What's On at UWA

The 2016 Ian Constable Lecture by Professor John Mattick, Executive Director, Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Sydney.

The genomic programming of human development has been misunderstood because of the initially reasonable, but ultimately incorrect, assumption that most genetic information is transacted by proteins. The human genome genome contains only ~20,000 protein-coding genes, similar in number as those in other animals, including simple nematodes. By contrast, the extent of non-protein-coding DNA increases with increasing developmental and cognitive complexity, reaching 98.5% in humans. Moreover, the vast majority of these sequences are differentially transcribed during development to produce tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of short and long non-protein-coding RNAs.

Noncoding RNAs show highly specific expression patterns, and increasing numbers are being shown to play important roles in human development, as well as in cancer and other complex diseases. These RNAs function at many different levels of gene expression, including translational control and guidance of the epigenetic processes that underpin development, physiological adaptation, and brain function. The latter appear to be empowered by the superimposition of plasticity on RNA-directed epigenetic processes by RNA editing, RNA modifications and retrotransposon mobilisation. Moreover there is now strong evidence for transgenerational epigenetic inheritance, also mediated by RNA, which raises the possibility that RNA is not only the underlying engine of cell biology, developmental biology and cognition, but perhaps also of evolution itself.

The annual Ian Constable lecture is presented by the Lions Eye Institute and the UWA Institute of Advanced Studies and honours the work of Professor Ian Constable.

Professor Constable is recognised as one of the world’s leading ophthalmic surgeons. He was appointed the Lions Foundation Chair of Ophthalmology in 1975. In 1983 Professor Constable established the Lions Eye Institute (LEI) dedicated to the prevention and treatment of blindness and eye disease. Today the LEI is a not-for-profit centre of excellence that combines world class scientific research into the prevention of blindness with the highest level of eye care delivery, combining the expertise of researchers and ophthalmologists.

A public lecture by Hans van Ditmarsch, Senior Researcher, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France.

Consider this riddle: "A group of 100 prisoners, all together in the prison dining area, are told that they will be all put in isolation cells and then will be interrogated one by one in a room containing a light with an on/off switch. The prisoners may communicate with one another by toggling the light-switch (and that is the only way in which they can communicate). The light is initially switched off. There is no fixed order of interrogation, or interval between interrogations, and the same prisoner will be interrogated again at any stage. When interrogated, a prisoner can either do nothing, or toggle the light-switch, or announce that all prisoners have been interrogated. If that announcement is true, the prisoners will (all) be set free, but if it is false, they will all be executed. While still in the dining room, and before the prisoners go to their isolation cells (forever), can the prisoners agree on a protocol that will set them free?"

Dr van Ditmarsch's talk will present a solution, however his talk will mainly address such puzzles of knowledge in general. There are many others, such as the ‘Muddy Children Puzzle’ (also known as the ‘Wisemen Puzzle’), ‘Surprise Examination’, ‘Monty Hall’, etc. They often involve a (seemingly) paradoxical aspect making agents knowledgeable by announcements of their ignorance. There is a relation with the area in logic known as ‘dynamic epistemic logic’.

Hans van Ditmarsch is a senior researcher at CNRS (the French National Research Organization), and based at LORIA in Nancy, where he is heading the research team CELLO (Computational Epistemic Logic in Lorraine). He is currently an Institute of Advanced Studies Visiting Fellow at The University of Western Australia, working with Dr Tim French, Senior Lecturer in Computer Science and Software Engineering.

Death and grieving are essential aspects of human experience and imagining. And yet, discussion of both remains heavily circumscribed.

In this public forum we will lift the veil and peer into the unknown with special guests Dr Brooke Davis, Dr Fiona Jenkins and Dr Jennifer Rodger. We will consider the nature of death and grief from three critical perspectives: literature, philosophy and neuroscience. We will consider the manner in which stories may be used to translate grief, the nature of death itself, the ways in which death shapes the lives of the living, and the impact grief has on our brains. Our goal is to spark a conversation about mortality and our relationship to it, one that we hope will encourage greater critical reflection on cultural taboos that constrain the lived experience of loss.

Speakers:

Dr Brooke Davis - Brooke Davis holds an honours degree from the University of Canberra and a PhD from Curtin University, both in creative writing. 'Lost and Found', her first novel, received the Western Australian Premier's Book Award for Emerging Writers in 2016.

