News and events

News and events

Events

2018

Date	Event	Description
9th November 2018	Monstrous Life: a workshop to mark the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein	In this workshop Professor Oron Catts, (Director of SymbioticA, The Centre of Excellence in Biological Arts, School of Human Sciences, The University of Western Australia) will ask: what does it mean to control life? From laboratory mice with cancer growths, to insect pests and hormone-injected chickens, to ocean creature that defy easy taxonomic classification, how are monsters and the monstrous made through process control and establishing boundaries? Participants will be encouraged to respond to such questions and their consequences within the context of their own research. The workshop is organised by the Environmental Humanities Research Stream, and has received funding through the Societal Transformation Theme, Faculty of Arts, Macquarie University.
8th November 2018	The Spectacle of Science: Humanities at the Crossroads of Innovation	A showcase event on the intersection between Art and Science will highlight the way humanities methods have been used to propel and communicate scientific discovery. The three presenters are: Professor Oron Catts, tissue engineer, artist, curator and researcher is the co-founder and director of SymbioticA, the Centre of Excellence in Biological Arts within the School of Anatomy and Human Biology at the University of Western Australia; Kathryn Millard, filmmaker, essayist, archivist, interdisciplinary scholar, and Professor in Film and Creative Arts in the Department of Media, Music, Communication & Cultural Studies at Macquarie University; and Jennie Hudson, Professor and Director of the Centre for Emotional Health at Macquarie University and Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, and Joe Lander, multi-disciplinary Artist in Residence in the Faculty of Human Sciences, Macquarie University Each of the three projects represents the integration of scientific and humanities methods for the transformation of our understanding of the world and our place within it.
2 November 2018	The Anthropocene: The Promise and Pitfalls of an Epochal Idea A Workshop with Prof Rob Nixon	Over the past ten years, we have seen three entangled developments: the rise of the environmental humanities; the increasing centrality of environmental justice to environmental studies; and the ascent of the Anthropocene as a bridge between the concerns of humanists, artists, social scientists, biologists and geologists. This workshop engages with the possibilities and the tensions among these developments. Supported by the Sydney Environmental Humanities Lecture Series, this workshop will be held at UNSW.
1 November 2018	Environmental Martyrdom and the Fate of the Forests	Rob Nixon, Professor in Humanities and Environment at Princeton University and author of the award-winning Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor, explores the surge in environmental martyrdom around the world over timber, water, land and mineral rights. Martyrdom is direct action in extremis, he says. But why are so many people sacrificing their lives? And what is the relationship between the fallen martyr and the felled tree? This public lecture forms part of the inaugural HumanNature: the Humanities in the Time of Environmental Crisis lecture series held in partnership with the Australian Museum, UNSW, WSU and University of Sydney.
18 October 2018	Dark Emu	This event is sponsored, jointly, by the Environmental Humanities research stream and the Markers of Authenticity research series, Faculty of Arts, Macquarie University.Bruce Pascoe explores and challenges the colonial myths that have often underpinned efforts to justify dispossession. This exploration and requires nothing less than a complete reorientation of our understanding of Aboriginal culture. Though his readings of the diaries of early explorers, Pascoe argues that it is time to take a new look at Australia’s past. This public lecture forms part of the inaugural HumanNature: the Humanities in the Time of Environmental Crisis lecture series held in partnership with the Australian Museum, UNSW, WSU and University of Sydney.
11th October 2018	The Authenticity of Landscape Seminar	‘Towards a genealogy of wetlands: Categories of conservation, bird migration and global environmental crisis’ Dr Emily O’Gorman (Department of Geography & Planning, Macquarie University) offers a genealogy of wetlands, in particular focusing on how it became a category of conservation, shaped by understandings of bird migration and an emerging sense of a global environmental crisis in the 1960s and 1970s. It situates this discussion within experiences in Australia, where changing understandings of transcontinental bird migrations, Pacific diplomacy, and ideas of habitats and habitat loss, converged to shape government scientists’ involvement in the Ramsar Convention of Wetlands of International Importance 1971. Dr O’Gorman examines wetlands as a category defined by and laden with specific sets of values, shaped by particular expertise and relationships with certain animals and plants, and deeply connected with Australasian and Pacific circulations, both human and more-than-human. This event is sponsored by both the Environmental Humanities research stream and the Markers of Authenticity research series, Faculty of Arts, Macquarie University. ‘John Hardyng’s Scotland: Landscape, Heritage and Authenticity in the Fifteenth Century’ Dr Alice Marchant (ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions: Europe 1100–1800, University of Western Australia) will present on the Northumbrian knight John Hardyng (d. c.1465) who was employed as a cartographer to create a map of Scotland for inclusion in his recently completed chronicle history of Britain. What Hardyng desired most through the creation of this cartographic image was to convince successive English kings to gather an army and invade the land that it charted. Alongside the map and chronicle, Hardyng submitted legal documents that he claimed to have collected in Scotland but which turn out to be forged. The case of Hardyng and his failed interventions in English politics raise intriguing questions regarding authenticity, heritage and landscape.
