The School of Political Science and International Studies Research Seminar Series brings together the School’s research community and domestic as well as international leaders in the field of politics and international affairs. Across each semester, the series showcases a diverse and exciting range of topics.

Artwork: Forme bleue (1935) by Sophie Taeuber-Arp

UQ POLSIS: 2022 Research Seminar Series

Listen to UQ's School of Political Science and International Studies Associate Professor Andrew Phillips discuss President Trump on ABC Evenings with Kelly Higgins-Devine.

UQ POLSIS: Trump Day on ABC Evenings

There is a widespread fear that the modern, ‘liberal’, international order is in crisis. Faced with multiple global challenges, from climate change and economic governance to nuclear arms control and global people movements, existing institutions increasingly appear outmoded, inefficient, and at times, dysfunctional. Meanwhile, existing institutional arrangements are being challenged by a diverse array of actors, from great powers (such as Russia) and transnational insurgents to right-wing nationalists. This university-wide seminar series is designed to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue on the possible futures of the modern international order. What challenges does it face, how will it evolve in the face of such challenges, what futures are desirable if it is to meet human and planetary needs?

Scholars are wrestling with these issues in a wide range of disciplines, from climate science and economics to history, philosophy, law, and political science. We have invited scholars from all fields currently working on issues relating to ‘futures of international order’ to present in this new seminar series. 

The Convenors of the program are Associate Professor Jacinta O’Hagan, Associate Professor Sarah Percy & Professor Chris Reus-Smit.

UQ POLSIS: 2019 Futures of International Order Seminar Series

The University of Queensland Visual Politics Seminar Series brings together internal, community, and international experts in the field of politics and international affairs. Across each semester, the series showcases a diverse and exciting range of topics.

UQ POLSIS: Visual Politics Seminar Series

UQ POLSIS: Turning Points International History Podcasts

Dr Josephine Bourne is a mainland Torres Strait Islander, born in Townsville, North Queensland.  She is a Gumulgal woman of Mabuiag Island through her father's ancestral line with links to Moa Island. On her mother's line Josephine's ancestry links to Badu, Mer and Dawar Islands. Her research interests focus on governance, leadership and organisational development by Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples. 

Friday, 11 March 2022
Discussant: Associate Professor Morgan Brigg

Theorising Indigenous Leadership in 21st Century Australia | Dr Josephine Bourne (UQ)

Professor Susan Sell of ANU RegNet provides a retrospective of the development of the study of intellectual property, at the intersection of law and power, an area of inquiry in which she has played a leading role.

Friday, 25 March 2022
Discussant: Shahar Hameiri

Intellectual Property, Law, and Power: A Retrospective on the Field | Professor Susan Sell (ANU)

Jess chats to Mey Orchard about all things recruitment, College and getting involved at UQ. Tune in to this episode to get insider advice from a UQ Project Coordinator and a former UQ and Emmanuel College student.

Episode 5 - Jess and Mey Orchard – Recruitment, College and Getting Involved at UQ

Moeko chats to medical student and actor Didi Leslie-Pyke about her experience balancing sciences and creative arts. We talk about how the medical and arts sectors have been affected both negatively and positively by COVID. We discuss the struggles and solidarity that come from studying during a pandemic. Featuring a cheeky cameo from Didi’s dogs Scarlett and Scout.

Episode 6 - Moeko and Didi Leslie-Pyke- Medicine and Acting during a pandemic… it’s been ruff.

Jess chats to David Titeu about Linkmate and mental health. Linkmate is an anonymous peer-to-peer social network for emotional support. It also offers volunteering and internship opportunities, allowing students to get involved in revolutionising how the world engages with mental health

Episode 7 - Jess & David - Linkmate & Mental Health

Lindy reflects on her experience after contracting COVID-19 and shares her helpful isolation and self-care tips.

