Upcoming events
The Institute of Advanced Studies hosts public lectures and events presented by our visiting scholars and guests.
These events contribute to our goal of sharing research, ideas and encouraging discussion and debate within the community-at-large.
11 August
MASTERCLASS
The Politics of the Possible
Presenter: Professor Luis Alvarez, Department of History, UC San Diego and 2026 UWA Fred Alexander Fellow.10am-1pm, IAS Boardroom
Popular Culture is everywhere. Music, film, TV, and visual art infuse our daily life with hope and visions of a better world. They also reinforce debilitating economic and social inequities. The production, consumption, and circulation of pop culture reorders race and ethnic identities, invigorates and short circuits social movements, and unearths both utopian and dystopian impulses in broader society. Taking pop culture seriously can uncover histories determined less by racial or territorial logic than interracial and transnational currents, where pop culture matters to social movements and vice versa, and where dreams of a more just future are embedded in the everyday lives of ordinary folk. This collaborative masterclass explores pop culture as history, not simply the history of pop culture. It considers the liberating possibilities of popular culture and the ways it stifles, co-opts, and distorts identity and politics in the 20th and 21st centuries. This masterclass encourages attendees to come prepared to share ideas from their ongoing research in 3-5 minutes.
12 August
PUBLIC LECTURE
On Race, Borders, Migration, and Football
Speaker: Professor Luis Alvarez, Department of History, UC San Diego and 2026 UWA Fred Alexander Fellow.6pm-7pm, Fox Lecture Hall, Arts, UWA
17 August
PUBLIC LECTURE
From Photoshop to Public Safety: Navigating AI's Opportunities and Risks
Join John Penn II, Senior Architect for Law Enforcement Technologies at Adobe and a recognised leader in digital trust and public safety, for a thought-provoking exploration of how generative AI is reshaping education, government, and law enforcement.
11am-12:15pm, Woolnough Lecture Theatre, Geology, UWA
17 August
SEMINAR
The Culture Wars and "National Values": A View From the USA
Presenter: Jonathan Zimmerman, Professor of History of Education and Berkowitz Professor in Education, University of Pennsylvania1:30pm-3:30pm, Institute of Advanced Studies
This seminar will describe how the culture wars over United States public education have shifted during the past two decades. For most of American history, our sharpest debates surrounded religion in schools: prayer, Bible reading, and sex education. Now we are debating history itself: what messages to teach about the American past, and why. In a nation of almost irreducible diversity, what does it mean to teach "national values"?
18 August
CONVERSATION
Four Reasons We Should Care About Free Speech. Why does free speech matter, and why is it worth defending?
Speakers:Jonathan Zimmerman, Professor of History of Education and Berkowitz Professor in Education, University of Pennsylvania and
Tanya Fitzgerald, Professor of Higher Education and Dean of the Graduate School of Education, The University of Western Australia.
6pm-7:30pm, Woolnough Lecture Theatre, Geology, UWA
26 August
PUBLIC LECTURE
2026 George Seddon Memorial Lecture - Collecting the West: Revealing Western Australia through Its Collections
Speaker: Professor Alistair Paterson, Chair of Archaeology, UWA6pm-7pm, Ross Lecture Theatre, Physics, UWA
16 September
PUBLIC LECTURE
2026 Robin Winkler Lecture: How Beliefs Become Movements
Speaker: Professor Emma Thomas, social psychologist, Flinders University5.30pm-7pm, Social Sciences Lecture Theatre, UWA
Past lectures
Many of our events are recorded. See our Past lectures page for more information and links to these recordings.