::fibreculture:: CCCS Public Lecture: 14th October @ 5.30pm. Prof Graeme Turner - Humanities and the University in Australia

[Geert Lovink]

> Thursday 14th October 5.30-6.30pm
> Social Sciences and Humanities Library Conference Room
> Level 1 Duhig Building  (Bldg 2) St Lucia Campus
>
>
>
> The Humanities and the University in Australia
>
>         Professor Graeme Turner
>
> Over the last two decades we have seen successive governments  
> downgrade the value and importance of higher education in Australia.  
> The Rudd government may have temporarily arrested the steady decline  
> in the funding environment, but there remains much to be done to  
> keep our higher education system operating at an international  
> standard. A most worrying long term trend has been the steady  
> instrumentalisation of higher education – a focus on vocational and  
> professional outcomes as the primary purpose of its teaching  
> programs, and a privileging of industry partnerships in research  
> funding.  The controversy over the restructuring of the Gillard  
> government ministry is among the more recent indicators of this  
> trend, as the initial removal of portfolio titles which explicitly  
> mentioned education and research was seen as signalling an alarming  
> narrowing of the presumed function of higher education. In this kind  
> of context, the humanities disciplines have been especially  
> disadvantaged. Many research funding programs and many of the  
> national research strategies exclude the participation of the  
> humanities, and the case for a humanities education is looking  
> increasingly vulnerable as the broader function of education seems  
> no longer to be recognised, let alone advanced, by government.  In  
> this lecture, drawing on many years of working between the  
> university sector, government and other peak organizations dealing  
> with the humanities, Professor Turner will discuss what he describes  
> as a crisis for the humanities disciplines as they struggle to  
> maintain their distinctive presence in Australian universities today.
>
> Professor Graeme Turner FAHA is ARC Federation Fellow and Director  
> of the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies at the University of  
> Queensland. His research has produced 21 books, and his work has  
> been translated into 9 languages, but this lecture will draw upon  
> his experience in dealing with government and the university sector  
> as a representative of the humanities over many years. In recent  
> years, Professor Turner was the chair of the trial ERA for  
> Humanities and Creative Arts (2009), the chair of the National  
> Collaborative Research Information Strategy Working Group for  
> Humanities and Creative Arts (2008), a member of the ARC ERA  
> Indicators Committee for Humanities and Creative Arts (2008), and  
> the ARC College of Experts for the Humanities and Creative Arts  
> (2002-2004). As President and, before that, Vice-President, of the  
> Australian Academy of the Humanities (2002-2007), he has represented  
> the humanities on the National Academies Forum, the Australian  
> Research Information Infrastructure Committee, the National  
> Curriculum and Achievement Standards Committee, and many other fora,  
> such as the National Summit on National Research Priorities. He is  
> one of only two humanities academics to have been appointed as a  
> personal member of the Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and  
> Innovation Council since the Council was established during the  
> Hawke government.
>
> This lecture will be chaired by Professor Gay Hawkins, Deputy  
> Director, CCCS, UQ.    Members of the public are invited to attend  
> this free lecture, after which light refreshments will be served.
> Getting here: We encourage people to use public transport to reach  
> the University where possible – for more details on this please  
> follow the link: http://www.translink.com.au/uq  alternatively,  
> parking vouchers for the UQ multi-level parking building [see map]  
> at the St Lucia Campus are available to assist members of the  
> community who attend this free public lecture. The vouchers, which  
> waive the parking fees for the multi-story parking building, are  
> only available for collection from Centre staff at the event.
>
>                             Further information: Rebecca Ralph- ph.  
> 3346 7407 or email on admin.cccs at uq.edu.au
>


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