ISAA National Newsletter - No. 35
If the next issue of the ISAA Review explores the idea of complexity in science, then this issue of the ISAA Newsletter demonstrates very clearly the range and complexity of ISAA members' scholarly interests: on the scientific side, research into conceptual modelling in physics and cognitive models in behavioural analyses; in the humanities, biography, translation and history – civic (the founding of Canberra), social (Hindmarsh Island and restitution for the Aboriginal people of Western Arnhem Land) and environmental (Antarctic sealing and the Australian landscape). The NSW Chapter's July seminar, Righting/Writing the Wrongs of History will expand even further the oral and written record of ISAA's achievements. The theme of the 2011 ISAA National Conference, Perversions of Prejudice – how bias distorts, will give ample opportunity to set the record straight over many facets of our contemporary – and historical – social fabric.
ISAA is now committed to participating in the Internet age and has entered into three nonexclusive licence arrangements with recognized academic databases that will enable ISAA Review articles to be accessed on-line (by subscribers to the databases) thus enabling these articles to be read by a larger audience, especially by the academic community. In addition, at its last meeting, the National Council agreed to accept a quote from Wave Source Design to enable the ISAA website to be professionally refurbished.
Many people still feel daunted by the relentless, seemingly inevitable, invasion of their professional, social and personal spaces by the World Wide Web. In his recent Quarterly Essay, 'The happy life: the search for contentment in the modern world' (Issue 41, 2011), David Malouf gives us some comfort. He begins by discussing the possibility that the [human] mind – 'or, more precisely these days, the brain – is still evolving, and at an increasing rate as technology presents it with new forms to master and new stimuli to respond to…So long as there is more to be discovered and made, more to grasp for and make real, we must go on inventing ourselves. And as technology goes on increasing, and at greater speed, so the agency in us that allows us to deal with the world must go on evolving to keep up with it.'
Malouf never loses sight of what it means to be human: 'What is human is what we can keep track of. In terms of space this means what is within sight, what is local and close; within reach, within touch.' It is in embracing the infinite space of digital technology, without losing the human touch of here and now, that perhaps we can find contentment in the modern world.