Dr Fiona Jenkins - Fiona Jenkins is Associate Professor in the School of Philosophy, RSSS, Australian National University. She is the author of five books, including 'Love, Death and Freedom', a treatise on French existential philosophy.

Dr Jennifer Rodger - Jennifer Rodger is an Associate Professor and NHMRC Senior Research Fellow at Experimental and Regenerative Neurosciences within the School of Animal Biology, at The University of Western Australia. She currently leads a research team investigating issues of brain plasticity relevant to brain disorders.

By Professor Henry Reynolds, University of Tasmania.

Henry Reynolds is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Humanities at the University of Tasmania. He grew up and was educated in Hobart and after a few years in Europe he took up a lectureship in history at the Townsville University College, now James Cook University, in 1967 remaining there until 1999. During that time he developed a strong interest in the history of settler/indigenous relations resulting in the publication of a series of books. Among his best-known titles are 'The Other Side of the Frontier', 'This Whispering in our Hearts', 'The Law of the Land', and 'Why Weren’t We Told'. His books have won many national prizes. His most recent work has been about the history of war and his two most recent books are 'Forgotten War', and 'Unnecessary Wars'.

I began teaching and researching Australian history fifty years ago this year. This lecture will reflect on my years as an historian. Living and working in north Queensland my interest turned to the history of race relations. At the forefront of my work was the situation of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders both in the past and the present. But north Australia also had in the nineteenth century a large Asian diaspora. Pursuing this distinctive local history forced me to question many aspects of traditional Australian historical writing. In doing so my career trajectory ran parallel with that of my near contemporary, colleague and friend Tom Stannage.

The Inaugural Tom Stannage Memorial Lecture

This memorial lecture commemorates the exceptional contribution made by Professor Tom Stannage (1944-2012) to the Western Australian community. Professor Stannage was a prominent Australian historian who worked hard to foster a wider understanding of Western Australian history and heritage. He is remembered as an inspiring teacher and a passionate advocate for the study of history.

A public lecture by Carmen Lawrence, Director of the Centre for the Study of Social Change, School of Psychology, The University of Western Australia.

Too often planning decisions are made without reference to their human impact, except in the narrowest sense of projected economic outcomes. Straight line thinkers overlook the deep connections between people and place and are particularly blind to the effects on people and their communities of destroying natural environments, native animals and plants. The decision by the current state government to proceed with the long abandoned extension of Roe Highway and in the process to destroy the Beeliar wetlands, raze the Coolbellup bushlands and dissect communities into polluted enclaves, illustrates just how destructive such decisions can be.

In this lecture, Professor Lawrence will explore research which demonstrates the powerful effects of place and the natural environment on human well-being and conversely what happens when such environments are destroyed. Using illustrations from the campaign to halt the construction of Roe 8, she will also explore the genesis of a powerful community of interest and the many ways people have found to give expressions to their desire to protect people and place.

By Dr Caroline Fleay, Senior Lecturer, Centre for Human Rights Education, Curtin University.

The responses of most political leaders to people seeking asylum lie in contrast to growing numbers of others in Australia who are disturbed by the impacts of policies on asylum seekers and their families. Over the past 25 years the responses of Australia’s major political party leaders have generally hardened when increasing numbers of people seeking asylum arrive in small boats. This is despite the fact that relatively few people have ever sought asylum in Australia compared with many other countries. The impact on asylum seekers of the harsh policies implemented by political leaders particularly over the last five years continues to be profound and lasting.

This includes the devastating consequences of policies that effectively prevent the reunion of refugees who came to Australia by boat, with their families. The majority of people who arrive by boat are men, reflecting the dangers of the long journey and their hope that they may at least get their immediate families to join them safely once they arrive. Instead, many women and children are now forced to remain in precarious and often dangerous and violent situations in their own or neighbouring countries. Australian policies prevent the safe passage of families to be re-united, forcing families to be rendered apart indefinitely.

This presentation will outline the adverse impact that Australian political leaders and their policies have on people seeking asylum and their families. It will also explore a range of community responses that challenge these policies, highlighting acts of solidarity, activism and community building that defy and challenge political attempts to dehumanise, punish and divide.

Dr Caroline Fleay is Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Human Rights Education, Curtin University, where she teaches human rights and conducts research into the experiences of people seeking asylum in Australia. She has been a regular visitor to some of WA’s sites of immigration detention and written extensively about the impacts on people seeking asylum of indefinite detention and being released into the community with minimal supports.

