ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AWARDS
WEDNESDAY 16 SEPTEMBER 2009
Professor Deborah Cobb-Clark and Professor Timothy Hatton from the Economics Program have been awarded this week Fellows of the Academy of Social Sciences. Congratulations to both.
FUTURE FELLOWSHIP AWARDED TO PHILOSOPHER
WEDNESDAY 10 SEPTEMBER 2009
Congratulations to Jonathan Schaffer who has been awarded a Future Fellowship. Project entitled:
"The Language of Knowledge”
Knowledge claims such as “I know where the movie is playing” are an everyday affair, serving vital social and communicative roles. For instance, suppose we want to go to a movie together, but have different beliefs about where the movie is playing. If we both accept the claim that I know where the movie is playing, this will presumably determine which theatre we visit, and whether or not we succeed in seeing the movie. Knowledge claims thus have bearing on whom we trust, how we reason, what we do, and whether we succeed.
This project aims to provide new insight into knowledge claims in natural language. In particular, it aims to expand the scope of the discussion by considering knowledge claims with embedded questions, and it aims to improve the methodology by pursuing empirical checks of claims about ordinary intuitions. Of special interest is the idea that our intuitions about who knows what turn out to depend on the question under discussion. Whether or not we credit someone with knowing something may vary with the sort of background question we consider her to be answering.
WEDNESDAY 2 SEPTEMBER 2009
BUSHIRE HISTORY PROJECT BOOSTED BY PRIZE MONEY
The winner of this year’s Alfred Deakin essay prize has said he’ll donate the $15,000 prize money to a research project that’s helping communities recovering from the Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria to record their stories.
Professor Tom Griffiths from The Australian National University won the award for an essay advancing public debate at the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, announced in Melbourne last night (Tuesday, 1 September 2009).
The environmental historian was chosen for his essay ‘We have still not lived long enough’, an analysis of the Victorian bushfires and the deep ecological and historical patterns that gave rise to the event. The piece was published in the journal Inside Story in February.
“It’s important that this prize money go back to help the fire-affected communities,” Griffiths said. “The most appropriate way that I can do this is to donate it to the collaborative community fire history project that we launched at ANU in the immediate aftermath of Black Saturday in partnership with researchers from the National Museum of Australia.
“Recovering communities need not only food, shelter and infrastructure; they also need a sense of identity, continuity and hope – that’s what we’re helping to achieve.”
Tom Griffiths and his colleagues are working in Steels Creek, a community where 10 people died in the fires and more than 50 homes were burnt to the ground. The researchers have been invited in by community members and are assisting the returning residents to come to terms with the events of Black Saturday and to re-invent their future as a community.
The collaborative community fire history project is being administered by the ANU Endowment Fund and was seeded by $20,000 in funding from ANU, an amount matched by the David Thomas Foundation. “I’m grateful for the support from ANU and from the Thomas Foundation,” Professor Griffiths said. “This is a wonderful example of a university and a private foundation assisting timely historical research that has immediate benefits for people affected by the bushfires.”
Earlier this year Tom Griffiths was named co-winner of the Prime Minister’s history prize for his book Slicing the Silence, which details Antarctic exploration. The researcher and writer works in the History Program in the Research School of Social Sciences at ANU.
Read the winning essay: http://inside.org.au/we-have-still-not-lived-long-enough
For interviews: Professor Tom Griffiths 02 6125 3345, mobile: 0438 468 613
Media assistance: Simon Couper, ANU media office 02 6125 4171, 0416 249 241