Episode 8- Lindy Roos - Isolation Hacks and Self-Care

Moeko chats to counsellor, polyvagal & mindfulness coach, and founder of Find Your Flow Counselling, Yasuyo Uehara. We chat about how global events have made us turn inwards in all aspects; physically, mentally and emotionally. We talk about why and how mindfulness practices can help in day to day life.

Episode 9- Moeko and Yasuyo Uehara- Mindfulness and Meditation

In the final episode of The Unpredictable Podcast, Jess, Lindy and Moeko look back on the successes and challenges, favourite episodes and pieces of advice. A huge thank you to all our guests for coming on the show, and of course to you- our wonderful listeners!

Episode 10 - Jess, Lindy and Moeko- There’s always light at the end of the sh*t tunnel

Dr Ferran Martinez i Coma delivered a fascinating POLSIS research seminar entitled ‘The Personality of Populists’. The findings of this research (obtained with help of expert surveys, and published in West European Politics) show that Populist leaders have distinct personality traits. More specifically, the findings show that populists score lower on agreeableness, emotional stability and conscientiousness, but higher on extraversion, narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism.

Friday, 8 April 2022
Discussant: Shahar Hameiri

The Personality Of Populists | Dr Ferran Martinez i Coma (Griffith)

Dr Ellie Martus from Griffith University discusses her upcoming book project on the politics and policy of Russia and Climate Change. Dr Martus uses documentary analysis to go “beyond Putin” in describing how climate change policy is made in Russia. 

Friday, 13 May 2022
Discussant: Professor Alex Bellamy

Russia And Climate Change | Dr Ellie Martus (Griffith)

Dr Dara Conduit, Lecturer and DECRA Research Fellow in Political Science in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne, discusses her 2019 book 'The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria'. 

Drawing on extensive primary research including interviews with Brotherhood members, Dara Conduit looks to the group's history to understand why it failed to capitalise on this advantage as the conflict unfolded, addressing significant gaps in accounts of the group's past to assess whether its reputation for violence and dogmatism is justified. In doing so, Conduit reveals a party that was neither as violent nor as undemocratic as expected, but whose potential to stage a long-awaited comeback was hampered by the shadow of its own history.

Friday, 12 August 2022

The Muslim Brotherhood In Syria | Dr Dara Conduit (UniMelb)

A rapidly growing body of policy and regulation is reshaping firm-state relations in ways that have profound implications for the basic structure of the global economy. Above all, geostrategic competitors have begun to decouple from one another in terms of firm-state relations in the era after globalization as corporations emerge as both the state’s prime agents and its leading security risks.

Friday, 9 September 2022

Firms, States, Decoupling | Dr Jensen Sass (ANU)

The address by the former Prime Minister to launch 'Fair Share; Competing Claims and Australia's Economic Future' at Customs House, Brisbane on 15 March 2018

The Honourable Paul Keating launches 'Fair Share; Competing Claims and Australia's Economic Future'

Presented by Associate Professor Andrew Phillips, The University of Queensland. 

How the East was Won: Mimetic Imperialism, the Rise of the West and the Asian Roots of the Modern World 

This paper re-evaluates the 'rise of the West' by considering the British Raj alongside two of its most important Asian predecessors and counterparts - Mughal India and Qing China. Historical sociologists have long sought the origins of the West's global ascendancy in attributes supposedly unique to the post Reformation West, be it military-technological supremacy, or variants of institutional or ideological exceptionalism. By contrast, this paper seeks to enhance our understanding of the Western supremacy by stressing the powerful similarities it bore with Asian empire-building projects from the late sixteenth century onwards. Far from being exceptional, Western imperialists faced the same challenges that the Mughals and the Manchus had earlier confronted in conquering and ruling culturally diverse indigenous populations that vastly outnumbered them. The strategies Westerners employed - to build multi-ethnic conquest coalitions, to bind them to the imperial centre, and to pre-emptively break apart potential balancing coalitions - moreover bore profound resemblances to those employed by their Asian counterparts. Western imperialism in Asia succeeded more through imitation of local precedents and practices than through endogenous innovation. Acknowledging this reality is essential, not only to unsettle conventional binaries of 'East' and 'West', but also to provide a better understanding the decisive importance that the 'Asian' imperial model played in making the modern world. 

