We’re again a bit late in re-capping our year in 2018, but looking ahead to 2019, we want to summarise what we did during 2018, as we continued the Markers of Authenticity seminar series with a program designed to look outside of the Faculty of Arts to highlight collaborative possibilities with other Departments and Faculties.

Due to one of the convenors taking parental leave and another being on study leave in the first half of  2018, we ran only one seminar in this semester, a session on ‘The Authenticity of the Body’ (22/3), featuring Dr Karin Sellberg (a specialist in the history of medicine and feminist and queer historiography based at the University of Queensland), who spoke on authenticity in transgender autobiography, and Professor Wendy Rogers (Department of Clinical Medicine & Department of Philosophy, Macquarie University), who addressed overdiagnosis and the problem of ‘real’ diseases.

On the 2nd of August a seminar on ‘The Authenticity of Identity’ positioned the work of A/Prof. Jay Johnston (Department of Studies in Religion, University of Sydney) on ‘otherkin’ and humans who identify as animals and other non-human creatures against the research on facial recognition of Dr Ian Stephen (Department of Psychology, Macquarie University), who asked ‘Are our faces and bodies authentic markers of identity?’. Dr Stephen’s work was clearly challenging to many in the audience, which as much as anything highlighted the different methodologies and working assumptions of the disciplines.

Our next seminar was a lively session on the 30^thof August on ‘The Authenticity of Faith’, bringing together medievalist A/Prof. Clare Monagle (Department of Modern History, Macquarie University) and expert on medieval Islam and religious history Dr Aydogan Kars (Centre for Religious Studies, Monash University), who addressed the nature of faith in historical and theoretical perspectives: Kars’ overview of contemporary debates on religious authenticity was an invaluable crash-course for many in the audience, and Clare’s singing of sections of George Michael’s ‘Faith’ illustrated the aptness of the song for the exegesis of historical studies of religion Clare offered.

On 20–22 September, as part of the ARC Discovery Project ‘Forging Antiquity’, we held a Conference ‘Manuscripts from the Margins’, which gathered together a group of the world’s leading experts in fake texts from throughout history to examine the forging of manuscripts of all sorts, with ren international experts joined by four local scholars in giving papers. 20–21 September were devoted to specialised workshop where presenters addressed issues involved in working with, editing, and publishing forgeries (certain or alleged), while a public event ‘Faking It’ was held on 22 September, with an associated exhibition at the Museum of Ancient Cultures. A Wakelet thread of tweets about the event may be found here.

The final seminar was held on 11 October on ‘The Authenticity of Landscape’, with Dr Alicia Marchant (ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, University of Western Australia) examining Renaissance maps of Scotland, and Dr Emily O’Gorman (Department of Geography and Planning, Macquarie University) showcasing her work on wetlands.

On the evening of Thursday 8^thof November, with the generous support of the Faculty of Arts Research Office, the Ancient Cultures Research Centre, and the Centre for Emotional Health at Macquarie University and in association with the Environmental Humanities Research Stream, we put on a gala event, ‘The Spectacle of Science: Humanities at the Crossroads of Innovation’ featuring papers by Prof. Kathryn Millard (MMCCS, Macquarie University), Oron Catts (SymbioticA, University of Western Australia), Prof. Jennifer Hudson (Department of Psychology, Macquarie University), and Joe Lander (Artist in Residence in the Faculty of Human Sciences, Macquarie University). This showcase event on the intersection between Art and Science highlighted the way humanities methods have been used to propel and communicate scientific discovery, with each project representing the integration of scientific and humanities methods for the transformation of our understanding of the world and our place within it.

We were very pleased with the year’s program, especially with our engagement with colleagues in the Faculty of Human Sciences, and look forward to our 2019, which we hope to announce shortly.