What's On at UWA

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

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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!

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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.

School of Indigenous Studies hosts this year’s National Indigenous Legal Conference in partnership with UWA Law School, Notre Dame Law School and the Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia.

The conference will attract around 150 delegates from the legal profession and will feature prominent keynote speakers from the Indigenous legal community to discuss current and emerging Indigenous legal rights issues.

The theme of this year’s conference is, Sovereign Laws, Peoples and Voices’, and it will examine amongst other topics:

Indigenous sovereignty under international law

Constitutional reform

The Uluru Statement from the Heart

Domestic sovereignty and self-determination claims

Native Title Bodies Corporate (prescribed body corporates and registered native title body corporates) across the Kimberley

Criminal justice issues, challenges and opportunities; the Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia.

Delegates at the conference will have the opportunity to hear a range of speakers including the Honourable Robert French AC, Professor Megan Davis, Professor Irene Watson and Adjunct Professor Dennis Eggington.

To register visit: www.nilc2018.com.au

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.

In her recent book, Rosa Brooks concludes that as the tasks being assigned to the military expand, it has become more difficult to define and limit its institutional role. This paper examines ways to understand the teleology of the military as a social institution (i.e. the institutional purpose or ends for which it exists). First, I examine the view that the purpose of the military is to “kill people and break things.” I demonstrate that this “warrior mindset” is inadequate for defining the ends of the modern military, which is more than a mere instrument for doing harm or fighting wars. Next, I critique an approach that says the teleology of the military is to carry out the state’s responsibility for defending the “life” of a political community from external threats. I then contrast this approach with a cosmopolitan perspective that argues that the moral purpose of the military should be to protect human rights. I conclude that a morally responsible state should use its military to defend the common good. This means that a state’s military should defend the common good of the political community it serves. This includes, but is not limited to, fighting wars against external aggression. But it also means that a state has important moral responsibilities to the common good outside the interests of its own narrowly defined political community. Importantly, it has a moral obligation, albeit weakened by various key factors, to use military force to protect the lives of outsiders.

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.

The City of Perth Library, UWA Institute of Advanced Studies and Boffins Books, are delighted to present Gillian Triggs on 'Speaking Up'.

As president of the Human Rights Commission, Gillian Triggs advocated for the disempowered, the disenfranchised, the marginalised. She withstood relentless political pressure and media scrutiny as she defended the defenceless for five tumultuous years. How did this aspiring ballet dancer, dignified daughter of a tank commander and eminent law academic respond when appreciative passengers on a full airplane departing Canberra greeted her with a round of applause? Her book 'Speaking Up' shares with readers the values that have guided Triggs' convictions and the causes she has championed. She dares women to be a little vulgar and men to move beyond their comfort zones to achieve equity for all. And she will not rest until Australia has a Bill of Rights. Triggs' passionate memoir is an irresistible call to everyone who yearns for a fairer world.

Professor Gillian Triggs served as President of the Australian Human Rights Commission from 2012 to 2017. She has held many significant academic positions, including director of the British Institute for International and Comparative Law and dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Sydney. She is currently a Vice-Chancellor's Fellow at the University of Melbourne and Chair of Justice Connect.

Please note that ticket purchases for this event are made on the Boffins Books website.

Tickets: $15

A public lecture by Michael Corballis, Emeritus Professor of Psychology, University of Auckland.

From the Bible to Chomsky, language is a miracle, unique to humans, and emerging as a single event, initially in a single individual, within the past 100,000 years.

In this lecture, Professor Corballis will argue instead for a Darwinian approach. Language evolved primarily to allow our species, and its forebears, to communicate about the nonpresent and share mental travels in space and time. Mental time travel itself goes far back in evolution, and our capacity to communicate about it emerged through gesture and pantomime, gradually refining into the miniaturized form of gesture that we call speech.

Michael Corballis is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Auckland. He was born and educated in New Zealand, then obtained his PhD from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, where he taught for some years before returning to Auckland. In 2016 he received the Rutherford Medal of the Royal Society of New Zealand for his work on brain asymmetry, language evolution, and mental time travel. His latest book is 'The Truth about Language', published by University of Chicago Press in 2017.