Andrew Phillips: https://polsis.uq.edu.au/profile/1348/andrew-phillips

How the East was won: Mimetic imperialism, the rise of the West & Asian roots of the modern world

Dr Daniel Angus is Senior Lecturer in computational social science at The University of Queensland.

Intended for a non-technical audience, this presentation introduces a machine-operated visual method designed to analyse large amounts of visual data on social media. Such a visual toolkit is important because many social media platforms are organised around the creation, sharing and consumption of images. And yet, most prevailing social media methods are designed to analyse either texts or networks of user connectivity.

About the Visual Politics Seminar Series: 
The University of Queensland Visual Politics Seminar Series brings together internal, community, and international experts in the field of politics and international affairs. Across each semester, the series showcases a diverse and exciting range of topics.

New Computational Methods for Visual Politics - 24 October 2018

This public roundtable presents insights from an interdisciplinary research project that explores how the Korean peninsula has been imagined, represented and displayed through images during critical historical and contemporary moments over the past century. Key questions we ask are: How did visual representations influence the material, social, political and cultural transformation on the Korean peninsula? What types of political insights can emerge from an appreciation of images and other visual artefacts?

With Michael Kim (Yonsei); Kyounghee Moon (Changwon); Danielle Chubb (Deakin); Shine Choi (Massey); Dong Bae Lee (UQ) and Min Jung Jee (UQ). Coordinated by Roland Bleiker (UQ), David Chapman (UQ) and David Shim (Groningen).

About the Visual Seminar Series: The University of Queensland Visual Politics Seminar Series brings together internal, community, and international experts in the field of politics and international affairs. Across each semester, the series showcases a diverse and exciting range of topics.

Visualizing Korea: Critical Moments in History, Society and Politics - 20 July 2018

The Hall Annual Lecture is given in honour of the founder of archaeology at The University of Queensland, Associate Professor Jay Hall. Associate Professor Jay Hall is the former Head of UQ’s Archaeology program. As well as an award-winning teacher, Jay is the editor of Queensland Archaeological research - a publication he started in 1984. Jay retired in 2007 after more than 30 years at the University. He is currently an Adjunct Reader in Archaeology in the School of Social Science at UQ. 

This event is supported by Everick Heritage Consultants.

About the lecture: The process of globalisation describes the changes and developments that took place as individual groups began to interact and inter-connect with their neighbours. Steger, in his 2010 work Globalisation defines it as the expansion and intensification of social relations and consciousness across world-time and world-space. To this, archaeologists would add the diffusion of material objects and ideas from group to group, often, as it turns out, with some rapidity over long distances. The past few decades have seen a growth in archaeological research into the prehistory of Eurasia, Central Asia and Western China, the heartlands of the ancient Silk Roads, revealing the story of the earliest faint connections between East and West in the Bronze Age, gradually consolidating through the Iron Age to emerge as the trade routes of Empires in the time of Roman and Han domination in West and East respectively.

This wide-ranging talk will explore the rise of interconnectedness across Asia from its ancient fragile beginnings to the Silk Roads of romantic imagination, exploring particularly the nature of contact and its often unanticipated outcomes.

About the presenter: Professor Alison Betts is Professor of Silk Road Studies at the University of Sydney with research interests extending from Western Asia to China. Her current major project is the excavation of an ancient royal citadel in Uzbekistan which has yielded remarkable new data on the early history of Zoroastrianism. Professor Betts also has a collaborative project to study the Bronze Age of western China and another to explore the Neolithic of Kashmir. Her key research themes include understanding ancient nomadic peoples, and East-West contact in prehistory, particularly the transmission of crops and metallurgical technologies.

2019 Hall Annual Lecture

Presented by Associate Professor David Pritchard, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland. 

