National Library of Australia: Recent Episodes
National Library of Australia
While Bennelong is a name well known – the truth of the man is still misunderstood by many.
In her presentation, Professor Kate Fullagar aims to explore the truth of his history by presenting neglected evidence about his latter life. She will also compare the work of Bennelong to that of some of his contemporary First Nations negotiators in other parts of the Pacific.
Professor Kate Fullagar is a 2021 National Library of Australia Fellow.
Learn the extraordinary story of the Picturesque Atlas of Australasia and its impact on the Australian art-world between 1885 and 1900.
At this event you'll hear from Dr Gary Werskey, co-curator of the Library's current exhibition A Nation Imagined: The Artists of the Picturesque Atlas, who will explore why a group of American artists and entrepreneurs joined forces with Sydney's artist-illustrators in the production of this landmark publication, and how they ultimately shaped the direction of Australian art and put it on the world's stage.
A Nation Imagined: The Artists of the Picturesque Atlas is presented in partnership with the Art Gallery of New South Wales and will be open until Sunday 11 July 2021. The exhibition was co-curated by Dr Gary Werskey, Honorary Associate in the Department of History at the University of Sydney and author of Picturing a Nation: The Art and Life of A.H. Fullwood, and Natalie Wilson, Curator of Australian and Pacific Art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Dr Andrew Levidis explores the transnational network of bureaucrats, soldiers and propagandists, who served the Japanese and Manchukuo empires and their role in shaping right-wing and socialist politics in Cold War East Asia. It rethinks the transitions from empire to Cold War beyond the binaries of superpower conflict and national experience of decolonization.
What do you expect when graduating with a science degree? To disarm militia in war-torn Mogadishu? To search out Iraq’s elusive weapons of mass destruction? Do you wonder what a spy does?
Join former Australian intelligence officer and author Rod Barton in conversation with ABC journalist and author Michael Brissenden, as Rod discusses his new memoir, The Life of a Spy.
Rod Barton is a former Australian intelligence officer. After starting his career with the Australian Government as a junior scientist, he led an extraordinary life of espionage, working with the UN and several spy agencies, searching for illegal weapons and Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction
“For generations my family wanted to conceal their Aboriginal roots. Our darker complexions, I was told, harkened back to Spanish sailor shipwrecked near Scotland, or invading Moors…The lie was only a few generations back, but it took me almost twenty years to uncover”.
Dr Judith Crispin, the 2020 Honorary National Library Creative Arts Fellow for Australian Writing, shares her journey to uncover the truth about her ancestry, and the Hidden Generations. Join us as Judith reveals how she came to write an imaginary biography in honour of her Grandfather’s Grandmother, Charlotte, informed only by entries in a ledger, a single photo, and the drawings of Charlotte’s countryman, artist Tommy McRae.
Dr Judith Crispin is a poet and visual artist with a background in music. She has two published poetry collections, The Myrrh-Bearers (Sydney: Puncher & Wattmann, 2015) and The Lumen Seed (New York: Daylight Books, 2017). Judith founded the poetry reading series at Manning Clark House and is currently poetry editor for The Canberra Times. Much of Judith’s writing is centered around the experience of searching for her Bpangerang ancestry, and her long-term friendship with Warlpiri people.
The colonial heritage of Norfolk Island is little known to most Australians. 2020 NLA Fellow, Alisa Bunbury’s recent research comprises a careful and structured examination of visual imagery created during the various stages of its settlement during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
These images show the difficulties of contact and communication with its steep cliffs and dangerous reef; the clearing of the land for agricultural purposes; the indigenous flora and fauna, including rare documentation of species driven to extinction; and the built environment, including the long-demolished first settlement and the later penitentiary buildings, the ruins of which are now World Heritage listed. Written records and recollections complement the visual material, ranging from diaries, letters and naval journals to published accounts of visits, official appointments or the horrendous treatment endured by convicts imprisoned there.
Alisa’s research aims to bring the numerous stories of this tiny island to light in time for the 250th anniversary of the Resolution's crew sighting Norfolk Island in 2024.
