Sydney Ideas

Our greatest task is to try to imagine the future before it arrives and then to try to shape it. Will the buzzwords ‘innovation’ and ‘agility’ come to mean more than increased efficiency and wealth fo...

14 Jun 20161h 24min

The unrivalled corpus of medieval manuscripts unearthed in the northwestern Chinese desert town of Dunhuang in the early twentieth century divulged a trove of secrets about the practice of Chinese Bud...

9 Jun 20161h 4min

This talk explores how the manifesto became a defining genre of the artistic avant-garde and other political movements across the 20th century, from Futurism and Surrealism to radical feminist manifes...

9 Jun 20161h 11min

Why was Zika virus declared an international public health emergency by the World Health Organization? What are the implications for people living in Australia? What other infectious diseases pose a r...

8 Jun 20161h 10min

Data is the currency of the digital age and has transformed all areas of physical life and social sciences. In all disciplines there has been an unparalleled growth in the quantity and variety of data...

7 Jun 20161h 27min

This talk was a key note address for the 2016 Photography.Ontology symposium that took place at the University of Sydney in June 2016. Professor Smith considers Frederick Douglass’s propositions abou...

2 Jun 20161h 8min

Constructed, neglected, rebuilt and expanded over the course of nearly a century, the Qing imperial park of Bishu shanzhuang played a central, but constantly changing, role in the history of the Manch...

1 Jun 201654min

Scientists have long thought that the adult brain is unchangeable, but new evidence is emerging to challenge this belief by revealing that the brain is capable of lifelong change and adaptation. This...

1 Jun 20161h 41min