Ancient Athens developed democracy to a higher level than any other state before modern times. It was the leading cultural innovator of its age. Athens is rightly revered for these political and cultural achievements. Less well known is this state’s extraordinary record of military success. Athens transformed ancient warfare and became one of the ancient world’s superpowers. There is a strong case that democracy was a major reason for this success. Political scientists have long viewed Athenian democracy as a source of fresh ideas. Presently they cannot satisfactorily explain the warmaking of modern democracies. Consequently the history of ancient Greece can provide Political Science with new lines of enquiry into how democracy impacts on international relations today. 

About the seminar series: There is a widespread fear that the modern, ‘liberal’, international order is in crisis. Faced with multiple global challenges, from climate change and economic governance to nuclear arms control and global people movements, existing institutions increasingly appear outmoded, inefficient, and at times, dysfunctional. Meanwhile, existing institutional arrangements are being challenged by a diverse array of actors, from great powers (such as Russia) and transnational insurgents to right-wing nationalists. This university-wide seminar series is designed to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue on the possible futures of the modern international order. What challenges does it face, how will it evolve in the face of such challenges, what futures are desirable if it is to meet human and planetary needs?

Scholars are wrestling with these issues in a wide range of disciplines, from climate science and economics to history, philosophy, law, and political science. We have invited scholars from all fields currently working on issues relating to ‘futures of international order’ to present in this new seminar series. 

The Convenors of the program are Associate Professor Jacinta O’Hagan, Associate Professor Sarah Percy & Professor Chris Reus-Smit.

From Where the Fine Warships Come: Democratic Athens at War - 3 April 2019

Presenter: Dr Radha Ivory (School of Law, Faculty of Business, Economics and Law, The University of Queensland).

Radha Ivory joins us from the UQ TC Beirne School of Law.  Radha teaches company law and writes on the intersection of criminal law, public international law, and corporate governance. Her most recent book is Corruption, Asset Recovery, and the Protection of Property in Public International Law: The Human Rights of Bad Guys (Cambridge University Press, 2014). Current projects include studies of the emergence and scope of corporate criminal liability regimes and the transnational legal theory of corruption controls. Prior to commencing at UQ, she worked in the international sector in Switzerland, where she worked for the Basel Institute on Governance, in the areas of collective action and asset recovery; and at Building Safer Organisations, an NGO self-regulation initiative on preventing sexual abuse and exploitation in the humanitarian sector. Radha has also worked in private practice in Brisbane. 

About the seminar series: There is a widespread fear that the modern, ‘liberal’, international order is in crisis. Faced with multiple global challenges, from climate change and economic governance to nuclear arms control and global people movements, existing institutions increasingly appear outmoded, inefficient, and at times, dysfunctional. Meanwhile, existing institutional arrangements are being challenged by a diverse array of actors, from great powers (such as Russia) and transnational insurgents to right-wing nationalists. This university-wide seminar series is designed to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue on the possible futures of the modern international order. What challenges does it face, how will it evolve in the face of such challenges, what futures are desirable if it is to meet human and planetary needs?

Scholars are wrestling with these issues in a wide range of disciplines, from climate science and economics to history, philosophy, law, and political science. We have invited scholars from all fields currently working on issues relating to ‘futures of international order’ to present in this new seminar series. 

The Convenors of the program are Associate Professor Jacinta O’Hagan, Associate Professor Sarah Percy & Professor Chris Reus-Smit.

Beyond Transnational Criminal Law: Corruption as Global New Governance - 20 March 2019

Dr Shields is the Atrocity Prevention Grants Program Manager at the Asia Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect and teaches at the School of Communication and Arts, The University of Queensland.

He looks at amateur photographs of the Third Reich and their recent proliferation on social media. He argue that they are a problematic form of trans-generational remembrance. He does so by examining this genre of photography via original intentions and the affective relationship the images establish with viewers - both at the time of production and now. He also asks about the millions of photographs of the Reich that show no immediate connection to crimes. What narrative do they build of the period, and how is this narrative being re-appropriated on social media today?