Trisha Dixon is joined in conversation by Fleur Flanery, Philip Cox and Max Bourke to discuss the enigma of 'spirit of place' and it's place in the world of landscape design. The panel discussion was facilitated by Alex Sloan
Over 400,000 men enlisted in the Australian Imperial Forces to fight in World War I. Nearly one in every five of them was never to return. As every strata of society searched for meaning amidst such cataclysmic loss, many turned to Spiritualism — a fringe religion built on the belief that “death is not a cessation of life but a mere change in condition” and that those who had passed on could communicate with the living.
Why did so many rational men and women place their faith in Spiritualism? How did spirit mediums convince them that communication with the dead was possible? And what was the impact of Spiritualism on the Australian experience of the Great War? Author Nadia Bailey is drawing from her research in the Library's collections for her historical novel in progress.
Nadia Bailey is a Melbourne-based author, journalist and editor. She was the 2019 UNESCO City of Literature Creative Resident in Kraków, Poland, and a 2018 Midsumma Futures Fellow. Her essays, short fiction and poetry have been widely represented in anthologies and journals, and she has published several books on popular culture with Smith Street Books.
Jack Waterford AM delivers the 2021 Canberra Day Oration, Canberra: Part of the Nation's Capital, presented by the Canberra & District Historical Society.
From its foundation in 1953, the Canberra & District Historical Society has promoted the annual observance of Canberra Day on 12 March. In the years that follwed, the Society celebrated Canberra Day in a variety of ways, including Pioneer Gatherings, exhibitions, essay competitions, orations and commemorations at the Commencement Stone.
In 2002 the Society re-introduced the Canberra Day Oration, with Professor Don Aitkin as the first orator. Since then the Canberra Day Oration has been an annual event, held on 12 March.
Image: Valentine & Sons. (1910). Canberra the capital of Australia, sketch view looking west Retrieved January 27, 2021, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-153091444
2021 Creative Arts Fellow for Australian Writing, Dr Jordie Albiston, discusses her research process at the National Library for her new poetry project ‘Frank’.
‘Frank’ comprises of poems based on the diaries of James Francis Hurley from two Antarctic expeditions (under Mawson, and then Shackleton) and his subsequent picture-show tour. Approximately 120 poems offer a poetic mosaic of Hurley's experiences as man and Antarctic photographer, at the end of the heroic age of exploration. Individual diary entries will be redacted to poetry while honouring the unique specificities — vocabulary, rhythm, tone — of Hurley's voice. This transformative shift aims to generate a fresh viability for such documents, enabling a contemporary audience to interact with, and appreciate archival accounts on a completely new range of levels: from the formal and literary level of 'text', to the universal and philosophical level of what it means to be human.
Image: Hurley, Frank (1910), [Frank Hurley photographing from the tip of the jib-boom of the Discovery, Banzare, 1929-1931] [Antarctica], (detail), nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn92416
NLA Fellow, Dr André Brett uses the development of railway networks to interrogate the strong and enduring linkages between economic growth and environmental change.
Inspired by the folk traditions and the unique socio-cultural identity of his home in the Northern Rivers, 2020 National Folk Fellow, musician Luke Byrnes, has been investigating the musical heritage and folklore of the region – searching the National Library’s oral history and folklore archives to find songs, yarns, tunes, poetry, dance, craft and folk stories collected from the region over the last 80 years.
Rediscovered Northern Rivers songs and tunes from the Library’s collections have revealed a colourful and complicated history defined by a diverse range of people’s relationship to place. From the experiences of the many peoples of the Bundjalung nation; to the first waves of colonisation by squatters and cedar-getters in exploitation of land, people and timber; to the legacy of the Terania Creek Protests and the regions ongoing environmental struggles – Luke’s attempt to ‘tell’ a neat conclusive narrative of the Northern Rivers through music proved as impossible as an attempt to bail out the Clarence with a bucket. Instead, Luke’s fellowship presents many different pails from the never-ending stream of Northern Rivers stories in hopes of inspiring a richer appreciation for the region’s complex history.
Stylistically Luke has reinterpreted source recordings of solo singers, box-players and fiddlers into contemporary compositions arranged for a new 7-piece ensemble: The Big Scrub Revival Band.
‘Just one scribbled note from Marcie Muir led us to this amazing discovery … If we hadn’t had that serendipitous moment where Belinda [Murrell] was discovering in one book that Charlotte [Waring Atkinson] had written more than one published work, and then I almost simultaneously found this note, we would never have put the two things together and made that amazing discovery … It was a series of astonishing, serendipitous findings that led us to many of our most exciting insights.’ - Kate Forsyth.
