Editorial: introduction to the conference issue of humanity

When the organising committee sat down in February 2017 to nut out a theme for the NewMac conference to be held some months later, we sought to highlight the emergent and even altruistic nature of post-graduate scholarship. Despite the large range amongst committee members in terms of age and stage, we agreed that we share a desire to leave some kind of scholarly imprint on the academic world, and to contribute in order to leave these altered in some small way by our efforts. It was hardly surprising then that we settled unanimously on Making a Mark for Macquarie University’s hosting of the 2017 conference at its North Ryde campus.