Sydney
Opera House presents two Ideas at the House events in March
We Need To Talk About Islam
&
Church & State
We Need To Talk About Islam
Sydney Opera House, Drama Theatre, Wednesday 6th March,
7pm
How do we talk about Islam without running the risk of provoking
offence? Join Tom Holland & Dr Halim Rane as they travel from the
origins and early history of Islam to the modern day politics of the Arab
Spring.
While a small group of Islamic fundamentalists have propelled
contemporary Islam to the forefront of international and domestic politics, and
ongoing military and political upheavals ensure a constant stream of Muslim
migrants and refugees to countries like Australia, we still know very little about
the history, culture and people of the Islamic world.
We need to talk about Islam, but worry that we don’t know how to
do so without provoking offence. To start the conversation, we will travel from
the origins and early history of Islam, with its dramatic narrative of
conquests and empire, to the current politics of the Arab Spring in Egypt,
where a Muslim Brotherhood-aligned President is trying to define the role of
Islam at the heart of the Sunni Arab world as well as looking at Islam in
Australia.
Tom Holland is a British novelist and
popular historian. In 2012 his latest book In the Shadow of the Sword, which
covers the collapse of Roman and Persian power in the Near East and the
emergence of Islam, and documentary Islam:The Untold Story, received
controversial reactions from orthodox Islamic communities.
Holland is
also the author of Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman
Republic, which won the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History and was
shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize. Persian Fire, his history of the
Graeco-Persian wars, won the Anglo-Hellenic League’s Runciman Award in 2006.
His third work of history, Millennium: The End of the World and the
Forging of Christendom, was published in the autumn of 2008. He is the
presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Making History. He has written and
presented a number of TV documentaries, on subjects ranging from religion to
dinosaurs.
Dr Halim Rane is currently
the Deputy Director of the Griffith Islamic Research Unit and a
Lecturer in the in Islamic National Centre of Excellence Studies at
Griffith University. He is also a member of the Key Centre for Ethics,
Law, Justice, and Governance as well as an Associate Investigator with the
Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence in Policing and
Security. Dr Rane is the author of Reconstructing Jihad amid Competing
International Norms published in 2009 by Palgrave Macmillan.
DETAILS
What: We Need to Talk About Islam
When: Wednesday 6th
March, 7pm. 75
minutes
Where: Sydney Opera House, Drama Theatre
Tickets: $35 sydneyoperahouse.com /
9250 7777
Church & State
Sydney Opera House, Drama Theatre, Sunday 24th March, 4pm
Is it possible to untangle
religion and politics? Or will one’s influence always be felt by the
other? Ideas at the House will present a panel debate featuring
philosopher and bestselling author AC Grayling, Sean Faircloth - Director of Strategy & Policy at the Richard Dawkins Foundation.
In relatively secular Australia, we can be rather smug when we
look at an America where teaching evolution is contentious and religious belief
is a pre-requisite for public office. Although over 60% of Australians
identify as Christians, less than a quarter of those attend church. Australians
have been shocked that the seal of the confessional has trumped the protection
of children while church leaders who advocate wifely submission are seen as out
of touch with contemporary values.
But religious influence is pervasive, with over 34% of school
students attending non-government schools, the majority of which are
faith-based. The Catholic Church is by far the largest non-government provider
of health and education services in Australia and with billions of dollars in
revenue from its operations, would rank among Australia’s largest corporations.
Religious organisations don’t pay tax and have privileges that other charities
can only envy.
Australia’s constitution prohibits the Commonwealth government
from establishing a church or interfering with the freedom of religion, but our
politicians have always been reluctant to unravel the web of tax-payer support
for these powerful institutions. Looking
at both US and Australian perspectives, our speakers – English philosopher and bestselling author AC Grayling, Director
of Strategy & Policy at the Richard Dawkins Foundation Sean Faircloth and others – ask whether or not it is time for a change.
Anthony
Grayling is
Master of the New College of the Humanities, and a Supernumerary Fellow of
St Anne's College, Oxford. Until 2011 he was Professor of Philosophy at
Birkbeck College, University of London. He has written and edited over twenty
books on philosophy and other subjects; among his most recent are The Good Book, Ideas That Matter, Liberty in
the Age of Terror and To Set
Prometheus Free. He is a frequent contributor to the Literary Review,
Observer, Independent on Sunday, Times Literary Supplement, Index on Censorship
and New Statesman, and is an equally frequent broadcaster on BBC Radios 4, 3
and the World Service.
Sean
Faircloth is Director
of Strategy & Policy at the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason &
Science, US and the author of Attack of the Theocrats: How the Religious
Right Harms Us All & What We Can Do About It. He served a decade in the Maine State
Legislature. Sean Faircloth was an accomplished legislator, successfully
spearheading over thirty pieces of legislation, including the deadbeat dad
child support law, which saved taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
Faircloth
is a strong advocate of the separation of church and state and received many
awards of recognition including the 2006 Legislator of the Year Award from the
Maine People's Alliance, the 2005 Excellence in Advocacy Award from the
American Heart Association's Northeast Affiliate, and Legislator of the Year
awards from the Maine Chapters of the American Academy of Paediatrics, The
American Psychological Association, the National Association of Social Workers,
and the Software Developers Association. Faircloth also served as the Secular
Coalition for America’s Executive Director from 2009 to 2011.
DETAILS
What: Church & State
When: Sunday 24th
March, 4pm. 75
minutes
Where: Sydney Opera House, Drama Theatre
Tickets: $35 sydneyoperahouse.com /
9250 7777
Facebook facebook.com/Ideas-at-the-House / Twitter @SydOperaHouse / Instagram
@sydneyoperahouse View past Ideas at the House talks at Sydney Opera House
PLAY play.sydneyoperahouse.com
More information about Sydney Opera
House Insiders here .
MEDIA CONTACT: Alexandra Barlow / abarlow@sydneyoperahouse.com , 02
9250 7825 / 0418 656 53