What's On at UWA

Seminar/Public Talk by Professor Shafeeq Ghabra, Kuwait University

Since the rebellions of 2011 and more so since 2012, the Arab order is actually in a state of disorder, sitting atop a time bomb made up of youth, who constitute the overwhelming majority. Today’s youth, in stable and in non-stable states, want more freedom, dignity, jobs, and security — in short, more fulfilling lives. The state’s desire for unaccountability and security cannot satisfy their aspirations and in fact pushes them in the opposite direction. If the present trends dominated by unaccountable and non-responsive security-oriented regimes continues, the next wave of Arab revolutions will be more radical in its thinking and methods.

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Shafeeq Ghabra is a Professor of Political Science at Kuwait University. He is currently Visiting Scholar at the Arab Centre, Doha, Qatar. From 1996 to 1999 he was the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the Social Sciences at Kuwait University. Dr Ghabra has been a Visiting Professor at The College of William and Mary and a Visiting Scholar at George Mason University’s Institute of Conflict Analysis and Resolution. He has also been a Visiting Scholar at the University of Denver. His most recent books include: Kuwait and the Dynamics of State and Society (2011) and Unsafe Life: The Generation of Dreams and Disappointments (2012). Professor Ghabra is visiting the Centre for Muslim States and Societies as part of ANU's Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies project sponsored by the International Speakers Program supported by the Australian Government through the Council for Australian-Arab Relations of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Entry free, but registration via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/cmss-seminar-series-religion-state-and-society-2017-tickets-32521886839

This talk presents original ethnographic material drawing on long-term fieldwork at the Indian Ocean coast of Northwest Australia. It highlights a particular aspect in a conflict situation over the construction of a $ 45 Billion AUD liquefied natural gas facility (LNG) on top of an Indigenous heritage site, Walmadany / James Price Point. The presentation discusses the troubles encountered by an anthropologist born and raised in Germany in his attempts to translate Indigenous knowledge and heritage into Western scientific terminology. Based on this I address the following questions: How can Western law and science be better equipped to recognize Indigenous knowledges as ontologically different but equal epistemic partners? How can collaborative works in archaeology and anthropology help to account for Indigenous world(view)s beyond the modernist rationale?

Bio: Dr. Carsten Wergin leads the Research Group “The Transcultural Heritage of Northwest Australia: Dynamics and Resistances” at Heidelberg University. His academic background is in sociocultural anthropology, media and transcultural studies with a wider thematic interest in Digital and Environmental Humanities research, and a regional focus on the Indian Ocean World, drawing on long-term fieldwork phases in the Mascarene Archipelago and Northwest Australia.

AIIA WA, together with the Perth USAsia Centre, have the pleasure to invite you to a pop-up panel event to discuss the controversy surrounding President Trump and his alleged connections to Russia. Our panel of experts on US politics, the intelligence community, and Russia will discuss the Trump administration's alleged connections with the Kremlin as well as President Trump's hostility towards the US intelligence community. They will explore how these may impact US national security and foreign policy, as well as possible implications for Australia. The panel will elaborate on the daily news and scandals associated with the Trump administration and the President's contradictory responses.

Join in a literature themed China in Conversation - a free public event with refreshments. World literature was long defined in the English speaking world as an established canon of European masterpieces, but an emerging global perspective has challenged this European focus. Now it is better understood as literature that has travelled, and been translated, from its original source. This China in Conversation teases out from an Australian and Chinese perspective the issues surrounding interpreting and reading world literature: from the classics of Chinese literature to J.M.Coetzee’s works that travel from South Africa to Australia and translate to Chinese readers; from the controversial novels of author Yu Hua to Nobel Prize recipient Mo Yan. Join in the conversation and discuss what is lost and gained in globalised literature.

Be transported from the everyday in our free lunchtime concert series, featuring the finest musical talent locally, nationally and within the School.

This week Simon Lee Foundation Artist in Residence Shaun Lee-Chen is joined by the amazing Caroline Badnall for an intimate concert of music for violin and piano.

Entry is free, no bookings required.

This paper considers the ways that the genre of American film noir was adapted in “Nikkatsu Action” crime films to capture and convey some of the faultlines of rapid socio-economic and cultural change in 1950s/1960s Japan.

The term film noir was initially used by French film critics with reference to wartime and postwar American urban crime films. These films were noted for their depictions of alienation conveyed through dark lighting, extreme camera angles and a focus on criminality; traits that have been read as a response to the disillusionment in American society in the aftermath of WWII.

