Category: Annual Themes

  1. Were These the Good Old Days? The 1919 Flu Pandemic in Australia

    As we watch the global COVID-19 pandemic unfold, some scholars are looking back to the history of the worldwide influenza pandemic of 1918 to 1920. Mary Sheehan, PhD student in SHAPS, discusses the experience of those events 100 years ago in Australia, in this blog post, republished from Living Histories. Watching the rapid spread of […]

    blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2020/03/15/were-these-the-good-old-days

  2. Our Savage History of Fighting Bushfires

    This Australian summer brought with it devastating bushfires affecting many communities around the country. In Victoria, the bushfire season is frequently at its peak in February, but this summer has seen severe fires burning out of control much, much earlier. The hot northerly winds scorched parks and gardens, bringing soaring temperatures which all added to […]

    blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2020/02/13/our-savage-history-of-fighting-bushfires

  3. Walls 2019

    The 2019 SHAPS theme is “Walls” — walls we build to exclude and contain the Other, to control the movement of people, bodies, information, capital, ideas. Speakers will approach the theme from a range of disciplinary perspectives. Marking the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, we look at the historical rise and […]

    blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2019/01/01/walls-2019

  4. Truth 2018

    In 2018 speakers included David Christian (Macquarie), Philip Pettit (ANU/Princeton), Harry Collins (Cardiff), and Greg Restall, Robyn Sloggett and Frederik Vervaet (SHAPS), who delivered public lectures on the subject of Truth. Professor David Christian Big History & Truth: Knowledge as Mapping (co-hosted with the History Council of Victoria, this was also the 2018 Kathleen Fitzpatrick […]

    blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2018/01/01/truth-2018

  5. Love 2017

    The theme for the 2017 SHAPS Public Lecture Series was “Love”. This was part of a broader series of events on this theme, in particular, the ARC Centre for the History of Emotions’ flagship collaborative exhibition, Love: Art of Emotion 1400-1820 at the National Gallery Victoria Each of the School’s five disciplines presented a lecture in the series, approaching the theme […]

    blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2017/01/01/love-2017

  6. Identities 2016

    Who am I? What does it mean to be human? Where do I belong? These have always been central and urgent questions for the humanities. The 2016 SHAPS flagship public lecture series explored such questions under the broad theme of “Identities”. The concept of identity, both individual and collective, is fraught with complexity. There has […]

    blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2016/01/01/identities-2016

  7. Conflict 2015

    Selected content from the 2015 SHAPS public lecture series on ‘Conflict’: Dr David M. Pritchard (University of Queensland), War and Military Spending in the Ancient Athenian Democracy Professor Guoqi Xu (University of Hong Kong), The First World War and China’s Great Awakening Rodric Braithwaite (British ambassador to the USSR under Gorbachev and award-winning writer and […]

    blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2015/01/01/conflict-2015

Number of posts found: 37