Challenging (the) Humanities
Australian Academy of the Humanities 43rd Annual Symposium
Parramatta campus of the University of Western Sydney
15-16 November 2012
The Australian Academy of the Humanities 43rd Annual Symposium will be held at the Parramatta campus of the University of Western Sydney, 15-16 November 2012. Convened by Professor Tony Bennett FAHA and hosted by the Institute for Culture and Society, the theme for this year’s symposium is ‘Challenging (the) Humanities’.
The humanities are currently presented with a rare combination of intellectual challenges: changing policy environments and priorities necessitate new styles of thought and intervention; the still-unfolding financial crises urges a rethink of the economy and the interdisciplinary issues at stake in its investigation; there is increasing emphasis on the role played by material forces – technologies and infrastructures – in organising social life; and new cross-disciplinary concerns have been prompted by post-humanist perspectives and the environmental challenges presented by the conception of the anthropocene.
The humanities have responded vigorously to these changing contexts. New paradigms for critical thought and its modes of social and political engagement have resulted in significant challenges to purely scientific, technocratic or economistic framings of policy challenges and solutions. Significant theoretical innovations and new research orientations have illuminated the role of ‘things’ in social life while also rethinking the concepts of matter and materialism. Humanities scholarship has brought new light to bear on the ways in which the human is always shaped by its relations to the non-human in its environmental, technical and animal forms. The increasingly prominent role of Indigenous perspectives in Australian intellectual life has prompted widespread recognition of the relevance of Indigenous knowledges to the practices of Australian universities.
The Academy’s 43rd Annual Symposium will debate the contemporary challenges that face the humanities and the challenging responses that these have elicited.
Speakers:
- Professor Kay Anderson FASSA, University of Western Sydney
- Associate Professor Susan Green, University of New South Wales
- Dr Martijn Konings, University of Sydney
- Professor Laikwan Pang, Chinese University of Hong Kong
- Associate Professor Tess Lea, University of Sydney
- Dr Jane Lydon, Monash University
- Professor Stephen Muecke FAHA, University of New South Wales
- Professor Brett Neilson, University of Western Sydney
- Associate Professor Christopher Otter, Ohio State University
- Professor Paul Patton FAHA, University of New South Wales
- Associate Professor Irene Watson, University of South Australia
- Professor Gillian Whitlock FAHA, University of Queensland
- Dr Asmi Wood, Australian National University
A draft programme of events can be found at the symposium website.