Some of the world’s most eminent and provocative thinkers will engage with an intelligent public at the Adelaide Festival of Ideas from Friday, October 7 to Sunday, October 9.
The festival gives big ideas and contemporary debates greater space for exploration in a celebration of innovation, creativity and intellectuality. The first round of speakers announced for 2011 includes behavioural economist and best-selling author, Paul Ormerod; Vladimir Nabokov expert and literature and evolution specialist, Distinguished Professor Brian Boyd; and human rights lawyer, Professor Sarah Joseph.
Adelaide Festival of Ideas Executive Producer Sandy Verschoor said the biennial event this year includes an informative program with current debate, lectures and panels throughout the North Terrace cultural precinct and a transformative program encouraging change and creativity based in and around the Adelaide Town Hall and RIAus in Pirie Street.
The expanded program includes initiatives for a more personal exploration of big ideas such as focus groups, a speakers’ corner, a mini documentary screening program, live web streaming from festival events, a speed dating-style pitch session presenting innovative new ideas to key industry figures and festival fringe events
Adelaide Festival of Ideas Advisory Panel Chair Associate Professor Robert Phiddian said the festival’s 2011 theme is Planning for Uncertainty.
“The Planning for Uncertainty theme focuses on a twist in the two cultures debate. The real division is no longer between the arts and the sciences, but between those who can work with ‘doubt’ and those who demand the false security of ‘certainty’.
“There is a disconnection between intellectual life, where everything is discussed in terms of probability and possibility, and public debate, where public figures only prosper if they can promise simple-minded certainty. If we cannot bridge this divide, the chances of public debate and policy being informed by good research becomes vanishingly small.”
For more than a decade, the Adelaide Festival of Ideas has proudly stepped into this space of public deliberation, attending to longer rhythms of discussion than the 24 hour news cycle. It aims to be a space where an intelligent public can engage with some of the best thinkers across a wide range of intellectual endeavour. As a nation, we are blocked on some of the major issues of the day, and it is forums like this that offer some hope of progress.
The 2011 Adelaide Festival of Ideas will be held from Friday, October 7 to Sunday, October 9.
Program information will be updated at www.adelaidefestivalofideas.com.au.
The Adelaide Festival of Ideas is proudly supported by the Government of South Australia.
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