The Grace Vaughan Memorial Lecture

This annual lecture commemorates the life and achievements of Grace Vaughan, a social worker, social activist and parliamentarian, who was dedicated to the improvement of life at all levels and had a deep commitment to Australia’s participation in the Asian region and to ensuring women’s full participation in society. The lecture is presented by the Australian Association of Social Workers, the Institute of Advanced Studies at The University of Western Australia and Department of Local Government and Communities Western Australia.

A public lecture by Marc Orlando, Director of Translation and Interpreting Studies program, Monash University, Melbourne and 2017 Institute of Advanced Studies Visiting Fellow.

Working in a globalised and digitised world, and having to adapt to many different working environments, twenty-first century translators and interpreters face new challenges. They should therefore be trained to cope with the novel multifaceted realities of their profession. To meet these challenges and to gain the adaptability necessary to succeed in their role as linguistic and cultural mediators today’s and tomorrow’s practitioners should be exposed to, and learn from, the four dimensions of the Translation and Interpreting field: theoretical, technological, practical and professional.

This presentation will focus specifically on the training and education of interpreters. It will discuss today’s interpreting working environments, required skills and competence, modes of interpreting, technologies and equipment, as well as specialisations. The aim of this training is for twenty-first century interpreters to achieve the status of practitioners-researchers or practisearchers (Gile, 1995).

A public lecture by Dr Sue Wareham, Medical Association for Prevention of War

Many consider that the danger of nuclear conflict is as high now as it has ever been; worse, current simulations indicate that even a ’small’ nuclear conflict will produce not only catastrophic humanitarian consequences, but long-lasting effects on climate and food supplies. The Medical Association for Prevention of War, through its international arm The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) has led the push for the UN to make nuclear weapons illegal, a successful, if first, step in their eradication.

Dr Sue Wareham is a Canberra GP who joined the Medical Association for Prevention of War out of a “horror at the destructive capacity of a single nuclear weapon”. She is Vice-President of the Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia); and on the Australian Management Committee of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

This lecture is presented by the Institute of Advanced Studies and the The Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia). The MAPW works for the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction and the prevention of armed conflict.

A public lecture by John Davis, the Emiliana Pasca Noether Professor of Modern Italian History, University of Connecticut and 2017 UWA Fred Alexander Fellow.

Ever since Unification in the mid 19th century, the differences between the north and the south - the ‘Southern Question’ - have been a distinguishing feature of the modern Italian state. This discussion will focus on the period since the Second World War and will attempt to explain why in the last half century the disparities have increased and to examine the consequences, at a moment when for the first time popular secessionist movements similar to anti-party and anti-state movements elsewhere in Europe are spreading across southern Italy.

A public lecture by Associate Professor Kieran Dolin, English and Cultural Studies, The University of Western Australia.

Jane Austen's novels are celebrated for their irony and wit and their sharply observant account of the social life of gentry families in Regency England. Underlying the vivid immediacy of her fictional world is an awareness of prevailing social structures. Legal concepts and rules were important influences in shaping the ordinary understandings of life in her class. As Toronto lawyer Enid Hildebrand put it in 1982, 'Estates, settlements, trusts, wills were the everyday stuff of life to Jane Austen.' This lecture will explore some of the ways in which law figures in Austen’s novels and in her family.

About this Series - New Perspectives on Jane Austen

On the two-hundredth anniversary of her death, this UWA Institute of Advanced Studies - Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies Lecture Series presents new perspectives on the life and work of Jane Austen. Drawing upon the latest literary and historical research, UWA researchers tackle key themes in Austen's work and the wider social and cultural contexts in which she created her now world-famous novels.

A public lecture by Jacqueline L. Weaver, the A.A. White Professor of Law, University of Houston Law Center and Terence Daintith, Professorial Fellow, University of London’s Institute of Advanced Legal Studies

Easter Sunday will mark the seventh anniversary of the incident in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico when eleven workers on the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform died and almost five million barrels of oil poured into the Gulf from the Macondo well for 87 days. Yet the worst environmental disaster in US history failed to trigger any changes by the US Congress in safety or environmental laws offshore. Drilling activity in the Gulf’s deep waters rebounded in a short time. It is time to ask: is drilling in the Gulf safer now than it was before the disaster?

Professors Weaver and Daintith will reflect on this and other questions and there will be an opportunity for the audience to ask questions on international and domestic issues about the regulation of offshore petroleum in a Questions and Answers session.

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.

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.