During the 1960s Nikkatsu Studios released a series of noir-inspired urban crime films aimed at a teenage audience. The protagonists in these “Nikkatsu Action” films did not display loyalty to a group such as family, gang or company, but were instead depicted as entirely individualistic. In their depictions of lone outlaws that existed outside of the confinements of traditional Japanese society, the Nikkatsu films constituted “a rebellion against tradition dressed in the trappings of American film noir” (Vick, 2015, p. 23), appealing to the disillusionment felt by many young Japanese with regards to traditional social structures and their supposed obligations to it.

This paper examines how several “Nikkatsu Action” films utilised conventions of film noir in order to subvert traditional Japanese conceptions of social obligation, thereby providing an unsettling representation of postwar Japanese society.

Now in its third season, Fridays@Five is the ideal way to kick-start your weekend! Each session offers a unique musical experience to delight all music lovers, from young artist led concerts to informal musical drinks on the famous grassy knoll, behind the scenes workshops to lectures and masterclasses. Join us each week for a delightful musical surprise!

Improvisation remains the principle manner in which a great deal of musical performance around the world is brought into being. For the last two hundred years in the Western Art Music tradition, improvisation has taken something of a back seat, the focus being placed on music reading and technical accomplishment in playing compositions written by others.

A new confidence in the value of improvisation to support musical learning has developed over the last generation, influenced both by a revisiting of historical practice, and an approach to music that views it as a form of thought that can express the creative impulse of the individual.

In this session, Dr Nicholas Bannan will work with four student volunteers to illustrate some of the ways in which improvisation is becoming a part of the musical experience of all our students.

Bar Opens 5pm, Event starts 5.30pm

Free Entry - all welcome

As a highly respected political journalist, UWA graduate Peter Kennedy’s expertise makes him one of the most informed political commentators in the nation. He has observed the 2017 State Election with more than usual interest. The decline of the Barnett Liberal Government, its feisty relations with the National Party leader Brendon Grylls, the impact of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party, and the ‘fresh approach’ canvassed by the Labor Party in the face of the State’s growing debt, made the 2017 election campaign both exciting and complex. The electorate has spoken but the question remains, what does the outcome mean for Western Australia?

Additional information: $25.00 per person. Brunch will be provided. Parking: Car Park 1

The exceptional ability of young emerging artists and their passion for music will always create an extraordinary experience for concertgoers. In 2016 four outstanding orchestral and choral concerts will feature Western Australia’s finest young musicians.

Following the incredible success of our 2015 and 2016 collaborations, the UWA School of Music team up again with Mark Coughlan and the Government House Foundation to present a concert of classical favourites, plus a brand new commission by composer Joe Chindamo, featuring the amazing Shaun Lee-Chen (violin). Mozart: Serenade No. 12 for Winds Chindamo: PALIMPSEST (WORLD PREMIERE) Beethoven: Symphony No. 2

All tickets $35 tickets.perthconcerthall.com.au

Ian McEwan’s recent novel Nutshell (2016), in which Hamlet is an unborn foetus, is only the latest in a line of appropriations of Shakespeare’s plays stretching back to 1600. Hamlet itself stretches beyond the seventeenth century, drawing on sources that date back to twelfth-century Denmark, and referring within itself to relics of older drama that Shakespeare may have seen as a boy in Stratford. Hamlet looks both backwards and forwards in time. The play also covers a remarkable range of emotional states, including anger, love, hatred, grief, melancholy and despair. Indeed, Hamlet stages a plethora of emotional practices: a funeral and a marriage, a vindictive ghost in purgatory, a young woman whose mental equilibrium has been dislodged by the murder of her father by her own erstwhile lover, an inscrutable monarch under suspicion of murder, a couple of mordantly cheerful gravediggers, and a young prince back from university and grieving for his deceased father. This symposium invites new readings of the play, focusing on its emotional life in the widest sense.

This is a free event, but registration is required. See http://www.historyofemotions.org.au/events/hamlet-and-emotions-then-and-now/

Come along to a presentation about how the School of Dentistry at UWA has developed and implemented a longitudinal, competency-based clinical assessment system. Its development was supported by a Futures Observatory Scholarship and is a joint effort between the School of Dentistry and the School of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering at UWA. This system is now utilised school-wide at the School of Dentistry.

