Senator Kim Carr to launch book on social sciences as poor relations in the Australian higher ed system

The role of the social sciences as the poor relation to science and technology, and their continued threat in the Australian higher education system, is the topic of a new book authored by the University of Melbourne’s Professor Stuart Macintyre, which will be launched by Sentator Kim Carr tomorrow.

The book launch will take place during the 2010 Keith Hancock Lecture, an event that honours Professor Keith Hancock, an eminent labour economist and valuable contributor to social science scholarship in Australia.

Presented by the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and the University of Melbourne, the lecture, to be given by Professor Macintyre, who is Ernest Scott Professor of History and a Laureate Professor of the University, will discuss the changing circumstances of the social sciences over the past sixty years. It will measure their contribution to public policy, explore arrangements made to support them and explain why they are so persistently treated as being of less value than other disciplines.

The lecture builds on themes explored by Professor Macintyre in his new book The Poor Relation, published by Melbourne University Press.

Professor Macintyre asks: what are the social sciences, what do they do, how are they practised in Australia, and also considers the place of fields from economics and psychology to history, in the teaching and research conducted by Australian universities.

Copies of the lecture are available, embargoed until delivery (6pm Tuesday 3 August).

Who:
Senator Kim Carr, Professor Stuart Macintyre

What:
Keith Hancock Public Lecture and launch of The Poor Relation: A History of Social Sciences in Australia (MUP, 2010).

When:
Tuesday 3 August at 6pm

Where:
Woodward Conference Centre, Level 10, Melbourne Law School
185 Pelham Street, Carlton, The University of Melbourne

Media enquiries:
Katherine Smith (8344 3845 / 0402 460 147 / k.smith@unimelb.edu.au )