About the seminar series: The University of Queensland Visual Politics Seminar Series brings together internal, community, and international experts in the field of politics and international affairs. Across each semester, the series showcases a diverse and exciting range of topics.

A Zeitgeist of Atrocity: Amateur Photographs of the Third Reich  - 3 May 2019

Nicole George is Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies in the School of Political Science and International Studies at The University of Queensland. Her work responds to theoretical debates on gender peace and security, gender and institutional change, and the gendered impacts of pluralised systems of regulatory authority.

The island and atoll states of the Pacific are regular touch points in global debates on climate change. They are described as places that are highly vulnerable to extreme weather events as well as sea-level rise. I develop a comparative analysisof media imagery that aims to depict the Pacific experience of climate change. I focus, in particular, on the gendered dimensions of the issues at stake. I show – and problematize – how women are politically rewarded when their responses to climate change emphasize gendered tropes of maternal nurturing that link care for dependents with care for the environment and survival of indigenous culture more broadly.

About the seminar series: The University of Queensland Visual Politics Seminar Series brings together internal, community, and international experts in the field of politics and international affairs. Across each semester, the series showcases a diverse and exciting range of topics.

Media Images and the Gendered Politics of Climate Change - 24 May 2019

From the Peasants' Revolt to Jeremy Corbyn - The Fate of the Bible in the English Radical Tradition

The 2019 Ed Conrad Memorial Lecture, was held on Wednesday 29 May 2019. The lecture titled 'From the Peasants' Revolt to Jeremy Corbyn - The Fate of the Bible in the English Radical Tradition' was delivered by Professor James Crossley.

About the lecture: The Bible has been an ongoing feature in English political radicalism. While such uses of the Bible did not begin with the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, this particular revolt has commonly been seen as a convenient starting point. In this talk, Professor Crossley will use the Peasants’ Revolt and its reception to look at which biblical texts have been used, remembered, forgotten, and rethought in the English radical tradition. He will look at the ways in which historical and cultural contexts (e.g. the emergence of the labour movement, the tensions between revolutionary and parliamentary socialism, Cold War, folk music traditions, declining church affiliation, Brexit) have helped frame the ways the Bible, Englishness, radicalism, and the Peasants’ Revolt are currently understood and used in English political discourse.

About the presenter: Professor James Crossley joined St Mary’s University (Twickenham, London) in September 2015 as Professor of Bible, Society and Politics after 10 years at the University of Sheffield where he was Professor of Bible, Culture and Politics. His research and teaching interests can be put into two broad categories: Christian origins and Judaism in the 1st century; modern political receptions of the Bible, particularly (but not exclusively) in English political discourse. He has supervised and welcomes PhD students in both areas.

One of the ways he connects his interest in these two periods is through his focus on how people understand and negotiate historical change. His work on contemporary political rhetoric, for instance, looks at how the social, economic and geopolitical upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s led to distinctive ways of constructing what the Bible ‘really means’, both in English cultural and political discourse (e.g. Brexit, foreign policy, Corbyn, May, Benn, Thatcher, Blair, Cameron) and Anglo-American study of the New Testament. Similarly, his work on first-century Palestine looks at how socio-economic changes in Galilee and Judea intersected with traditions associated with Jesus and how these were then interpreted, ignored, rethought, modified, adapted, and so on.

He has published widely in both these areas. His current major project is on uses of the Bible in the English radical tradition from the Peasants’ Revolt to the present.

This lecture is organised by the School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry and is held in loving memory of Ed Conrad, who was an internationally recognised scholar in the Studies in Religion Program at The University of Queensland for many years. His text “Reading Isaiah” was a ground breaker in thinking about the way biblical texts are read in the context of living communities. Ed always had a keen interest in the Bible and Contemporary culture. Linda Conrad, Ed’s widow, and an accomplished scholar in her own right, sponsors this annual lecture in order to promote ongoing interest in this very important field, here in Queensland.

