Events

President Obama's health care reform: The Supreme Court and the future of the American health system

23 May 2012

Time: 6:00pm - 7:00pm

A presentation for the Sydney Law School Distinguished Speakers Program by Professor Lawrence Gostin, the Director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University. Professor Gostin is also the Director of the World Health Organisation’s Collaborating Centre on Public Health Law and Human Rights.

Nearly 30 years after President Nixon proposed the first major overhaul of the health care system, comprehensive reform became a reality when President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) on March 23, 2010. The ACA is expected to cover 32 million currently uninsured people by expanding Medicaid, offering subsidies to purchase insurance, and prohibiting pre-existing condition exclusions. Like Presidents Carter and Clinton before him, Barack Obama campaigned on a promise of health care reform. Opposition to the ACA was immediate. At least 26 federal lawsuits were filed challenging its constitutionality. The US Supreme Court has allotted an unprecedented 5 1/2 hours for oral arguments on four issues: the individual purchase mandate, severability, the Medicaid expansion, and the Anti-Injunction Act. This is a rare moment in America’s history where the Supreme Court could determine whether the United States coalesces behind an historical health system reform or retreats from it.

The Savage South: Reflections on an Image

24 May 2012

Time: 12:00pm - 1:30pm

This talk by University of North Carolina Professor of English, Fred Hobson, examines the prevailing image of the US South from colonial days of the 17th and 18th centuries forward, as the backward, violent, uncivilized and generally benighted part of the United States.

Reflections on the Shift of Economic Gravity from the Atlantic to the Pacific

28 May 2012

Time: 6:00pm - 7:30pm

Join former Prime Minister Paul Keating as he reflects on Australia’s most important international relationship in conversation with Australia’s preeminent print journalist Paul Kelly. From helping found the APEC leaders meeting and the WTO to contributing to humanitarian interventions and peacekeeping in Africa, the Keating government worked closely with the administrations of George HW Bush and Bill Clinton. Since leaving office former Prime Minister Keating has been an influential commentator on Australia’s alliance with the US in the context of emerging Asia and the rise of China.

UPE10 Symposium - Next City: Planning for a new energy and climate future

24 July 2012 - 27 July 2012

Time: 6:00pm

Following the successful City of the Future Conference held in 2010, the US Studies Centre have joined with the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney to host the International Urban Planning and Environment Association’s 10th Symposium (UPE10). The Symposium will be held in Sydney, Australia from 24-27 July 2012.

Pacific Triangles: Australia, China, and the Reorientation of American Studies

10 August 2012 - 11 August 2012

Time: 8:00am

This symposium will examine ways in which the twenty-first century has already reoriented the field of American Studies in relation to the People's Republic of China and Australia, and how this process is likely to continue and develop. It brings together scholars from around the world working within and across American Studies, Asian Studies and Asian diasporic studies, to look not only at shifting relationships between the Chinese mainland and the West, but also how these shifts resonate in the Asia Pacific region.