pre-order your copy from uwap.uwa.edu.au

Jo's talk is presented by UWA Publishing and the Institute of Advanced Studies.

In this seminar, I will report on two visits to Central India that I conducted as part of an exploratory team from Tübingen University (Germany) and the ROCEEH Project (Heidelberg, Germany). India has one of the richest and complex archaeological records in the world. The Indian Subcontinent has a rich Lower Palaeolithic record and continuous human occupation throughout the Pleistocene and Holocene. This evidence also includes painted and engraved rock art. It is now well established that rock art on the Indian subcontinent has a substantial chronological depth and probably covers the whole period from the Palaeolithic, the Neolithic and to the present. As such, it is reflective of an exceptionally wide range of different societies, economic strategies, religious and ritual practices. The importance of this latter heritage has been widely recognized, for example, through the UNESCO World Heritage status of the rock art complex at Bhimbetka. My talk will present some first-hand impressions of some significant Pleistocene archaeological and rock art sites from Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. It will also highlight some challenges of working in India. The talk will not contain complicated theoretical considerations but a lot of lovely images.

The perceptions and behaviours which form Indonesian university students’ diet and exercise cultures are simultaneously an individual experience, a collective mode of identification and reflect diet and exercise trends across the economically developing world. As this generation of Indonesian young people become more educated and aspire to higher-paying sedentary careers in urban centers, the number of kilojoules people can afford to consume will increase while the amount of exercise people participate in is likely to decrease, which, I posit, will have significant social and economic implications for levels of obesity, diabetes, hypertension and other non-communicable diseases (NCDs). I hypothesize that students, partially in response to broader social pressures for educational success, often ignore their body’s diet and exercise needs. This attitude will probably cause weight gain and set up patterns for life. With rising rates of lifestyle-induced diseases, Indonesia now faces the complex double burden of under- and over- nutrition which could lead to a public health crisis within one generation. In this broader context, the period of university study offers an opportunity to educate young people about diet and exercise, with the hope of enabling them to avoid lifestyle induced NCDs in the future.

Although psychological gender differences have been reported in a variety of domains, sometimes amounting to psychologists comparing them with the distance between Mars and Venus (Del Giudice et al., 2012, PloS One), linguists still debate about the magnitude of such differences in language use. I present findings from a corpus linguistic study that employed computerised text analysis methods to examine gender differences in British, Irish, and American literary canons of the 19th and early 20th centuries, comprising c. 15 million words. Very large (Cohen’s d > 1) gender differences were found for article use, personal pronoun use, positive emotion words, social words, and words reflecting analytical thinking. Other psycholinguistic categories showed gender differences ranging from negligible to large (0 < d < 1). These quantitative findings on 132 novels provide further challenges to the gender similarities hypothesis whilst supporting the sex differences hypothesis arising from and supported by evolutionary science. The present findings extend existing scientific knowledge on human gender differences to psycholinguistic and biocultural domains.

Cheng Yen Loo

Ageing and quality of life in dissimilar housing arrangements: Comparisons between the lived experiences of older Chinese migrants from Malaysia and Singapore ageing in Australian home environments. This presentation outlines a Phd research project that will compare the lived experiences of elderly Chinese people ageing in different home environments. A four way comparison will be made of people ageing at home (alone or with family), in mainstream and ethno-specific assistive retirement homes in addition to ethno-specific independent retirement homes. I will explore how Chinese families negotiate the changing nature of care transactions within the family and how this influences elderly people's sense of home. Aspects to consider include notions of culturally appropriate care exchange between family members and the use of space and technology in the home as methods of care provision. I hope that this project will shed some light on how the home environment and associated features within can influence elderly people’s quality of life.

Akram Azimi

OWNING AUSTRALIA? Rising household wealth & proprietorial belonging in Australia’s ‘neoliberalising’ political economy. How, why and when do certain Australians, and not others, experience the nation as possessively belonging to them? To date, this privileged and proprietorial mode of belonging in Australia has predominately been studied in the context of ethnicity (i.e., ‘whiteness’). Drawing from the political economy tradition, I will adopt a broader, more class sensitive, theoretical framework. I will ‘study up’ the generally overlooked lived experiences of Australians who have materially benefited from the ‘neoliberalising’ changes in Australia’s political economy: the top 60% of Australians who own 95% of the national household wealth worth over $10 Trillion. My central question is whether, and if so how, this group has 'realised' the unprecedented increases in their household wealth as Australian proprietorial belonging.

Please join us to celebrate the life of Kofi Atta Annan, UN Secretary-General 1997-2006, and the legacy of his tireless work for Ghana, Africa and global affairs. The tribute will feature Ghanaian cultural traditions, video footage and remarks by speakers from the UN, government, communities and academics, followed by light refreshments.

Perth Upmarket is Perth’s premier quarterly market for original and handcrafted wares. The market brings together over 180 of Perth’s most talented artists, designers, craftsmen and gourmets all under one roof at the University of Western Australia’s Winthrop Hall. Incorporating a dedicated Junior Upmarket and Gourmet section.

Parking and entry are free and the venue is easily accessible. Three ATMs onsite.