2019 Ed Conrad Memorial Lecture, presented by Professor James Crossley

Sarah Percy discusses the Cold War with Professor Nick Bisley, from the Berlin Crisis onwards.

Turning Points - The Cold War - the Berlin Crisis of 1948 and beyond

Sarah Percy discusses the end of World War II and the origins of the Cold War with Professor Nick Bisley: how did wartime allies become superpower enemies?

Turning Points: The end of World War II and the Origins of the Cold War

Sarah Percy and Andrew Phillips discuss the Paris Peace Conference and the Treaty of Versailles with Andrew Webster (Murdoch University).

Turning Points: The Treaty of Versailles

Sarah Percy and Andrew Phillips talk about the invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11 with Professor Theo Farrell (Wollongong).

Turning Points: The origins of the "Forever War" in Afghanistan

Sarah Percy and Andrew Phillips talk about the political crises of the interwar period with Andrew Webster (Murdoch University) and Andrew Bonnell (UQ). How did these crises lead up to war in 1939?

Turning Points:  Interwar Political Crises

Sarah Percy and Andrew Phillips discuss how the economic crises of the interwar period transformed the world economy, and the economic impact on the politics of the period. Our guests are Wes Widmaier (Griffith) and Andrew Bonnell (UQ)>

Turning Points: International Economic Crises in the Interwar Period

Eliza Garnsey is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in International Relations at the University of Cambridge. Her book, The Justice of Visual Art: Creative State-Building in Times of Political Transition, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press.

Art is a radical form of political participation in times of transition. Arising out of fieldwork at the Constitutional Court of South Africa and the South Africa Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, which included 130 interviews with key decision makers, I explore three novel and important areas of transitional justice: the theoretical framing of justice and art; the visual jurisprudence of justice measures developed in transition; and, the cultural diplomacy practices of states emerging from conflict.

About the seminar series: The University of Queensland Visual Politics Seminar Series brings together internal, community, and international experts in the field of politics and international affairs. Across each semester, the series showcases a diverse and exciting range of topics.

Visual Jurisprudence and Cultural Diplomacy in South Africa - 16 August 2019

Originally from South Africa, Lola currently lives in the UK and is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Department of War Studies, KCL. Work from her art exhibitions can be found in major public collections in South Africa and solo exhibitions in UK. Lola has published papers on politics, ethics and aesthetics. In 2019 she is a Visiting Fellow at both ADFA, UNSW Canberra and the Centre for Law, the Arts and Humanities at ANU. 

This paper explores what is at stake in a politics and ethics of representation in contemporary art and politics. As a foray away from the western tradition of sublime landscape painting, the paper draws on the author’s own de-territorializing art and also ventures into the terrain of Australian Aboriginal art. In doing so the paper builds on the ethos of dream-painting to engage the nexus between power and knowledge in the context of representational democracy.

About the seminar series: The University of Queensland Visual Politics Seminar Series brings together internal, community, and international experts in the field of politics and international affairs. Across each semester, the series showcases a diverse and exciting range of topics.

Dream Painting and the De-territorialisation of Democratic Politics - 26 August 2019

Marguerite’s publications include Ethical Restoration after Communal Violence (2018), Wonder and Generosity (2013), The Analytic Imaginary (2002), Integrity and the Fragile Self, with Damian Cox and Michael Levine (2003), the edited collections Phenomenology and Forgiveness (2018), and Contemporary Perspectives on Vladimir Jankélévitch, with Magdalena Zolkos (forthcoming 2019). 

No presents the television campaign for the 1988 plebiscite on whether the Pinochet regime should stay as the government for eight more years (‘Yes’) or hold democratic elections (‘No’). The ‘No’ campaign uses the Aristotelian idea that happiness is an intrinsic value and thus the best concept to galvanise a traumatised nation in favour of change. My paper examines the film’s presentation of how a response to the trauma of the regime becomes transformed into resistance through the idea of a possible future happiness.