Its development was driven by the need to have a modern and robust competency-based assessment system that improves student learning, assists teaching and provides predictive data for future clinical performance of the student. This is particularly important in dentistry as dental students can practice dentistry as independent practitioners immediately after graduation.

The system is in fact an on on-line database structured around “core” and “silo” competencies as they translate to clinical dental practice. Students’ performance in attaining these competencies is tracked throughout the duration of the course and therefore one can monitor the progress, level of performance and its repeatability as well as the spectrum of competencies covered.

Other existing clinical assessment systems use a static, number-based approach. These are based on the inherent assumption that is a task is performed a number of times then at the end of this repetitive process then the associated competencies would have been attained. It is obvious therefore that with such systems the focus is on quantity rather than quality, is time-bounded and does not give enough information to easily identify the areas needing improvement.

The system which has been developed allows for the performance to be monitored longitudinally with a bias for quality rather than quantity using specific clinical dental criterion-referenced assessment rubrics.

The collected data is available in real-time individually to the students and to the staff using a simple web browser. The student has the benefit of receiving objective feed-back that tracks their own progress and identifies precisely the core competencies that need improvement. The staff and the school can monitor more efficiently the clinical performance of the students, either on individual or as a group

Although the application has been developed for dental teaching the platform can be translated to any other course that is competency-based and uses CRA to assess the student performance. It can customised to specific needs, deployed in a variety of environments and to use it one would need just internet access and a web browser.

The Perth USAsia Centre together with the UWA Law School invite you to join us for a public lecture by the former Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, Hon. Robert French AC. Justice French will address the significant influence the political and legal architecture of the United States has had on the Australian legal system. Introducing Justice French will be Perth USAsia Centre Director, former Foreign Affairs and Defence Minister Professor Stephen Smith. We look forward to welcoming you to this event.

In 2016, Bill Leak’s controversial cartoon generated widespread debate about free speech and racism in Australia. Following Leak’s death on March 10, and in light of proposed amendments to Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, those debates have resurfaced and intensified.

Jani McCutcheon from the UWA School of Law will speak to a number of ethical and legal issues that underpin the complex relationship between the arts, the law, and freedom of expression.

‘Talking Allowed’ is a new series of presentations offered by the UWA Institute of Advanced Studies and the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery.

On the second Tuesday of every month, a UWA academic will give a short presentation on a topic of current relevance to the arts and culture before inviting the audience to participate in discussion and debate.

‘Talking Allowed’ is designed to be thought-provoking, challenging, stimulating and engaging. Come along and join the dialogue on matters that are of great importance to our society.

In this presentation I examine the evolution of the digital economy in China from the early 2000s to now. The key idea behind this is the integration of technological innovation (science & technology) and cultural creativity (arts and culture). The emphasis within the 13th Five Year Plan is for a digitally connected China in which young entrepreneurs now provide the driving force for the economy. Associated with this is the concept of the sharing economy, an economic model that is now taken up globally. I question if the sharing economy and grassroots innovation will deliver the scale of benefits that the industrial economy has achieved. The government’s slogan to incentivize such young entrepreneurs is ‘mass entrepreneurship, mass innovation.’ To illustrate I look at developments in Beijing (Inno Alley), Hangzhou (Dream Town, Cloud Town) and Shenzhen (Huaqiangbei Market). Noting the influence of China’s commercial digital companies such as Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent) in these cities I examine the potential of these spaces to generate digital disruption, and ultimately innovation.

The mass distribution of newborn stars, known as the initial mass function (IMF), has a distinct peak at a mass slightly less than that of the Sun. This characteristic stellar mass appears to be nearly invariant across a huge range of star-forming environments within and beyond our Galaxy, and seems to have changed little over most of cosmic time. Explaining its origin and universality is one of the oldest problems in theoretical astrophysics, but a fully successful theory eludes us even today. In this talk, I review theoretical attempts to explain the characteristic mass of stars, and discuss recent progress suggesting that we may be within reach of a solution.

