Check out the History of Philosophy (without any gaps) webpage. If you are looking for a (nearly) inexhaustible supply of rich scholarship on the history of ideas and philosophy to explore, you could hardly do better than to delve into this treasure trove.
It has long been known that there is no one-to-one correlation between Humanities, Arts and Social 
Sciences, or HASS, study and specific career pathways. That fact spooks some students and their parents. But it is an asset in fluid and flexible job market – and a fluid and flexible job market is precisely what we are facing when we look to the future.
Continue reading “Australian Higher Educational Funding, HASS and the Future of Work”
The School of Liberal Arts proudly hosted a 2-day, Australian Research Council (ARC) supported 
conference: Understanding and Explaining Skilled Performance: Looking Across Traditions, on 26-27 February 2020.
The conference focused on evaluating explanatory proposals about the cognitive basis of skilled performance, as well as considering what non-analytic philosophical traditions of thought and practice – phenomenology, pragmatism and Japanese Dō – can contribute to our understanding of the phenomenon under investigation.
The event provided an excellent opportunity to develop and disseminate research that will be published in the Synthese special issue connected to the School’s current ARC Discovery project – Mind in Skilled Performance.
Continue reading “Conference on Mind in Skilled Performance Across Traditions”
The School and its new BA degree in Western Civilization benefited from positive attention in the early new year, with favourable media pieces appearing in the local and national press in such venues as ABC Illawarra (2 March 2020); Sydney Morning Herald (21 February 2020; 1 March 2020) and The Illawarra Mercury (21 February 2020; 5 March 2020).
Internationally, in the wake of SOLA’s establishment, philosophy at UOW achieved its first noteworthy QS rating, making the 151-200 band in 2020 QS rankings.
The building works that created the School of Liberal Arts physical infrastructure, staff offices and the SOLA Student Lounge were completed in mid-December 2019.
The team responsible for the University’s art collection put the finishing touches on our corridors shortly after, bringing them to life them with an array of beautiful paintings, including Joe Tilson’s 2005 series: The Nine Muses.
These are some ‘after’ photos!
Continue reading “The Making of The School of Liberal Arts – ‘After’ Photos”
The building works that created the School of Liberal Arts physical infrastructure, staff offices and the SOLA Student Lounge were completed in mid-December 2019.
The team responsible for the University’s art collection put the finishing touches on our corridors shortly after, bringing them to life them with an array of beautiful paintings, including Joe Tilson’s 2005 series: The Nine Muses.
These are some ‘before’ photos!
Continue reading “The Making of The School of Liberal Arts- ‘Before’ Photos”
Our new School of Liberal Arts enjoyed a spectacular launch event to celebrate its opening of at the end of February. Our students, their families and academic staff were able to come together in fellowship at the start, rather than at the end, of their course of study to celebrate the significant achievement of those who had been awarded UOW Ramsay Scholarships.
Continue reading “Celebratory Launch of the School of Liberal Arts in February 2020”
Many lament the restrictions that socially distancing orders have placed on us.
That is
understandable. But perhaps, if we focus on the positive, there is an upside to our new situation as well.
For today’s students, at least, our new post-Covid conditions of life should afford more time for direct and unfettered engagement with and exploration of great works and ideas. Indeed, it was in under similar conditions that some of the greatest works that we have come to admire and learn from were first produced.
Continue reading “Taking A Leaf Out of Newton’s Book: Making the Best of Social Isolation”
At the close of 2018 the University of Wollongong partnered with the Ramsay Centre to create a unique degree that focuses on the study of the great works of Western civilisation. In early 2019, I assumed leadership of the School of Liberal Arts with oversight of its flagship BA in Western Civilisation degree.
At the start of 2020, our School is fully operational: it is populated with outstanding staff and students and concretely established with a suite of exciting new subjects. Yet, just as our unique intellectual enterprise launched, the entire world is confronted with one of its greatest challenges – one of the greatest challenges we will face in the 21st century. The continued threat of Covid-19 requires us to drastically adjust our familiar ways of living and learning.
What does this mean for School’s study of great works of philosophy, art, literature, religion and science?
Free, open-minded thinking and open-ended inquiry – that is what Hutchins took to be animating spirit of The Great Conversation that has been underway for millennia. As he put it, “the spirit of Western civilisation is the spirit of inquiry … Nothing is to remain undiscussed. Everybody is to 
speak [their] mind. No proposition is to be left unexamined.”, Robert Hutchins, 1952 The Great Conversation.
Continue reading “Liberal Education: The Forging of Free Thinkers”