Sunday 16 September 2018 10am - 4pm University of Western Australia's Winthrop Hall www.perthupmarket.com.au

The 2018 Robin Winkler Lecture by Debra Rickwood, Professor of Psychology at the University of Canberra.

Youth mental health is of growing concern in Australia and internationally. It is now well-recognised that most mental health problems first emerge before the age of 25, and often become evident during the teenage years, when they are highly disruptive to personal, social and vocational functioning. It seems that young people are becoming more vulnerable to mental health problems and there are many powerful forces in their lives today that exacerbate this risk. Consequently, there is a high level of unmet need for effective interventions and services to help young people, and their families, deal with emerging mental health problems, although young people are often reluctant to seek such help.

This presentation will consider the what, why and how of supporting young people with mental health problems by drawing on recent data and experiences from implementation of the headspace national youth mental health initiative. It will describe what types of mental health problems are most affecting young people today and which of these are on the increase. It will demonstrate why youth mental health must be a key priority, with a focus on the life stages of adolescence and emerging adulthood. Innovative ways to respond to young people’s mental health problems will be considered. This will cover how parents, families, friends and significant others in the community can recognise and respond to young people with mental health problems; as well as how our service systems need to be reformed to better meet their needs. Research revealing the experiences that are common to most young people, as well as showing the factors that are unique to young people from diverse and more marginalised population groups will be described. The presentation will conclude with some of the ways that the community can work together to better support young Australians during this critical transition period of life.

Debra Rickwood is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Canberra. For the past eight years she has been Chief Scientific Advisor at headspace: The National Youth Mental Health Foundation, where she heads the research and evaluation team. She is a Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society (APS) and member of the APS College of Community Psychologists. In 2016, she was awarded the Robin Winkler Award for Applied Community Psychology Research in recognition of the research she and her team undertook to better understand the barriers and facilitators experienced by young people from diverse and more marginalised population groups to access and engage with headspace youth mental health centre services.

The Annual Robin Winkler Lecture commemorates the work of Robin Winkler, a highly influential teacher and researcher whose work was guided by humanitarian values and a relentless questioning of accepted orthodoxies. He died at the age of 43 while heading the UWA Clinical Master’s program at the Psychology Clinic, which now bears his name. In the Oxford Handbook of the History of Psychology he is described as “a singular, crusading figure” in Australian psychology.

This seminar will be dedicated to graph-style questions, which have become yet more prominent in recent iterations of the GAMSAT® Exam. The speaker at the session will be an experienced teacher with extensive practice in the interpretation of graphs and diagrams, geometric reasoning, and logical reasoning.

The speaker will guide you through several examples drawn from different Sections of the GAMSAT® Exam, giving you an opportunity to ask detailed questions to consolidate your understanding, in addition to outlining general strategies that can be utilised in approaching this increasingly important category of GAMSAT® Exam questions.

Be sure to save your spot through our EventBrite page:

https://gradready.com.au/posts/gamsat-preparation-courses/free-gamsat-events

--

This semester we're also running a GAMSAT® Graphs Seminar - dedicated to graph-style questions, which have become yet more prominent in recent iterations of the GAMSAT® Exam - and a series FREE GAMSAT Tutorials that will focus on an individual section of the GAMSAT.

Visit our FB events page to learn more: https://www.facebook.com/pg/GradReadyGAMSAT/events

For more information on the other seminars and events we’re planning to run throughout the year visit our website here: https://gradready.com.au/posts/gamsat-preparation-courses/free-gamsat-events

If you've got any queries, feel free to send us a message on our Facebook Page!

We look forward to seeing you at our events!

---

Our students improved their scores by 25 Percentile Points on average and achieved a Medical School Admission rate of 90%+, 4 years in a row. We are the only provider to achieve statistically significant score improvements for our students.

To learn more visit our website: https://gradready.com.au/posts/gamsat-preparation-courses/free-gamsat-events

Enrol in groups of 3 or more and receive up to 15% off. 90%+ Medical School Admissions Rate - 8 years+ Trusted Experience - 6000+ Students

A public lecture by Professor Serge Rivière, 2018 UWA Institute of Advanced Studies Visiting Fellow.

Throughout seven years of exile, which was marked by frustration and hope, followed by disillusionment and anger born of an inability to influence events and an increasing sense of futility, the support of friends on Isle de France kept Flinders afloat. In a letter to Captain Augustin Baudin of 10 January 1806, Flinders acknowledged that his Mauritian entourage had been most hospitable, but he added:

“I am as happy as the peculiar circumstances of my detention will permit me to be; but a man who is suffering in his rank and fortune, who is prevented from the credit due to his labours, who is losing his time, and is unjustly kept from his country and his family, cannot be supposed to be very happy”.