About the seminar series: The University of Queensland Visual Politics Seminar Series brings together internal, community, and international experts in the field of politics and international affairs. Across each semester, the series showcases a diverse and exciting range of topics.

Filiming the Chilean Plebiscite: Trauma and Resistance in Pablo Larrain's NO

Associate Professor Sarah Percy from the UQ Graduate Centre in Governance & International Affairs is featuring in a four-part ABC Radio National series on the Cold War. The series 'Why the Cold War Still Matters' discusses how the Cold War ended, and why it matters for international politics. UQ Chancellor Peter Varghese AO and Associate Professor Andrew Phillips from the School of Political Science and International Studies also feature in the series. All podcasts are available for download on the ABC website.

Why The Cold War Still Matters

Why the Cold War still matters — The year no-one saw coming

Why the Cold War still matters — The fall of an empire

Why the Cold War still matters — Repression and dissent

Why the Cold War still matters — The superpower standoff

Listen to UQ's School of Political Science and International Studies Associate Professor Andrew Phillips discuss President Trump on ABC Evenings with Kelly Higgins-Devine. (Sarah Howells stepping in for Kelly Higgins-Devine this episode)

'Trump Day' - 19 May 2020

Aboriginal Political Design: The Future of Politics and International Order is Indigenous

Presenters: 
Associate Professor Morgan Brigg & Dr Mary Graham (School of Political Science and International Studies, The University of Queensland)

Dominant Western political thought is significantly beholden to the individual, sovereignty and territory as foundational concepts. This conceptual architecture is unfit for current needs because it is proving largely unable to facilitate a useful response to the maddening populist denial of climate change. However, long before European political ideas came to the Australian continent, the elders of this place engaged in a long-term process of evolutionary political design that came to use landscape as a template for socio-political ordering. By becoming human in Country, Aboriginal people established the relational embedding of people with a sentient landscape, each other, and other-than-human beings. This system guards against anthropocentric hubris and delivers key basic political goods, including long-term security. One way to access and explore the insights and possibilities of this ancient system, and to secure a politics that delivers on key human needs, is to substitute Aboriginal concepts for individual, sovereignty and territory: autonomy for individualism, relationality for sovereignty, and Country for territory.

About the seminar series: There is a widespread fear that the modern, ‘liberal’, international order is in crisis. Faced with multiple global challenges, from climate change and economic governance to nuclear arms control and global people movements, existing institutions increasingly appear outmoded, inefficient, and at times, dysfunctional. Meanwhile, existing institutional arrangements are being challenged by a diverse array of actors, from great powers (such as Russia) and transnational insurgents to right-wing nationalists. This university-wide seminar series is designed to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue on the possible futures of the modern international order. What challenges does it face, how will it evolve in the face of such challenges, what futures are desirable if it is to meet human and planetary needs?

Scholars are wrestling with these issues in a wide range of disciplines, from climate science and economics to history, philosophy, law, and political science. We have invited scholars from all fields currently working on issues relating to ‘futures of international order’ to present in this new seminar series.

The Convenors of the program are Associate Professor Jacinta O’Hagan, Associate Professor Sarah Percy & Professor Chris Reus-Smit.

Aboriginal Political Design: The Future of Politics...  23 October 2019

Presenter: Associate Professor Andrew Phillips (School of Political Studies and International Studies, The University of Queensland).

We frequently imagine the end of international orders as cataclysms, driven by ‘big bang’ shocks such as Great Power wars or system-rending ideological schisms. This template maps well onto Western Europe’s post-Reformation experience. But it fits poorly when applied to early modern South and East Asia. In Mughal India and Ming China, ‘hopeful monsters’ took over existing regional orders only after prolonged periods of infiltration and subversion. Moreover, once they finally did embark on large-scale conquest, the English East India Company and the Manchus triumphed through the mass recruitment of indigenous collaborators, as well as the systematic appropriation and re-purposing of local ideas and institutions. Finally, once consolidated, the British Raj and the Qing Empire bore extensive cultural and institutional traces of their predecessors, which were re-mixed and re-assembled than being entirely replaced.

