News Archive

As part of their Australian Research Council (ARC) funded project ‘Catastrophe: a historical and philosophical assessment of urban disaster, ethics and the built environment', Winthrop Professors William Taylor ( Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts ), and Michael Levine ( Faculty of Arts ), will host two public lectures in the first week of June.

On Wednesday the 5th June, David Simpson, Distinguished Professor of English at UC Davis, will present ‘Terror, Catastrophe, and the Role of Theory’. This public lecture will argue that without engaging political and aesthetic discourses we risk remaining passive consumers of the rhetoric of vested interests on occasions of terrorist attack and catastrophe.

Simpson is the renowned author of 9/11: Culture of Commemoration (University of Chicago Press, 2006), commended by one reviewer for asking important questions on "the troubling political uses of 9/11". The reviewer goes on to say how Simpson "criticizes the breathtaking conceit that architecture could somehow contain the conceptual wreckage of 9/11."

On the following evening, investigative journalist James O'Byrne will present ‘Witness to Disaster: Journalists and Journalism in Hurricane Katrina'.  This long-time resident of New Orleans and three time Pulitzer Prize winner will discuss the role of journalists as first responders, as integral to disaster response as police, fire and rescue personnel.

Drawing on his first-hand experiences as a front-line reporter on and during Hurricane Katrina, and its physical, humanitarian and social aftermath, O'Byrne will examine the extraordinary personal, ethical and professional challenges faced by journalists during the catastrophe.

These lectures will make an important contribution to the Symposium ‘Investigating Catastrophe: Commemoration, Accountability and the Public Record of Disaster', co-convened by Taylor and Levine with support from the Institute of Advanced Studies and the ARC.  This symposium will bring together local, national and international scholars working across the humanities with a particular focus on the built environment as contexts and evidence for studies of society and the public record and commemoration of catastrophic events.

Seats are limited and booking for each lecture is essential.

Terror, Catastrophe, and the Role of Theory
Presenter: David Simpson
Date: Wednesday 5 June 2013
Time: 6 to 7pm
Venue: Webb Lecture Theatre, Geography Building, UWA
RSVP: ias.uwa.edu.au/lectures/simpson

Witness to Disaster: Journalists and Journalism in Hurricane Katrina
Presenter: James O'Byrne
Date: Thursday 6 June 2013
Time: 6 to 7pm
Venue: Webb Lecture Theatre, Geography Building, UWA
RSVP: ias.uwa.edu.au/lectures/obyrne

Media references

Winthrop Professor Bill Taylor | +61 8 6488 2580

Oenone Rooksby | + 61 8 6488 2141