Annual Academy Lecture and Reception

Annual Lecture

Join us in Melbourne on 15 November for this year’s Academy Lecture. Academy President, Emeritus Professor Lesley Head FASSA FAHA explores how the human should be conceptualised in an Anthropocene world.

The Anthropocene is understood to be a new geological epoch in which human activities dominate Earth’s surface processes. If the Anthropocene is defined by the activities and impacts of people, it is paradoxically also a period that may shortly be out of human control due to rapid, unpredictable and non-linear changes. Climate change threatens many aspects of social and economic life as we know it.

The humanities have spent decades dismantling essentialised conceptualisations of the human, so why are they so persistent? The free-standing Enlightenment subject, the triumphalist unity of the human spirit, the exceptionalist pinnacle of evolution: these framings have always been problematic and are part of the hubris that got us to the present moment.

Part of the urgent work required is to reimagine ourselves in relation to the world. The onus continues to be on the humanities to lead this task, and Australia is a place from which to make distinctive contributions.

In this lecture, Lesley will distil a conceptualisation of the human as contingent, relational and differentiated. She asks, who is this we, the anthropos, and who must we become?

Return to Academy Lecture Website

Event details

Annual Academy Lecture: Emeritus Professor Lesley Head FASSA FAHA, President of the Australian Academy of the Humanities
Title: How should we conceptualise the human in an Anthropocene world?
Lecture Date: 5.30pm, 15 November 2023
Venue: G06 Theatre, Elizabeth Murdoch Building (Building 134), Spencer Road, Melbourne University

This event is being held in association with the 54th Annual Academy Symposium, Between humans & machines: exploring the pasts & futures of automation. To find out more and register for this special event click here.

100% of Humanitix booking fees associated with this event will go towards funding education projects for the world's most disadvantaged children to close the global education gap. 

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