This paper will analyse how international orders in Asia have historically ended through infiltration and subversion rather than out-right overthrow, and will explore the lessons these Asian great transformations can offer in comprehending the current challenges and likely fate of today’s liberal international order.

About the seminar series: There is a widespread fear that the modern, ‘liberal’, international order is in crisis. Faced with multiple global challenges, from climate change and economic governance to nuclear arms control and global people movements, existing institutions increasingly appear outmoded, inefficient, and at times, dysfunctional. Meanwhile, existing institutional arrangements are being challenged by a diverse array of actors, from great powers (such as Russia) and transnational insurgents to right-wing nationalists. This university-wide seminar series is designed to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue on the possible futures of the modern international order. What challenges does it face, how will it evolve in the face of such challenges, what futures are desirable if it is to meet human and planetary needs?

Scholars are wrestling with these issues in a wide range of disciplines, from climate science and economics to history, philosophy, law, and political science. We have invited scholars from all fields currently working on issues relating to ‘futures of international order’ to present in this new seminar series.

The Convenors of the program are Associate Professor Jacinta O’Hagan, Associate Professor Sarah Percy & Professor Chris Reus-Smit.

How International Orders End: What Asia's Imperial Past can tell us... 25 September 2019

'Trump Day' 27 May 2020

Liberal Militarisation

Presenters:
Dr Frederica Caso (School of Political Science and International Studies, The University of Queensland)

Dominant Western political thought is significantly beholden to the individual, sovereignty and territory as foundational concepts. This conceptual architecture is unfit for current needs because it is proving largely unable to facilitate a useful response to the maddening populist denial of climate change. However, long before European political ideas came to the Australian continent, the elders of this place engaged in a long-term process of evolutionary political design that came to use landscape as a template for socio-political ordering. By becoming human in Country, Aboriginal people established the relational embedding of people with a sentient landscape, each other, and other-than-human beings. This system guards against anthropocentric hubris and delivers key basic political goods, including long-term security. One way to access and explore the insights and possibilities of this ancient system, and to secure a politics that delivers on key human needs, is to substitute Aboriginal concepts for individual, sovereignty and territory: autonomy for individualism, relationality for sovereignty, and Country for territory.

About the seminar series: There is a widespread fear that the modern, ‘liberal’, international order is in crisis. Faced with multiple global challenges, from climate change and economic governance to nuclear arms control and global people movements, existing institutions increasingly appear outmoded, inefficient, and at times, dysfunctional. Meanwhile, existing institutional arrangements are being challenged by a diverse array of actors, from great powers (such as Russia) and transnational insurgents to right-wing nationalists. This university-wide seminar series is designed to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue on the possible futures of the modern international order. What challenges does it face, how will it evolve in the face of such challenges, what futures are desirable if it is to meet human and planetary needs?

Scholars are wrestling with these issues in a wide range of disciplines, from climate science and economics to history, philosophy, law, and political science. We have invited scholars from all fields currently working on issues relating to ‘futures of international order’ to present in this new seminar series.

The Convenors of the program are Associate Professor Jacinta O’Hagan, Associate Professor Sarah Percy & Professor Chris Reus-Smit.

Liberal Militarisation - 11 September 2019

Turning Points: The World In 1900

'Trump Day' 30 September 2020

'Trump Day' 7 October 2020

'Trump Day' 21 October 2020

At The University of Queensland Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, we strive to give knowledge leadership in a wide and diverse range of research and teaching programs, including: anthropology, archaeology, art history, classics, communication, criminology, cultural studies, drama, history, international relations, journalism, languages, linguistics, literature, media studies, music, political science, philosophy, sociology, and world religions.

CRICOS Code 00025B

UQ Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

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