UNSW Centre for Ideas

In a world where female sexuality has been hijacked by forces such as porn, patriarchy, and male entitlement – how can we make sexual consent a priority for everyone?  Whether it’s on campus, at the workplace or in their homes, Australians are shocked week after week at the violence visited upon women who are simply li

Acclaimed Tamil-language author Perumal Murugan’s books were once burned by far-right groups, and now he’s longlisted for one of the most prestigious awards in literature.   Explore Murugan’s profound literary odyssey, from the challenges of being a Tamil writer in rural India, to the turmoil of book burning and societ

Fear of a nuclear apocalypse, despot leaders and a world at war – how did the sharpest minds of the Cold War leave such a legacy of fear? Samuel Moyn’s Liberalism Against Itself: Cold War Intellectuals and the Making of Our Times takes aim at liberalism, portraying it as a failed creed marred by a paranoia of communism

Against the frenetic energy and colour of Delhi, a Muslim school teacher is caught between his love of history and contemporary India. Anjum Hasan’s work sheds light on the complexities of life, love, writing history, and how national and patriotic myths can be maliciously subverted.  Author Anjum Hasan’s latest book, 

Human existence has always been bound with the health of our natural world. What can we learn from how a changing climate has already, for centuries, dramatically shaped the development and demise of civilisations across time?  In the 2024 Gandhi Oration, renowned historian and author Peter Frankopan unraveled the hist

This third session of the Accountability in crisis: the rise of impunity as a challenge to human rights explores how to restore public faith in the values and structures underpinning representative government and the role of key stakeholder groups such as business, media and civil society in resisting impunity, reclaim