Professor Joseph Camilleri 2016 Lecture Series

The Winter Of Our Discontent And The Promise Of Spring

September 2016 Lectures

In these four lectures Professor Camilleri will address one of the most critical yet poorly understood ailments of our time, the psychology and culture of violence, and its remedies.

The lectures will consider both the global and Australian contexts. The violence to be explored will range from family violence to gang warfare, from the narcotics trade to rising military budgets, from civil unrest to conflicts in the Middle East and Asia, from escalating nuclear dangers to the plunder of our natural environment.

The lectures will also examine the many efforts, often far removed from the public gaze, that are aiming for a more peaceful and harmonious world. New trends and creative initiatives are under way – locally, nationally and internationally – which hold the promise of more cohesive and caring societies committed to human flourishing. 

The lectures will help to make sense of a world in profound transition where forces, old and new, are contending to shape the human future.

‘The Age of Extremes’: From the ‘Great War’ to the killing fields of Syria

Tuesday 6 September

The first lecture puts the spotlight on one of the most momentous periods in human history. Over the last hundred years, mass violence has been relentless and pervasive: two world wars, the Holocaust, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Cold War, a succession of regional and global crises, civil and inter-state wars, genocides and bloody revolutions, and now terrorism, the ‘war on terror’ and a nuclear threat that shows no sign of ending.

It is easy enough to list these events, but how are we to explain the evil they entail. Who or what is responsible? Can human psychology or culture shed any light? Do our economic and political arrangements hold the key? Are the extremes of violence we’re experiencing unavoidable, or can we learn from the lessons of history?

Tickets $15 per lecture
or
$50 season pass (all for lectures)

Dates:
Tuesday 6 September
Tuesday 13 September
Tuesday 20 September
Tuesday 27 September

Please note seating is limited 

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