The Callaway Lecture is one of the most prestigious events in the calendar of the Conservatorium of Music. In collaboration with the Kodály National Conference, we are delighted to welcome Professor David Elliott, author of ‘Music Matters: A Philosophy of Music Education’ and Professor of Music and Music Education at New York University, to present the 2018 Callaway Lecture.

David, who is a leading figure in the area of music education philosophy will present a lecture entitled:

What is music, and what is education? Philosophical exploration of music and musical values, and how this relates to education.

Please join us for refreshments from 630pm. The lecture will commence at 7pm.

Entry is free - RSVP to [email protected]

When our ancestors migrated out of Africa 100,000 years ago, a highly perfected killing machine was unleashed on the rest of the world, catching the local fauna off-guard. Wherever we travelled since then, we left a trail of destruction behind us: species have gone extinct on every continent that we invaded, from the wholly rhino in Europe to the giant wombat (Diprotodon) in Australia. But, even though pre-historic extinctions have a strange tendency to coincide with human arrival, there is a lack of solid evidence demonstrating exactly when, and how, humans caused animals to die out in the past, because of the eons of time passed since it happened. In particular, the highly fragmented nature of many zoo-archaeological bone assemblages pose a challenge in the interpretation of past interactions between people and fauna. My PhD project explores an alternative approach to study faunal remains found at archaeological sites. By sequencing DNA from less valuable material, such as sediment or highly fragmented bone remains, we analyse the species composition in three study areas: Greenland, New Zealand and Texas. We found that certain species tend to be missed by traditional approaches. For example whale species were detected at surprisingly high quantities in Greenland and in New Zealand. Furthermore, in New Zealand, we were able to describe the decline in genetic diversity that occurred in the native k&#257;k&#257;p&#333; population after human arrival 750 years ago. Lastly, in Texas, we detected a sudden drop in biodiversity for both flora and fauna at the onset of the Younger Dryas 12,900 years ago. But, while plant diversity recovered when temperatures rose again, animal diversity did not, suggesting that something other than climate change was to blame for the loss of faunal diversity in North America…

The 2018 Fred Alexander Lecture by Kirsten McKenzie, Professor of History, University of Sydney.

A serial imposter swindles his way through the colony of New South Wales claiming to be a British lord. An activist lawyer is lauded for exposing illegal slave dealing – until he is revealed as an escaped convict in disguise. The mysterious pregnancy of an unmarried young woman transforms into a debate about colonial constitutions. The official commissions of enquiry sent out to investigate the British empire in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars never dismissed such stories as unimportant local gossip. Scandals, they knew well, were part of the mesh of people, power and information that bound the empire together. Can historians use them in the same way?

In this lecture Professor Kirsten McKenzie reflects on two decades of her own investigations into empire. In so doing, she considers the role that seemingly marginal characters, and ostensibly trivial disputes, might play in much larger forces of social change. Just as scandals today tell us about the world we live in, so the often-forgotten scandals of colonial societies can reveal the texture and drama of their past.

Kirsten McKenzie is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and Professor of History at the University of Sydney, where she has been based since 2002. As a Rhodes Scholar from Cape Town, South Africa, she completed her D.Phil at Magdalen College, Oxford in 1997. She is the author of 'Scandal in the Colonies: Sydney and Cape Town, 1820 – 1850' (Melbourne University Publishing, 2004), 'A Swindler’s Progress: Nobles and Convicts in the Age of Liberty' (University of New South Wales Press and Harvard University Press, 2009/2010) and 'Imperial Underworld: An Escaped Convict and the Transformation of the British Colonial Order' (Cambridge University Press, 2016). She was awarded the Crawford Medal by the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2004. 'A Swindler’s Progress' was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History, 2011 and the Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-Fiction, Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, 2010.

Professor McKenzie is the 2018 UWA Fred Alexander Fellow.

The Fred Alexander Fellowship is dedicated to the memory of Professor Fred Alexander (1899-1996), the founding Head of the History Discipline (then Department) at The University of Western Australia.