Events
at the University of Melbourne
The University is committed to hosting events and activations on its campuses in a COVIDSafe way, in accord with government restrictions and guidelines. Some of our events are presented on campus, others online – be sure to check the details. Find out more about the University’s COVIDSafe plans
Featured events
Jul
11
6:00pm - 7:30pm
Public Lecture
How can we act in time?
How can we act in time?
The most obvious way to unfold this question is to focus on how we might no longer avert, but at least slow, limit, and reduce the extent of our ecological disaster. Yet if we leap into analysis of climate and environmental policy – rolled back or watered down according to the economic or political conjuncture – or climate activism, we might miss what is at stake in the interrelation of collectivity, action, and time posed by the question itself.
In this lecture, I will follow Hobbes and Spinoza in categorising actions as a subset of the passions. Hence the question can be rearticulated: how do we find ourselves implicated in collective relationships to temporality via the passions? How do specific configurations of the passions socialise us into a particular experience of time? And how might an experience of time manifest our ‘being-together’, the actual collectivity that enfolds us?
On the basis of Vittorio Morfino’s research into plural temporalities in Marx and the Marxist tradition, the challenge for a theory of time as a collective passion is to show that, in what is taken to be one and the same society, there are plural temporalities at work. The second and more difficult challenge is to show that some of those temporalities are not fully or exclusively human, or machinic, but natural. It is only as cognisant of such plural times that an action might take the measure of catastrophe.
This public lecture will be delivered as part of the inaugural Melbourne Critical Theory Winter School, presented by the Critical Research Association Melbourne (CRAM).
Jul
12
6:00pm - 8:00pm
Public Lecture
Physics and renewable energy: Geothermal in the Latrobe Valley
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is an urgent need, especially for Victoria to reach its legislated emissions target of net zero by 2050. While she usually looks up at the stars in her astrophysics research, two decades ago Professor Rachel Webster started asking: what if the answer is beneath our feet? Just 150km from Melbourne, in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley, the layers of brown coal create the perfect environment to heat up the aquifer and provide one of the world’s best sources of emission-free sustainable geothermal power. In this talk Professor Webster will explore the science of geothermal energy which could be harnessed as an alternative to natural gas, giving an insiders tour of the current project to create the ‘Smart Geothermal Industrial Loop’ (SGIL).
Presented by Professor Rachel Webster.
This lecture forms part of the 2024 JULY LECTURES IN PHYSICS
A series of free public lectures exploring physics: from the most fundamental questions to its influence in society.
Physics and Sustainable Development
Scientists, politicians, and communities alike recognise the imperative to bridge scientific disciplines and forms of knowledge to address the complex challenges of our time. In this years lecture series, we ask what role physics has in meeting the UN’s Sustainable Development goals. Coinciding with the first year of the UN International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development, these lectures will explore the intersection between physics and sustainable development: from climate action to affordable and clean energy, education to gender equality and beyond.
