17th Annual Interventions and Intersections HDR Conference 2025

📅 Dates: 25 and 26 November 2025 📍

Location: Western Sydney University, Parramatta City Campus - Level 7

Ideas are intangible concepts that become tangible - even powerful - through their varied expressions. Research in culture, society, humanities, communications and the arts merge tangible research and intangible ideas together.

2025 marks the 17th Annual Interventions and Intersections Conference, but this is the first time in WSU’s history where the School of Humanities and Communication Arts and the Institute for Culture and Society have teamed up to showcase the extraordinary talents and diversity of all Masters and Doctorate candidates and their research projects. This year’s conference is about bringing people together, celebrating shared values, and provides a great opportunity for you to present in front of a live audience!

“Tangible Ideas, Powerful Impact” gives HDR students from both schools the opportunity to share and hear each other’s diverse research, as well as engage face-to-face with other students, hear from keynote speakers, enjoy live music and food.

Call for Abstracts (Closed)

Abstract submissions closed on Friday 26 September 2025.

Thank you to all those who have submitted an abstract.

Abstracts align with at least one of the following sub-themes:

Connection: is where healing begins; it starts with recognising the space between us and building a bridge to span that space. It is the first spark of unity, the beginning of every shared story.
Coexistence: is the art of living side by side in harmony, even when our shapes, colours, and rhythms are not the same. In today’s world, coexistence means finding balance not only with people and nature, but with the worlds we create — from the technologies we design to the systems that are fundamental to us.
Belonging: is the imprint of trust, respect, and openness that makes connection possible, binding us with a thread that holds, yet is supple enough to let us grow uniquely.
Creativity: is our shared ability to express ourselves authentically and explore unique, unconventional ways of thinking; creativity connects, innovates, and allows us to grow together through diverse perspectives.

Keynote Speakers

	Day 1 Professor Paul James Paul James is Emeritus Professor of Globalization and Cultural Diversity in the Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University. He is author or editor of over 30 books, including Global Crisis and Insecurity: The Human Condition Darkly (Cambridge University Press, 2025) and Globalization Matters: (with Manfred Steger, Cambridge University Press, 2019). He has been an advisor to agencies and governments, including to the Berlin Senate, the Canadian G40 process, the Timorese Commission on Reception, Truth and Reconciliation, and the Papua New Guinea Minister for Community Development. From 2007 till 2014 he was Director of the United Nations agency, the Global Compact Cities Programme.
Day 2 Dr Uma Srinivasan Dr Uma Srinivasan, a Computer Scientist turned writer, was born in India and now lives and works on the land of the Wangal people in Sydney. As a computer scientist she contributed to foundational technologies in AI and data science long before ChatGPT became a household word. As a historical fiction writer, she brings forgotten voices of history to life in a modern, global context. Uma says research is the common thread that connects her two worlds. Her recent historical novel, Etched in Gold, spans four centuries and two continents, as it follows the intertwined lives of two women striving to preserve their creative voices while navigating social constraints. The manuscript was shortlisted for the 2023 Write-It Fellowship by Penguin Random House Australia. Uma believes that creativity is not merely an output, but a transformative experience — one that can shift perspectives, cross boundaries, and change lives.

Day 1

Professor Paul James

Paul James is Emeritus Professor of Globalization and Cultural Diversity in the Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University. He is author or editor of over 30 books, including Global Crisis and Insecurity: The Human Condition Darkly (Cambridge University Press, 2025) and Globalization Matters: (with Manfred Steger, Cambridge University Press, 2019). He has been an advisor to agencies and governments, including to the Berlin Senate, the Canadian G40 process, the Timorese Commission on Reception, Truth and Reconciliation, and the Papua New Guinea Minister for Community Development. From 2007 till 2014 he was Director of the United Nations agency, the Global Compact Cities Programme.

