Speaker: Julianne Schultz AM FAHA (Founding editor of Griffith Review)
Date: Thursday 10 November 2016
Time: 6pm-7pm
Venue: Hetzel Lecture Theatre, Institute Building, State Library of South Australia, corner of North Terrace and Kintore Ave.
Enquiries and further information: Email Tully Barnett (tully.barnett@flinders.edu.au), or check the ACHRC website.
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Innovation is the new national buzzword. When it is defined it is generally as a pseudonym for technology. As head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Dr Martin Parkinson said recently, ‘We tend to think of innovation as being done by start-ups or people in white coats, but it’s much more than that. By and large our greatest gains have come from building a culture that adapts and diffuses the ideas of others.'
The dramatic transformation of society that is taking shape in the Era of FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google), is grounded in technological tools, but is dependent on culture. The companies leading this transformation rarely sell technology, they make their money from making meaning – the stuff of culture, humanities and the arts.
Humanities have been sidelined in this process at institutional and national levels, but are essential. There is a need to reassert the unique contribution of the cultural sector to making innovation real and meaningful, to find new language to describe it. We also need to learn new ways of stepping forward. There is a need to reconsider how this might be done, the consequences of failure and the potential rewards of success.
Professor Julianne Schultz AM FAHA is the founding editor of Griffith Review. She is a member of the Griffith Centre for Creative Arts Research and chairs the Australian Film, Television and Radio School. She sits on the editorial board of The Conversation and is a member of the Australia Council for the Arts’ Pool of Peers.