So What? Lectures Simon Trevaks

What is it about those rare and fleeting moments of musical beauty that
fully captivate a listener’s attention? Does a composer calculate such
junctures or are they happy accidents? How could a composer shape and
guide the listener’s experience to create these events? Does detailed
analysis of the notes tell us all we need to know to explain them? From
Beethoven’s Sonata in E Major, Opus 109 to Leonard Cohen’s song,
Hallelujah, as in many other works before and since, there are precise
moments where a listener may experience a superb glimpse of ‘musical
truth’. Understanding how and why they happen calls for an awareness of
the psychoacoustic and social contexts for the musical experience and
has unavoidable aesthetic implications for the way a composer thinks
about music.

The globalization of social (economic, cultural, environmental)
relations has generated a new need for people who have little or nothing
in common with others to create community with each other without
giving up their differences. The traditional understanding of community
was that people want to be together because they feel that they share
something, if only the same portion of the world. So what does it mean
that people now want or need to be in communities without having
anything in common, no shared territories or identities or even values?
How can a bond between people be established when there is nothing that
unites them? How can radical difference make for communal forms of life?
Recent continental philosophy has struggled with these kinds of
paradoxes. In this lecture I shall discuss one contribution to these
questions found in the work of the Italian philosopher Roberto Esposito.
This work brings to light two dimensions of community that have so far
not been taken into proper account: First, the idea that community
reflects an economical relation where an infinite debt ties the members
to each other through continuous gift-giving. Second, the idea that
community is inscribed in the horizon of life and reaches beyond the
human to all forms of life. In contrast to the communist, communitarian
and communicative understandings of community, this presentation argues
for what could be called a biopolitical conception of community.

In a world maimed by war, climate change, economic dysfunction and political failures, the flows of migration are as intense as they have ever been. Child migrants are central actors in this movement of people across borders and continents. As those in receiving countries such as Australia know well, however, the child migrant is not always kindly greeted on arrival.

As recently as November 2012, the current Minister for Immigration commented that 'It doesn't matter whether you're a child, it doesn't matter whether you're an unaccompanied minor, it doesn't matter whether you have a health condition, if you're fit enough to get on a boat, you're fit enough to end up in offshore processing'. Is this the only way to think about journeys, arrivals and settlement?

The lecture looks at how the child migrant has figured in world cinema since 1939, and argues that the child retains a special power in describing, performing and critiquing the great movements and translations that make the world global.

There is a long-standing prejudice that early romantic philosophy developed in the footsteps of Fichtean foundationalism, and that it was uncritical of the totalitarian seizure of power of subjectivity over Being or Difference allegedly characteristic of J.G. Fichte’s thought. Drawing on the recently developed research method of ‘Constellation Research’, this lecture shows that in fact Early Romanticism was skeptical about foundationalist pretensions, respectful of subjectivity without promoting it into a ‘highest point of philosophy’, ironical with regard to ultimate knowledge claims, ontologically realistic, and in general more modern than so far thought.

Why should incorporated bodies count as legal persons? And what rights and responsibilities should they have? Should they enjoy rights that may trump the rights of individuals? Should they be able to compete with individuals for political influence? Should they be held responsible for the wrongdoing of their members or agents? And do such questions call for similar answers with corporate persons as different as companies, unions, churches, parties and states? The philosophy of incorporation, shaped by Roman jurists, a Papal bull and the South Sea Bubble, may help to shed some light on these issues.

What is sex education? Who should teach it? What are the most effective strategies? When and where should it be taught? These are just some of the questions to be examined in this lecture. After three decades research and international experience, much has been learned about how to best to teach about sex, sexuality and relationships. Despite this, there remains controversy and few countries have implemented the kinds of programs that are known to be effective. The conflict between science and strongly held beliefs makes reasoned and rational discussion difficult. So, what should we do next?