ISAA CONFERENCE 2017
National Library 12-13 October
Revolution, Activism and Social Change
This year is the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Fidel Castro, a key agent of the Cuban Revolution of the 1950s, has died and Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, promising to transform the US government and economy.
There was a wave of democratic revolutions over the last 60 years, including the Hungarian uprising in 1956, movements starting in the mid-1970s that brought down dictatorships across the world, for example the expulsion of Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 in the Philippines, and the end of apartheid in South Africa in the early 1990s.
The Independent Scholars Association of Australia, (ISAA), has taken the theme Revolution, Activism and Social Change for its 2017 Annual Conference.
President of ISAA, Christine Yeats said: “Major social change comes from many sources and individual activists may play a central role. ISAA is delighted that members have responded so well to the theme. Papers cover a wide range of topics, including the role of women in changing society, and the German November Revolution of 1848.”
The Annual Lecture is always a highlight of the Conference, and this year The Legacy of the Russian Revolution, will be delivered by Dr David Christian, Director of Big History Institute and Distinguished Professor in History, Department of Modern History at Macquarie University, Sydney.
A special panel discussion commemorating the life and work of Emeritus Professor John Mulvaney AO CMG, a long-standing member of ISAA, will be led by Dr David Headon. Titled A Life Well-lived: the Legacy of John Mulvaney, will examine various aspects of Professor Mulvaney’s activism over his long life, including his major contribution to Australian archaeology.
The ISAA Conference will be held at the National Library of Australia.
WHAT: The 2017 ISAA National Conference – Revolution, Activism and Social Change
WHEN: Thursday October 12 and Friday 13, October 2017
WHERE: The National Library of Australia, Canberra ACT
INFORMATION: Meredith Hinchliffe, ISAA, Mob: 0412 186 646, email info@isaa.org.au
ISAA Website: www.isaa.org.au
David Christian, Director of Big History Institute and Distinguished Professor in History, Department of Modern History, Macquarie University, Sydney
will present the ISAA Annual Lecture on
Thursday 12 October 5.30 – 6.30 pm at the National Library of Australia
on the theme of: ‘The Russian Revolution in World History’
'The Legacy of the Russian Revolution': The project of building a better world has always been with us, and still is today. The Russian Revolution represents one of the most determined attempts ever to build a better and more equal world, in which most members of society could flourish. It clearly failed, and analysing the reasons for its failures is immensely important if we are to face the same question squarely a century later. Once again, issues of inequality loom large. But today, we have to deal with the new understanding that our biosphere sets limits to the amount of energy and resources we humans can consume. So, one of the most important legacies of the Russian Revolution is a question: can we build a better world, in which most people live flourishing lives, and can we do so without undermining the ecological foundations for such a world?
CV: David Christian (D.Phil. Oxford, 1974) is by training a historian of Russia and the Soviet Union, but since the 1980s he has become interested in World History on very large scales, or ‘Big History’. He taught at Macquarie University in Sydney from 1975 to 2000 before taking a position at San Diego State University in 2001. In January 2009 he returned to Macquarie University. From 2009 to 2013 he was a ‘World Class Universities Distinguished Professor’ at Ewha Womans University in Seoul; and over the same period, he has also held a position as a James Marsh Professor-at-Large at the University of Vermont. He was founding President of the International Big History Association, and is co-founder with Bill Gates, of the Big History Project, which has built a free on-line high school syllabus in big history. He is the Director of Macquarie University’s Big History Institute, and designer and lead teacher on Macquarie University’s MOOC in Big History.