Monday, 30 March 2009

Thank you to everyone who has completed the Family Meals questionnaire for Cleeve Calder’s study.  Cleeve still needs more data so if you have half an hour to spare and haven’t already done so, please visit www.ihs.uwa.edu.au/research/current_projects/family_meals_and_health to complete the survey.  Feel free to send the link to your network too. Next Sunday is the Sun Fair at the Oak Lawn at UWA (on the Matilda Bay side of the campus).  I’ll be presenting talks at 11.30 and 2.30 on Integrated Human Studies and how tertiary education can contribute to creating citizens and leaders who recognise the need for equitable action on global futures. We’ll have a table in the marquee all day, so why not come along and say hello.  There will be an array of sustainable technologies on display, and four venues with a program of talks on sustainable living topics all day. Our seminar series this semester, broadly on the theme “Being human”, continues next Wednesday with a consideration of mortality. Details are below.  We hope you are enjoying the seminars and that you continue to discuss the concepts and issues raised after you leave.  It’s our strong belief that understanding what it is to be human is an essential starting point for understanding how humans can sustain life on this planet.

Professor Neville Bruce
Director, Centre for Integrated Human Studies

Next seminar: WHEN IT HAPPENS – MORTALITY  April 8

“It’s not that I’m afraid to die. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” Woody Allen

To be human is to die.  Historically death has been a commonplace of family life, but in affluent first world communities medical advances mean we rarely encounter it – or we may have unwanted foreknowledge of its approach. How have our attitudes to death changed over time?  In our increasingly secular society, have our rituals around death diminished?  Can we approach death as a spiritually enriching experience?  Medical anthropologist Prof Bev McNamara , historian Dr Susannah Thompson and Hollywood Private Hospital chaplain Revd Graeme Manolas share insights and experiences in the third of our free seminars. Chair Prof Carmen Lawrence will moderate discussion after the talks. All are welcome to attend at 5.30 pm in Seminar Room 1.81 on the first floor of the School of Anatomy and Human Biology.

NOTES FROM THE LAST SEMINAR, GROWING UP – RITES OF PASSAGE
Zarah Burgess , while understanding that we had asked for her personal views on youth issues, did some informal research by canvassing a wide variety of young people from her circle over a range of nationalities, educational experience and socioeconomic status, and found some common concerns, including terrorism, health, employment, the sustainability of life on this planet, and relationship issues. Terrorism is an issue that is able to be perceived swiftly due to our communications technology.  The events in Mumbai were particularly resonant for Zarah, who had been there recently. The global financial crisis has exacerbated pre-existing economic concerns of young people, creating a generation fearful about a future of debt.  Eighty-three per cent of people 18 – 24 are in debt, while 43% of HECS debtors owe an average of $10,500. Homelessness is also an issue for some young people. Young people want action on the long term protection of our environment, but while there was some anger at preceding generations who had created the situation and governments that were slow to act, Zarah felt that young people must also accept responsibility for their own futures. The activities of young people were often frowned upon by older people and in some cases this was justified, but many young people were involved in charitable and volunteer work.  From a global perspective, Australian youth were lucky compared with those in other countries.

Kerry O’Sullivan, a comedian and actor, bravely shared readings from her teenage diaries.  As a thirteen-year-old attending a Catholic girls school in Adelaide, Kerry’s concerns and interests were about relationships with friends, family, and boys, school and social life, films and film stars. With the wisdom of hindsight and a fine sense of the ridiculous, Kerry’s dramatic reading gently poked fun at her own “angsty laments” while they were revealed with deadly serious honesty. It was a rare insight into a young girl’s process of self discovery and a reminder of how turbulent this transition through adolescence can be.

Rev Canon Richard Pengelley has a particular interest in the transition from boyhood to manhood, and feels there is something missing in modern western culture. The typically tough unemotional breadwinner type was not, he felt, a useful model for himself. Confirmation into the Anglican church gave a different perspective, but no answers. Young people create their own rituals to mark transitions in their lives: balls, leavers’ trips, and rituals around alcohol were attempts that exposed them to risk and conferred no lasting value. While it was impossible to turn back the clock to historic times, it was instructive to study the characteristics of initiation rites of many ancient cultures.  Richard Rohr, an American writer, identified some common features. The initiate goes forth from a cohesive community to a created liminal or sacred space; there is a rupture from business as usual while the transformative experience is undergone; there is a symbolic death or wounding – especially for boys – to begin the journey to fuller life and a rebirth celebrated; the initiate gains a new status in the community; this status is given, not earned, and focused outward, to community and obligation, rather than to self and deserts. Richard noted the phenomenon of the god-like sports star that epitomised the toxic world of ego, and finished with the hope that as a community we can progress from the first and second levels of story (my story and our story) to the metanarrative and ritual of THE story, or the things that are always true.

Questions and comments included

  • Does or can the army represent a rite of passage?
  • Why does the rite necessarily involve suffering?
  • Is the generational definition useful or divisive?
  • What initiation rite could be instituted in our culture?
  • Women, though pregnancy and childbirth, have a natural rite that forces them to relinquish self-centred behaviour.
  • For women, first menstruation is a clear marker of womanhood; there is no clear marker for males.
  • The young generation has to be the transition generation to a new way of living if the planet is to survive.
  • We need stories that counter media-driven stories of “success”, beauty and wealth.

HAVE YOU JUST JOINED OUR MAIL LIST?

If you have missed previous newsletters containing summaries of the seminar presentations, you can see them on the UWA News page https://www.news.uwa.edu.au/category/business-unit/integrated-human-studies

ABOUT THE CENTRE FOR INTEGRATED HUMAN STUDIES

You can find out more about the Centre and about IHS at our web site www.ihs.uwa.edu.au . If you are interested in enrolling in postgraduate courses in IHS, please contact the Director, Prof Neville Bruce on 6488 3292 or email [email protected] .

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK

Please feel free to give us your comments, thoughts or suggestions for future seminar topics by emailing Karen on [email protected] . Also, if you know people who might be interested in IHS or our seminar series, forward them this e-newsletter.

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