Putting humanities to work in a chaotic world: dynamic interdisciplinarity and community engagement. This project will rethink theories and methods in humanities and social sciences so that they can make a more direct contribution to the community. It will build stronger interdisciplinarity across these various fields. It will incorporate ideas from science, from chaos theory, to make it more powerful and science-friendly. It will develop the new theory out of a series of strategic collaboration ....Putting humanities to work in a chaotic world: dynamic interdisciplinarity and community engagement. This project will rethink theories and methods in humanities and social sciences so that they can make a more direct contribution to the community. It will build stronger interdisciplinarity across these various fields. It will incorporate ideas from science, from chaos theory, to make it more powerful and science-friendly. It will develop the new theory out of a series of strategic collaborations with local government, industry and community players, around critical incidents. This will be new theory, but with strong links with existing disciplines, offering good humanities and social science academics methods and models for a more engaged research.Read moreRead less
The changing nature of national identity and its relationship to other forms of identity. By providing a cultural understanding of the relationship between nationalism and other forms of identity, this project sets the background for understanding the nature of Australian identity as we embark upon the difficult passage from a post-imperial peripheral jurisdiction to a potentially more open, generous and constructive polity. The project contributes to the recently added National Research Priorit ....The changing nature of national identity and its relationship to other forms of identity. By providing a cultural understanding of the relationship between nationalism and other forms of identity, this project sets the background for understanding the nature of Australian identity as we embark upon the difficult passage from a post-imperial peripheral jurisdiction to a potentially more open, generous and constructive polity. The project contributes to the recently added National Research Priorities category, 'Safeguarding Australia: Understanding our Region and the World' - not in the sense of identifying 'the threat' to Australia, but rather in the much more important long-term sense of understanding ourselves in a global, historical and comparative context.Read moreRead less
Spinoza, Kant and Deleuze on freedom and ethical difference: an immanent approach. Transcendent moral philosophies, such as those in the Kantian tradition, have significant disadvantages when it comes to developing ethical and political tools for multicultural communities such as Australia, as they lack the flexibility to negotiate between moral and religious groupings adhering to competing moral absolutes. In using Deleuze's thought to develop a non-transcendent or immanent approach to ethics, ....Spinoza, Kant and Deleuze on freedom and ethical difference: an immanent approach. Transcendent moral philosophies, such as those in the Kantian tradition, have significant disadvantages when it comes to developing ethical and political tools for multicultural communities such as Australia, as they lack the flexibility to negotiate between moral and religious groupings adhering to competing moral absolutes. In using Deleuze's thought to develop a non-transcendent or immanent approach to ethics, the project seeks to address this problem. It will provide a means of negotiating this plurality of beliefs without recourse to transcendent or universal values, or to any one dominant moral code. This approach aims to have a marked impact on national debate over the philosophical and practical possibilities of such an ethics.Read moreRead less
Art and Human Rights in the Asia-Pacific: The Limits of Tolerance in the Twenty-First Century. The question of human rights is emerging as perhaps the most critical issue of the twenty-first century. This project aims to develop a cross-disciplinary methodology and a set of conceptual frameworks for analysing the interactions between contemporary art and global discourses on human rights in the Asia-Pacific. In the process we address the debate on universality versus cultural specificity in rel ....Art and Human Rights in the Asia-Pacific: The Limits of Tolerance in the Twenty-First Century. The question of human rights is emerging as perhaps the most critical issue of the twenty-first century. This project aims to develop a cross-disciplinary methodology and a set of conceptual frameworks for analysing the interactions between contemporary art and global discourses on human rights in the Asia-Pacific. In the process we address the debate on universality versus cultural specificity in relation to human rights issues, and we seek to place current Australian responses to human rights in the context of the dynamically changing region in which we live.Read moreRead less