Day 2

Dr Uma Srinivasan

Dr Uma Srinivasan, a Computer Scientist turned writer, was born in India and now lives and works on the land of the Wangal people in Sydney. As a computer scientist she contributed to foundational technologies in AI and data science long before ChatGPT became a household word. As a historical fiction writer, she brings forgotten voices of history to life in a modern, global context. Uma says research is the common thread that connects her two worlds.

Her recent historical novel, Etched in Gold, spans four centuries and two continents, as it follows the intertwined lives of two women striving to preserve their creative voices while navigating social constraints. The manuscript was shortlisted for the 2023 Write-It Fellowship by Penguin Random House Australia.

Uma believes that creativity is not merely an output, but a transformative experience — one that can shift perspectives, cross boundaries, and change lives.

Day 1 Panel Discussion

Supervision and an HDR Candidature

This discussion will hear from three recently completed/graduated HDR candidates from the School of Humanities and Communication Arts and the Institute of Culture and Society. Panellists will discuss their experiences of supervision, the different dynamics they observed and their thinking on what works best for them. This discussion will support HDR candidates in all candidature stages, and aid in bringing a thoughtful eye to the realities of supervision from both the candidate and supervisor points of view.

Don’t miss the chance to hear James and other HDR candidates live and deliver powerful insights! To attend the conference, register using the link in the bio 📢

Discussion Facilitator - Associate Professor James Gourley

James Gourley is an Associate Professor in Literary Studies at the School of Humanities and Communication Arts and Writing and Society Research Centre. His research looks at literature in the context of crisis from the personal to the planetary, reading texts from around the planet written most often in the 20th and 21st centuries. He is a former Associate Dean HDR for the School.

Day 2 - Concurrent Workshops

Dr Antje Missbach

Writing with Refugees

The written word is considered a powerful tool for communicating a viewpoint. Refugees take up writing for many different reasons, i.e. to transport their story with their own words, to protest or advocate about injustices they experience, but also as a means to seek healing from traumatic experiences. Writing is hard work and should be renumerated, but earning a living from writing is easier said than done.

In this workshop, I will share my insights from a collaborative writing project that deals with the early career stages of a refugee journalist and writer who lived many years in Indonesia.

The session invites students to exchange ideas on how to best write with/for/about refugees and doesn’t shy away from critical issues, such as risk, unwanted exposure and confidentiality.

Eleni Christou

What defines your practice? Values for working within and among Community

How can humanities scholars work authentically among community? What does collaboration really look like? This workshop is an opportunity to gain insight into applying practical skills, intention and empathy when working with and among community outside of academia. Students will be invited to think through ideas and methodologies that could form the basis of their practice.

Eleni Christou is a Creative Producer with a Masters of Applied Anthropology, living and working on Gadigal and Dharug Land. Her practice is centred around community collaboration, ancestral re-collection and the local. Over the last 12 years, Eleni has applied her ethnographic approach in working in community and cultural contemporary arts, presently focusing on capacity building and knowledge sharing.

Christiane Keys-Statham

Nicole Campbell

Riverwalk Seminar

The Riverwalk Seminar combines exercising our minds and our bodies as we engage around a particular topic, enjoy a walk and appreciate the diverse landscapes that surround us.

Christiane Keys-Statham will talk about doctoral research, “The Porous Museum: Embedding cultural infrastructure in place and community,” and how museums are rapidly evolving from collection-centred institutions into active civic agents, attempting to engage more ethically with communities and landscapes. Nicole Campbell will lead a discussion about our conference themes in the context of “From Western Sydney laneways to global discourse.”

We will discuss how, through our research, we are building and strengthening our personal and cultural connections and developing our academic voice. We will also consider how our research can contribute to discourse on contemporary issues at a local, national and international level.

Please wear a hat, sunscreen, walking shoes and take bottled water. The maximum number of participants for the Riverwalk Seminar is 20.

Music will be provided by Avaye Rood and CozyMinimal.

A copy of the full program and student abstracts will be provided by email.

If you have any queries, please contact: hca_icspostgradconference@westernsydney.edu.au

Contact the host of Tangible Ideas, Powerful Impact - Interventions and Intersections HDR Conference 2025