2005 Senior Common Room Seminars

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Senior Common Room Seminar Series 2005

The 2005 Senior Common Room Seminar Series kept the senior common room buzzing throughout the year with some contentious and lively discussions. Drawn to this were record numbers of past and present students, tutors and members of the wider community who were keen to share in the flow of ideas and opinions that came from the diverse range of seminars.

Sex for Sale Jay Thompson, a PhD candidate in the Department of English at the University of Melbourne, drew on work from his thesis to discuss the politics of sexually explicit advertising. Using examples gathered from billboards around Melbourne, Jay discussed the various responses to such sexually explicit advertising ranging from the sexual libertarian response to those taking offence on sexist grounds. Jay’s own stance on this billion dollar industry was that this sort of advertising was harmless erotic fun but was not totally devoid of sexism, a stance that was carefully put to what was, that night, a predominantly female audience.	At the Sex For Sale seminar: Jay Thompson (centre) with (L-R) Peter Reisinger and Ossie Lang.
Vivian Liu.	Criminal Profiling Then the ‘CSI’ and Kay Scarpetta fans amongst us were treated to a seminar by Vivian Liu on the work of a criminal profiler. Vivian had spent several years working as an assistant in the Ohio State Coroners Office and she is now completing a Doctorate in criminal psychology at the University of Melbourne. Vivian guided us through evidence in cases drawn from Victorian Police files and discussed what behaviours and personality characteristics could be observed from these crime scenes. According to Vivian, the profiler would attempt to don the mind of the criminal to try to ascertain their psychological profile. We were then given the chance to test our own abilities in this area with a case study from Victorian police files.
Police Ethics The theme of police work was carried over to our next seminar on the topic of Police Ethics, given by Dr Andrew Alexandra from the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne. Andrew turned up the heat in our Senior Common Room as he discussed the ethical dilemmas that the rank and file of the police force are faced with every day in their attempt to uphold the law. ‘Do the means employed by the Police justify the law to which they are attempting to uphold?’ was the question posed by Andrew as he argued that the Police perform what is essentially a moral activity which involves a high level of morally informed discretionary choice. Police corruption, according to Andrew, would be more effectively managed if there was more attention given to this moral responsibility in the ongoing training of Police officers. This was a very engaging seminar which attracted a lot of very probing questions from the audience as they grappled with Andrew’s searing ethical questions.	At the Police Ethics seminar: Dr Andrew Alexander with Alexandra Nicholls.
Virginia Maxwell travelling in Turkey.	Middle East travelogue The Series ended on a somewhat lighter tone with a presentation from Virginia Maxwell on travelling the Middle East. Virginia inspired and entertained us with stories about her life as a Middle East travel writer for Lonely Planet Publications. Damascus, Cairo, Haifa, Beirut and Petra were on her ‘must see list’ which she put together with the aid of a rich and exotic collection of picture slides taken on her travels in this region. Market Bazaars, Biblical sites and the famous Arabian ‘all off or nothing’ beauty parlours were amongst the experiences Virginia shared with humour, wit and an unmistakable attachment.

These seminars attracted a record number of both current and past students who also enjoyed the catch up with some of their old college friends. Their success prompted requests for more seminars in 2006 for which we can guarantee there will be.