Parody and Prejudice: Jane Austen's 'Northanger Abbey' and the Literary Gothic Tradition by Colin Yeo, Doctoral student, English and Cultural Studies, The University of Western Australia.

The late eighteenth century saw a proliferation of popular women writers of Gothic fiction. In the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen's death, it is worthwhile meditating on 'Northanger Abbey', a parody of Gothic fiction that is arguably one of Austen's 'lesser known' works. Austen's contribution to the Gothic as a textual mode that is self-aware cannot be understated.

This presentation aims to reflect on Austen's parody of established tropes and conventions of the Gothic. It also aims to situate 'Northanger Abbey' within its historical context as an important part of the Female Gothic tradition that emerged in the late eighteenth century.

The Tale of the Two Janes by Dr Peta Beasley, English and Cultural Studies, The University of Western Australia.

Born less than six months apart, both christened Jane, both from the same class, pseudo-gentry, both share a deep friendship and intimacy with their sister, both remain unmarried, both are in Bath at the same time and both novelists. However, to one, Jane Austen, literary history has been kind, the other, Jane Porter, unfortunately now virtually unknown. Ironic, given Jane Porter knew great success during her lifetime, dubbed by twentieth-century critic Robert Tate Irvine, as “the Margaret Mitchell of 1803,” while Jane Austen knew only slow-growing success during her lifetime. Although Porter, and her sister Anna Maria, admired Austen’s work enormously, it is unclear if Austen had reciprocal admiration for Porter’s work. But, there are two interesting intersections, both Porter and Austen had a professional scepticism (jealousy?) for the work of Sir Walter Scott, and both met, and were invited by the Royal Librarian, James Stanier Clark, to dedicate one of their novels to His Highness, the Prince of Wales. This presentation will tell the tale of the how the two Janes responded to the request.

A public lecture by Stacia Gordon, Associate Professor, University of Nevada-Reno.

The Himalayan mountain belt began to form as a result of the collision of India with Asia ~50 million years ago. This mountain belt continues to grow today, and has resulted in the largest mountains on Earth. As the Himalaya has grown taller, it also has grown deeper. At depth (~40 km below Earth’s surface), pressures and temperatures are so great as to begin to melt and ductilely deform rocks that were originally at the surface of India and Asia. These rocks form the base or the roots of the Himalayan mountain belt. Across the Himalaya, some of the rocks that were buried to these great depths have since been exhumed back to the surface. Tiny, but very rugged minerals extracted from these exposed rocks represent time capsules that preserve a record of the thermal, chemical, and temporal evolution of Himalayan rocks from burial to exhumation.

In this lecture Dr Gordon will trace this evolution through the Bhutanese Himalaya, describing how the tiny crystals reveal the role of melting, deformation, major fault systems, and erosion in the evolution of the mountain belt. The data collected from the active Himalaya are crucial for understanding ancient mountain systems where much of the record of their evolution has been erased.

Dr Gordon is a UWA Robert and Maude Gledden Senior Visiting Fellow.

Nigel Farage’s Brexit, Donald Trump’s presidency and Pauline Hanson’s comeback to Australian politics have all been labelled examples of populism. What was unthinkable a few years ago has become a reality. The revival of nationalism, xenophobia, economic and political isolationism and the mistrust of the elites appealed to many voters disappointed with traditional politics. The media has compared the new realities to the rise of National Socialism in Europe in the 1930s. However, a truly global perspective that includes the rise of populism in non-Western societies has received less attention. If the analogy to the 1930s is right but the scale of the populist phenomenon is bigger, are we heading for a global conflict that is greater than WWII? What can ordinary citizens do? In this public forum and Q&A, scholars from the University of Western Australia will discus the causes, current forms and possible consequences of populism in Australia, France, India, Indonesia, Turkey, the UK and the USA.

The period following the Second World War saw a massive increase in fishing effort, particularly in the 1960s. However, crashes due to this overfishing began to be reflected in global catch trends in the 1970s, and intensified in the 1980s and 1990s. In response, the industrialised countries of the Northern Hemisphere (where over fishing-induced catch declines appeared first) moved their effort toward deeper waters, and toward the south, i.e., to the coasts of developing countries, and beyond into the southern hemisphere, all the way to Antarctica. Now, in the second decade of the 21st century, the global expansion of fisheries is completed, and the real global catch, which is much higher than officially reported, peaked in the late 1980s and is now rapidly declining. In parallel, the collateral damage to marine ecosystems and biodiversity continues to increase. Several factors act to prevent the public in developed countries from realising the depth of the crisis fisheries are in, notably the increased imports by developed countries, of seafood from developing countries. Also, the misleading perception that aquaculture can substitute for declining catches is widespread. In some countries, notably the U.S., stocks are being rebuilt, but elsewhere, the failure to respond creatively to these clear trends bode ill for the next decades. Indeed, the effects of global warming (productivity declines in the tropics, widespread disruptions at high latitudes), which have been increasingly felt in the last decades, will strongly impact fisheries and global seafood supply.