16 July 2018	Feminist Posthumanisms: Lives in Ruins: A workshop with Cate Sandiland	The seminar’s purpose is to create a collaborative space for thinking through intersectional, multispecies feminist perspectives on posthumanism by reading and discussing Larissa Lai’s novel Salt-Fish Girl (2002), which highlights interspecies lives, memories, and intimacies in the midst of technocapitalist and other ruins. Held at the University of Sydney, this workshop is supported by the Sydney Environmental Humanities Lecture Series.
12 July 2018	Garden: Feminist Botany for the Age of Man	Catriona Sandilands of York University in Toronto, Canada, explores a feminist approach to humans’ complex relationship with plants. This public lecture forms part of the inaugural HumanNature: the Humanities in the Time of Environmental Crisis lecture series held in partnership with the Australian Museum, UNSW, WSU and University of Sydney. A podcast of the event has been published.
14 June 2018	Plant: Taupata, Taro, Roots, Earth: The (Indigenous) Politics of Gardening	Alice Te Punga Somerville, from the Faculty of Maori and Indigenous Studies at the University of Waikato, explores the histories and future possibilities of Indigenous gardening in the Pacific region. This public lecture forms part of the inaugural HumanNature: the Humanities in the Time of Environmental Crisis lecture series held in partnership with the Australian Museum, UNSW, WSU and University of Sydney. A podcast of the event has been published.
24 May 2018	Life: Living Biological Objects on the Pedestal	Oron Catts (Director of SymbioticA, an artistic laboratory at the University of Western Australia) asks questions about the role that art has played and continues to play in shifting understandings of what life is and does. This public lecture forms part of the inaugural HumanNature: the Humanities in the Time of Environmental Crisis lecture series held in partnership with the Australian Museum, UNSW, WSU and University of Sydney. A podcast of the event has been published.
April 26th-27th 2018	Eating the Anthropocene: What and how should we eat in a climate-changing world?	Organised by Dr Donna Houston, Associate Professor Andrew McGregor, Dr Margaret Raven (Department of Geography and Planning, Macquarie University) this two-day symposium/workshop will bring food researchers, activists and authorities together to envision future food challenges and transitions. Day 1 will be comprised of academic presentations in the form of short provocations and discussions. Day 2 will focus on activism and practice, exploring generative opportunities to rework food systems in creative, fair and just ways.
23 April 2018	Climate: Cultures of Climate	Mike Hulme, Professor of Human Geography, University of Cambridge (UK) Professor Hulme explores the ways climates are changed, blamed, feared and redesigned, amid the politics of climate change. This public lecture forms part of the inaugural HumanNature: the Humanities in the Time of Environmental Crisis lecture series held in partnership with the Australian Museum, UNSW, WSU and University of Sydney. A podcast of the event has been published.
8 March 2018	Extinction: Gifts of Life in the Shadow of Death	Deborah Bird Rose from the School of Humanities and Languages at UNSW, she examines the intersection of humans, animals and landscape, and the fragility of their relationships in the face of environmental crisis and loss. HumanNature: the Humanities in the Time of Environmental Crisis lecture series held in partnership with the Australian Museum, UNSW, WSU and University of Sydney. A podcast of the event has been published.
16 February 2018	‘Writing the Environment’: A Workshop with Tom Griffiths	Multi-award winning author Professor Tom Griffiths will lead a writing workshop at Macquarie University, a workshop that will discuss techniques and approaches to writing non-fiction with special attention to the challenges and opportunities of integrating the environment into historical narratives. This workshop is supported by the Sydney Environmental Humanities Lecture Series.
15 February 2018	Time: Radical Histories for Uncanny Times	Tom Griffiths, Professor of History, Australian National University, AM Eureka Prize-winner discusses the historian’s craft and its importance amid profound environmental and social change. Professor Griffiths will explore how Australian understandings of the past have shaped our environmental possibilities. This public lecture forms part of the inaugural HumanNature: the Humanities in the Time of Environmental Crisis lecture series held in partnership with the Australian Museum, UNSW, WSU and University of Sydney. A podcast of the event has been published.

2017

Date	Event	Description
11 December 2017	One-day Seminar: ‘Environmental Change and the Historical Imagination: Ancient, Medieval, Modern’	Professor Jeffrey Jerome Cohen of George Washington University, USA, is a leading scholar of medieval literature who brings an innovative deep-historical approach to his practice of interdisciplinary ecocritical writing. Professor Cohen’s keynote address is entitled: ‘Noah's Arkive: Groundless Reading from the Beginning Until the End of Time.’ The day will also feature a roundtable discussion of an extract from Professor Cohen’s 2017 co-authored book Earth and will also feature presentations by researchers from Macquarie University’s Faculty of Arts, including Associate Professor Malcolm Choat, Professor Louise D’Arcens, Dr Clare Monagle, and Professor Ray Laurence. This event is sponsored, jointly, by the Environmental Humanities research stream and the Markers of Authenticity research series.

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