Yet in his Voyage to Terra Australis, as he left the Isle de France in June 1810, he expressed genuine sadness. What light does Flinders’ correspondence shed on the personality and intellectual development of the celebrated explorer? For one who had built his fame on voyages of discovery, imprisonment on an island was especially galling and non-productive. This lecture will explore the circumstances and impact of Flinders’ long period of maritime inactivity in Mauritius which provided ample opportunities for reflection and introspection. Cultural displacement often combines with relative solitude to broaden the mind and deepen one’s self-knowledge, leading to moments of epiphany. Thus, total immersion in another culture had, partially at least, a beneficial effect on Matthew Flinders, as he found himself at the cross-roads of the cultures of two nations in conflict.

Marc Serge Rivière, born in Souillac, Mauritius, was Laureate of the Royal College of Curepipe in 1965 on the Arts side. He completed an MA at Aberdeen University (Scotland, 1970), a postgraduate MA at McMaster University (Canada, 1971), a PhD at Glasgow University (Scotland, 1980) and a Dip.ed. at Monash University (Australia, 1982). From 1970 to 2008, he lectured on French and Francophone Literature and Cultural Studies in Scotland, Canada, Australia, France, Ireland and Mauritius (as Visiting Professor at UoM from 2003-2005). On his retirement in 2008, he was awarded the title of Professor Emeritus of Limerick University, Ireland. He was decorated by the French Government as Chevalier de l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques in 2005.

All at Sea: Restoration and Recovery Series - Our oceans and coasts provide us with food, energy, livelihoods, cultural and recreational opportunities, yet they are coming under increasing pressure. This UWA Institute of Advanced Studies - UWA Oceans Institute Lecture Series explores the wonders of our seas, the challenges they face and how research at UWA- in a diverse range of fields including marine science, ocean engineering, health, humanities and social sciences- are contributing to ensure sustainability.

Facilitated by experienced Learning Designers, this one-day workshop is a great practical opportunity for new and current teaching staff at UWA to experience the unit design process.

You and your colleagues can participate in a number of sequential collaborative tasks which will allow you to explore ideas for student-centred learning as well as map out and plan the face-to-face and online elements for the unit you want to specifically focus on for this workshop.

The workshop begins at 9:30am sharp and finishes at 4:30pm. There is an expectation that participants will be present for the full day. Please answer as many of the questions at the point of registration. This extremely valuable information will be used to coordinate the best team to assist you at this workshop and during follow-up opportunities.

Tea, coffee and a light lunch will be provided.

To get the most out of this workshop we highly recommend the following:

A Unit Coordinator for the unit must attend. Unit Coordinators are encouraged to invite as many of their unit team members as possible. Please ensure all participants register. Unit Coordinators must bring agreed unit learning outcomes and the current unit outline of the chosen unit. It is important to bring your own laptop or mobile device for online development.

Yuwaalaraay Gamilaraay are two languages from the north-centre of New South Wales and adjacent Queensland. Only a few words and phrases from these languages were regularly being used in the 1990s, when major reclamation efforts began. There has been a major expansion of use since then, albeit of relatively simple language.

One challenge has been finding language for domains in which people want to use it. Two of the most common are greetings and ceremonial and official events. This has involved lexical development. At the same time efforts have continued to better describe traditional elements of the languages so that these can also be used in the reclaimed language.

I will consider some recently developed words found in the dictionary supplement (the Gamilaraay Yuwaalaraay Dictionary was published in 2003) and words whose use has been expanded. I will also consider the implications of ongoing grammatical and semantic analysis, and the potential for this to modify the current version of reclaimed Yuwaalaraay Gamilaraay. The practicalities of such work, including consultation and dissemination of the work, are also discussed.

In 1987 the Western Australian State Government released a policy document titled Better Schools in Western Australia: A Programme for Improvement in which it was contended that ‘Whereas once it was believed that a good system creates good schools, it is now recognised that good schools make a good system’ (Ministry of Education 1987:5). In line with the devolutionary thinking it reflected, Better School’s advocated school-based decision-making as a means of being more responsive to local community needs and enabling schools to better meet the educational requirements of individual students (Ministry of Education 1987:5). As was the case in many parts of the Western World, devolutionary reform was part of a broader policy regime opening up possibilities for individual choice, shifting responsibility for outcomes in key systems to individual units of organisation and the so-called “clients” of these organisations, transforming the modern citizen as ‘an active agent in his or her government’, as Rose (1993) puts it. Neoliberalism is often evoked as an umbrella term to capture the socio-political ideals underpinning these changes in social policy. It is also helpful to place this policy formation under a broader cultural canopy pointing to a trend away from broad communal activity to more individualised practices – reflexive, “second modernity” as some commentators refer to it.

This paper will consider the interweaving of schools and families as the individuals within each institution articulate and enact their various desires and needs. Embracing a Bourdieusian commitment to understanding social action as a practice driven by cultured, structured agency, I draw upon various forms of data accumulated over nearly two decades of research in and around schools, alongside some recent developments in the local political arena, to analyse the social effects and implications of the practice of school choice and “independent government schools” in Western Australia. The focal points shift from families to localised fieldsites and further afield into regional and state-wide events and trends to contemplate the ways in which the allure of choice and autonomy implicate many a citizen and agent of the state in unequal systems that do not necessarily address the problems they are aimed at ameliorating. In other words, good schools and empowered parents do not necessarily make good systems.