In this public lecture, Dr Heather Nancarrow will examine the data on domestic and family violence through a legal lense. The lack of an intersectional policy analysis, which would consider race, class and gender, has resulted in unintended negative consequences of civil domestic violence laws in Australia. The problem is amplified for Indigenous women. This is demonstrated through a mixed methods research design that examines: 1) gender and race differences in the application of legislation that reflected gendered aspirations (but ignored race); and 2) the kinds of domestic violence that occurred and its contexts. The data analysed were parliamentary debates, linked administrative court and police records for people who had been charged with breaches of civil domestic violence orders, and interviews with service providers and police prosecutors. A major finding was that although legislation was premised on gender-based coercive controlling violence, the application of the law in practice was far broader, applying it to fights, which is neither effective nor appropriate. For domestic violence law to be effective, it must distinguish between coercive control and fights, and victims (not just police) must have choice about state intervention. The findings have implications for the design and delivery of interventions, including justice mechanisms, in intimate partner violence. Dr Heather Nancarrow has 35 years experience working on the prevention of violence against women, including direct service provision, policy and legislation, and research and professional development. Heather has held many leadership roles at both the state and national level in regards to the prevention of violence against women. She was co-Deputy Chair of the Council of Australian Governments’ (COAG) Advisory Panel to Reduce Violence against Women 2015-16. In 2014-15 she was a member of the Queensland Premier’s Special Taskforce on Domestic and Family Violence; and in 2008-09 she was Deputy Chair of the National Council to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children, which produced Time for Action, the blue-print for COAG’s National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010-2022. Heather has a PhD in Criminology and Criminal Justice. Her primary research interests are justice responses to violence against women, particularly as they relate to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Forty-eight years ago, a young and apprehensive Tony Kevin set off on his first diplomatic posting to Moscow at the height of the Cold War. In the Russian winter of 2016 he returns alone, a private citizen aged 73.

Tony Kevin had a successful and challenging diplomatic career, ending with ambassadorships to Poland (1991-94) and Cambodia (1994-97). In Return to Moscow he applies his attention to Vladimir Putin’s Russia, a government and nation routinely demonised and disdained in Western capitals. Why does President Putin arouse such a high level of Western antagonism? Is the West throwing away the lessons of recent history in recklessly drifting into a perilous and unnecessary new Cold War confrontation against Russia?

Tony Kevin invites readers to see this great nation anew: to explore with him the complex roots of Russian national identity and values, drawing on its traumatic recent seventy-year Soviet Communist past and its momentous thousand-year history as a great Orthodox Christian nation that has both loved and feared ‘the West,’ and which the West has loved and feared back in equal measure.

Tony Kevin is a former Australian career diplomat (1968-1998) who held diplomatic postings and ambassadorships in Moscow, UN New York, Poland and Cambodia. Since retiring from foreign service, he has been an active advocate for change in areas such as Australian asylum-seeker policy, border protection, and climate change.

He has written several books inspired by his career and life experiences, including A Certain Maritime Incident (Scribe 2004) which won the ACT Book of the Year Award and the NSW Premier’s Literary Award for Multicultural Writing in 2005; Walking the Camino (Scribe 2007), winner of the ACT Book of the Year Award 2008; Crunch Time (Scribe 2009), and Reluctant Rescuers (self-published 2012). In 2012 Tony Kevin was awarded an Emeritus Fellowship at Australian National University, Canberra, for his four books.

Culture Jamming is defined as a movement that mixes politics with graffiti, and satire with paint. Said by some to scramble “... the signal, injects the unexpected, and spurs audiences to think critically and challenge the status quo”, this presentation examines a new way for law and visualization to intersect. We will showcase some of the many artistic works produced by artists and children to protest the recent proposal to relocate Perth Modern School to an inner-city high-rise, as well as jamming sites which promote racial equality, and ask the question: Is this controversial way of visually expressing public resistance and opinion effective in ifluencing legislation? Should it be?