Big Ideas

She's attracted controversy and cancellation, but Palestinian Australian author and academic Randa Abdel-Fattah has not been deterred from speaking out about the plight of Palestinians in the war on Gaza, and the experience of Muslim Australians since 9/11. At this event organised in the wake of the cancellation of Adelaide Writers' Week, she joins that festival's former Director Louise Adler, to talk about her latest novel, Discipline, and the experience of art imitating life.
This conversation was recorded at the Adelaide Town Hall as part of the Constellations: Not Writers' Week festival on 1 March 2026.
Speakers
Dr Randa Abdel-FattahAuthor, Discipline (winner of the People's Choice Award at the 2026 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards), Does My Head Look Big in This? and Coming of Age in the War on TerrorFuture Fellow in the Department of Sociology at Macquarie University
Louise Adler (host) Former Director, Adelaide Writers' WeekFormer CEO, Melbourne University PressFormer editor-at-large, Hachette Australia

When a violent crime makes the news, mental illness is often part of the story. But how that story is told, the words chosen, the details included, the connections drawn, has consequences that ripple far beyond the news cycle. For people living with schizophrenia or psychosis, irresponsible reporting isn't just frustrating. It affects how neighbours treat them, how employers see them, and how they see themselves. For the general public, sensationalised coverage quietly builds a picture of mental illness that is distorted, fear-driven and simply not accurate.
Mad, Bad or Misrepresented? Media, Mental Illness and the Stories We Tell was presented on last year's World Mental Health Day by Mental Ill-Health Stigma Researchers Australia Network (MISRA), the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, and the Melbourne School of Global and Population Health.
Speakers
Dr Anna RossSenior Research Fellow, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health
Tim HeffernanFormer NSW Deputy Mental Health Commissioner; Chair of the advocacy organisation BEING — Mental Health Consumers
Gayle McNaughtManager, StigmaWatch SANE Australia
Dr Chris Groot (host)Senior Lecturer, Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences; Co-founder of Mental Ill-Health Stigma Researchers Australia Network (MISRA)
Further information
StigmaWatch
Mindframe and the Mindframe guidelines

Over five decades, one single, sprawling dominion, from Yemen to Myanmar, became twelve modern nations. This is the story of how the actions of politicians in London and revolutionaries in Delhi, princes in remote palaces and soldiers in trenches, redrew the map of British India, uprooting millions, and leaving a legacy that explains much about the region today.
This conversation was recorded at the Ubud Writers Festival in Bali, Indonesia.
Speakers
Sam Dalrymple Author, Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern AsiaCo-founder, Project DastaanFilmmaker, Child of Empire, Lost Migrations
Husnara KhanomPoet, writer, and researcher

Nobel Prize winning work often happens in a young scientist's 20s or 30s — early in their careers. Are the conditions right in Australian universities today for young, hungry minds to do what Nobel laureates Brian Schmidt, Peter Doherty and Rolf Zinkernagel did in the 1990s and 1970s at the Australian National University in Canberra? The three join Big Ideas presenter Natasha Mitchell and a huge crowd at the ANU to talk curiosity, discovery, the future of science, and more.
This event was organised and hosted by the Australian National University and the Embassy of Switzerland in Australia
Speakers
Professor Peter DohertyImmunologist and winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine University of Melbourne
Professor Brian SchmidtAstrophysicist and winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize for PhysicsAustralian National University
Professor Rolf Zinkernagel Immunologist and winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine University of Zurich, Switzerland
With thanks to Swiss Ambassador His Excellency Mr Nikolas Stürchler, ANU Deputy Vice Chancellor (academic) Professor Joan Leach, and ANU's Jamie Kidston, Dharmesh Panvelkar, and technical team.
Further reading
Brian Schmidt on securing Australia's sovereign research capability, National Press Club, 2025
Nobel laureate Brian Schmidt is ‘scared’ about Australia’s research capacity – this is why (The Conversation, 2025)
Brian P. Schmidt's submission in response to the Australian Universities Accord Discussion Paper
The Knowledge Wars by Peter Doherty (Melbourne University Publishing, 2025)

Presenting a road map to a world with fewer Putins and Kim Jong Uns. Political scientist Marcel Dirsus exposes the precarious reality behind the façade of the dictator's absolute power, and the remarkable ways in which even the most ruthless despots can be felt. Gareth Evans, Geoffrey Robertson, Tobias Buck and Dorcy Rugama take a closer look at crimes against humanity. When is reconciliation possible? Are international courts still useful? How important is truth telling?
How Tyrants rise (and fall) was recorded live at the 2025 Sydney Writers' Festival at Sydney Town Hall.
Speaker
Dr Marcel DirsusPolitical scientist, author of How Tyrants Fall: And How Nations SurviveNon-Resident Fellow at the Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University (ISPK); member of the Standing Expert Committee Terrorism and Interior Security at the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in Germany
Crimes against Humanity was presented at Adelaide Writers' Week
Speakers
Tobias BuckManaging Editor of the Financial TimesAuthor of Final Verdict: A Holocaust Trail in the Twenty-first Century
Geoffrey RobertsonAustralian-British barrister, academic, broadcaster and author — among others of Crimes Against Humanity
Dorcy RugambaRwandan writer, playwright, and director.Author of Hewa Rwanda, Letter to the Absent 
Gareth Evans AC (host)Former cabinet minister in the Hawke and Keating Labor governments, former president and CEO of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group