CMSS Religion, State and Society Seminar Series: On Islamism in West Africa: Re/membering Past Political Movements

by Muhammad Dan Suleiman

The presentation will re-tell the story of past anti-state rebel movements in West Africa, and then discusses if and how that story is different from present narratives around violent Islamist groups in the sub-region. The view that Islamist groups are fundamentally “Islamic” in purpose, Middle Eastern in origin, anti-West in motivation, and with a DNA of atavistic irrationality continues to dominate popular—and even academic—discourses about Islamism in West Africa. Scholars and policy makers have put forward arguments of varying validity, that give Islamist groups in West Africa an identity that is global rather than local. While West Africa is not new to violent political movements, we are yet to appreciate how the violent Islamist groups of the post-9/11 era compare with other anti-state rebel movements in the sub-region, especially those of the post-cold war era. Are Islamist groups in West Africa any more violent, ideologically anchored and externally supported than past rebel movements? The presentation interrogates this question by looking at the Boko Haram Islamist insurgency in Nigeria (2009-present) and the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (1989-1997) as case studies.

ENTRY: Free

REGISTRATION: Register via Eventbrite or email to [email protected]

About the Speaker:

Muhammad is a political science and security researcher at the University of Western Australia (UWA), and he is currently writing his PhD thesis on terrorism, peace and security in West Africa. Muhammad has received a BA degree in Political Science from the University of Ghana (2007), MA in International Law from the Sydney Law School (2011), and MA (Research) in Politics and International Relations from Macquarie University (2014). Muhammad is published in peer reviewed academic journals such as African Identities, African Security and Australasian Review of African Studies among others. He is affiliated with the UWA Africa Research Cluster and the UWA Centre for Muslim States and Societies. Muhammad is also a student of Islamic epistemology.

During planning for the aborted Roe 8 highway project in the Perth metropolitan region, Noongar Traditional owners and archaeologists became concerned about protection of Aboriginal heritage place DAA 4107, which extends along the north side of Walliabup (Bibra Lake), through the Roe 8 corridor. The site’s original investigators identified 2000 Aboriginal stone artefacts at the surface, and potential for sub-surface archaeological material. Despite these values, the Aboriginal Cultural Materials Committee determined the place was not a site, supposedly because the site had been disturbed – despite lack of any evidence for these claims. Identifying a lack of process, Traditional Owners and archaeologists undertook a pro bono investigation to determine whether the site was disturbed and contained sub-surface archaeological remains. A shovel test-pitting program in January 2017 revealed stone artefacts, including fossiliferous chert fragments probably older than c.5000 years, and intact pre-European deposits throughout the area assessed. Media coverage of the project was largely positive towards Aboriginal heritage. The project confirms that sub-surface archaeological assessment should have been conducted before clearing for the highway began. It also shows the value of archaeology in engaging the public and the role of research in actively contending “alternative facts”.

The Carpe Diem (from the Latin 'seize the day') process is a fast, effective and highly practical design process to enable unit teams to understand, develop and implement forward-looking, student-centred learning designs.

UWA staff can participate in a Carpe Diem workshop to transform their campus-based unit into digital, blended and mobile formats, and to develop mobile and life-integrated learning opportunities using up-to-date technologies and social media.

Workshops involve sequential collaborative tasks, including blueprinting, story boarding, team working and scaffolded learning, development of e-tivities (activities developed for a digital environment), peer review and action planning.

This traditional Carpe Diem workshop takes place over two days, and participants are required to attend the full two days: 9am – 4pm on Day 1, and 9am – 2pm on Day 2. Register for this workshop via the Eventbrite link listed below.

Featuring performances and open workshops by local specialists and international guest artists in drumset, orchestral percussion, solo percussion, marimba technique, conga skills, percussion and electronics, and more.

Suitable for percussionists and percussion lovers of all ages and skill levels.

Tickets: Presale $25 Door $30 try booking.com/OPGC

Our Salon Series returns in 2017 as Head of Vocal Studies Andrew Foote leads talented young vocal students in a series of 3 intimate, salon style vocal concerts.

A Gilbert & Sullivan Celebration

“England, at the dawn of the Victorian age. Hansom cabs … mutton-chop whiskers … solid mahogany furniture. An era of solidity and respectability – even in the theatre!”

So begins the UWA Voice Students’ scripted concert of eight of the thirteen Gilbert and Sullivan operas. Andrew Foote leads a cast of more than 20 students in a delightful assortment of solos, duets, trios, quartets, quintets, sextets and massed singing from Patience, HMS Pinafore, Princess Ida, Pirates of Penzance, Ruddigore, Yeoman of the Guard and The Mikado. If you love your Gilbert and Sullivan – or even if you’re a sceptic – come and see why this repertoire is experiencing a revival. Groan at the jokes, toe-tap through the night, and go home humming the tunes with a smile of your face

Tickets: Standard $20 Concessions $18 Friends of Music $15 try booking.com/OWZF