Works That Shaped The World

1770 was a year of change on the cusp of the modern world. It was the year that James Cook set sail on his first voyage aboard the Endeavour. In April, he and a party landed at Kamay, what Europeans would come to call Botany Bay. There an encounter took place. In the British Museum an objects sits behind glass, a shield baring the apparent scars of that encounter. But how much do we really know about the shield and the encounter it has come to presents? And how did this shield end up in the British Museum?Join Dr Maria Nugent for a fascinating talk that reveals new insights. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners are advised that the following program may contain references to people who have died.

Since the early days of cinema, the moon has been an enchanting muse. The science of filmmaking was invented by the Lumière brothers, who débuted their cinématographe camera to astonished audiences in 1896. Yet it was their fellow Frenchman Georges Méliès, and his experimentations with short filmmaking, which gave rise to the notion of cinema as art.Méliès’ 1902 Le Voyage dans la Lune (Journey into the Moon), with its iconic image of a moon with a human face, captures the essence of the early days of cinema; Voyage was both a technological marvel and an artistic achievement.The film camera and the moon have shared a storied history ever since, from the 1969 footage of the moon landing captured at the ACT’s Honeysuckle Creek to contemporary science fiction and beyond. Reading the history of cinema through lunar motifs offers a new way of understanding the entangled relationships between science and culture, technology and art, the real and the imagined, our desire to control nature and our eternal fascination with the unknown.In this episode Dr Gemma King, Lecturer in French Studies and French cinema specialist in the School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics, talks about the lunar origins of cinema and Georges Méliès’ ground-breaking film.

How did Shakespeare understand the moon? In plays and poems of the 16th century, the moon carried the imaginative freight of centuries. The moon is invoked to express longing, chastity, coldness, changeability, envy, and the passage of time. As from ancient times, it was also understood to convey portents of disaster – both political and natural – and to exert strange meteorological influences. But in Shakespeare’s time the moon came closer. Born in 1564 – the same year as William Shakespeare – Galileo Galilea propounded a version of the organisation of the heavenly bodies that saw the sun, not the earth, at the centre of the system. This, in turn, revealed that the moon belonged to earth; bore it a special proximity. This system had been adumbrated by the ancients and set down by Nicolaus Copernicus, but Galileo carried it into the battleground of the public imagination by taking on the Church. Scholars are beginning to investigate how Shakespeare's imagination was influenced by this Copernican Scientific Revolution and the debates it prompted. Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre was so-named to reflect its function as a creative microcosm; a little world that reflected the real one. Did Shakespeare’s plays really play out the major scientific and ideological dramas of his day? Discover and register for future events in the series at cass.anu.edu.au/wtstw Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Contact Us for more information.

"Apollo 8 was the first spacecraft to send people out of Earth's orbit. The first to go to the moon. The first in lunar orbit. And leaving Earth's orbit was a momentous step. For the first time humans became true space travelers." -Tom Griffiths The moon has held a special place in cultures across the globe. An object of mystical wonder and focus of scientific inquiry, the moon is an enduring subject for artists, poets and writers. To land on the moon represented not only a remarkable technological achievement, but one that created in human history a shared moment of optimism. An achievement for human ambition and scientific discovery, born out of the geopolitical competition between nations. On Christmas Eve 1968, while Apollo 8 was in lunar orbit, three American astronauts looked out the tiny windows of their ‘tin can’ and saw something that moved them deeply. They gazed not at the Moon for which they had traveled so far, but at the Earth their home, the beautiful blue planet, alone, vulnerable and luminous in an infinity of darkness. Their photograph of ‘Earthrise’ became one of the most powerful images of our time, an unexpected and radical legacy of the Apollo program. In the third episode of this series, Tom explores the history of planetary thinking, especially in the half-century since we first saw the Earth from the Moon. Professor Tom Griffiths is an acclaimed environmental historian who was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2014 for distinguished service to social, cultural and environmental history and literature. His books and essays have received numerous awards including the Douglas Stewart Prize, Eureka Science Book Prize and Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History. Discover and register for future events in the series at cass.anu.edu.au/wtstw Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Contact Us for more information.

"How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! Here will we sit and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night. Become the touches of sweet harmony." -from Shakespseare's 'The Merchant of Venice' The moon has held a special place in cultures across the globe. An object of mystical wonder and focus of scientific inquiry, the moon is an enduring subject for artists, poets and writers. To land on the moon represented not only a remarkable technological achievement, but one that created in human history a shared moment of optimism. An achievement for human ambition and scientific discovery, born out of the geopolitical competition between nations. In the second episode of this series, join Dr Sonia Pertsinidis as she looks at the lost works of Pythagoras. Pythagoras is one of the most famous, controversial and mysterious philosophers of the ancient Greek world. Although none of his writings survive, the influence of his ideas upon Western thought has been immense. This is especially evident from Pythagorean contributions in the fields of music and harmony, mathematics and geometry, astronomy and astrology. Sonia explores the theory known as the ‘harmony of the spheres’: the idea that the moon, planets and heavenly bodies generate wondrous music as they travel through space. What was the basis for this idea? How did it influence writers and thinkers in subsequent centuries? And does it hold meaning for us today? Discover and register for future events in the series at cass.anu.edu.au/wtstw Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Contact Us for more information.

"We set sail upon this sea, because there is new knowledge to be gained." -John F Kennedy The moon has held a special place in cultures across the globe. An object of mystical wonder and focus of scientific inquiry, the moon is an enduring subject for artists, poets and writers. To land on the moon represented not only a remarkable technological achievement, but one that created in human history a shared moment of optimism. An achievement for human ambition and scientific discovery, born out of the geopolitical competition between nations. In this the first talk of the series, explore how that moment changed our perceptions of space and of ourselves. What ingenuity, innovation, and lesser-known talent among a collaboration involving hundreds of thousands made such a momentous achievement possible? And did how the Apollo program changed our lives, and the lives of those who made the seemingly impossible journey? Join Professor Brian Schmidt AC, Nobel Laureate and Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University, Associate Professor Charles Line Weaver, and Professor Joan Leach, Director of The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science (CPAS) at ANU for this fascinating discussion. Discover and register for future events in the series at cass.anu.edu.au/wtstw Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Contact Us for more information.