Join bestselling authors Kate Forsyth and Belinda Murrell for the second installment of their pre-recorded, two-part author talk – a discussion about researching and finding collection material at the National Library, as they had to do when writing their new book, ‘Searching for Charlotte’.
Monday 16 November 2020 — the Anniversary of the apology to the 'Forgotten Australians' and Former Child Migrants—join The Australian National University Lecturer and author of Goodna Girls, Adele Chynoweth, and National Library of Australia Director of Indigenous Engagement, Marcus Hughes, as they reflect on the lives and stories of the women of Goodna and the role of cultural institutions in preserving the stories and experiences of marginalised communities.
Goodna Girls tells the story of children incarcerated in Wolston Park Hospital, an adult psychiatric facility in Queensland. It contains the personal testimonies of women who relate—in their own no-holds-barred style and often with irreverent humour—how they, as children, ended up in Wolston Park and how this affected their adult lives.
Kate Forsyth and Belinda Murrell are the sisters behind the latest NLA Publishing title, ‘Searching for Charlotte’.
Join the bestselling authors as they discuss the process of writing a book and what ‘Searching for Charlotte’ means to them in part one of this two-part author talk.
On the anniversary of Walter Burley Griffin’s 1913 appointment as Federal Capital Director of Design and Construction, join Peter Graves and Liz Lea for an online talk connecting the Griffins’ design of Canberra, with Indigenous dance, and traditional Indian dance.
Join Peter Freeman and Dr Rachael Coghlan as they explore the lives of early Canberra architects Malcolm Moir and Heather Sutherland – their work, their impact on the developing city, the times in which they lived, and the legacy that remains.
Peter Freeman is an author and Conservation Architect. His new book, 'THOROUGHLY MODERN: Moir + Sutherland Architects', studies the life and work of these two architects pivotal in the development of Canberra. Peter will be launching his book on Friday 20 November at the DESIGN Canberra Festival. More information about the book launch can be found online at: https://designcanberrafestival.com.au/
Dr Rachael Coghlan is CEO of Craft ACT: Craft + Design Centre, and Artistic Director of the DESIGN Canberra Festival.
This partnered online event has been produced by the National Library in association with Craft ACT: Craft + Design Centre, and the Design Canberra Festival.
Join National Library Exhibition Curator Dr Grace Blakeley-Carroll, and Director of Exhibitions Dr Guy Hansen, for an online tour of our latest exhibition, Birds of Paradise: Ellis Rowan in New Guinea.
Best known for her striking wildflower paintings, Ellis Rowan also had an interest in birds and produced a stunning collection of New Guinea's Birds of Paradise (Paradisaeidae) in circa 1917.
This must-see exhibition is on now and also viewable online, showcasing 13 of Ellis Rowan’s most exquisite watercolour paintings of Birds of Paradise. Also on display are a selection of plate designs featuring smaller representations of the Birds of Paradise and other biographical items relating to Ellis Rowan.
Stalin's Wine Cellar is billed as 'the Raiders of the Lost Ark of wine'.
Join authors John Baker and Nick Place, in conversation with Genevieve Jacobs, and uncover the search for a cellar full of wine believed to be that of former Georgian revolutionary and Ruler of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin.
Did you know the National Library has a board games collection?
Not only do we have hundreds of board games dating as far back as the 1700s, the National Library is also home to the world's LARGEST board game, 'World in Flames'–we have the Guinness Book of World Records certificate to prove it!
Join board game enthusiasts Stuart Baines and Aaron Minehan, with illustrator and game designer Sam Milham Art, as they take a look at some of the unique board games hiding away on the shelves at the National Library.
Australia is home to breath-taking landscapes, as rugged as they are beautiful. Some are driven to explore these places on foot, some from the air, but this book tells the story of the courageous men and women who explored this beautiful country on two wheels.
Grab your helmet and join long-time cycling enthusiast Daniel Oakman alongside National Library curator Susannah Helman as they talk about Daniel’s latest book, Wild Ride: Epic Cycling Journeys Through the Heart of Australia, and the collection material that tells the stories of the people behind these great cycling adventures.
Join father and daughter, and Gamilaroi and Dunghutti people, Rod and marlee.silva (Co-Founder of Tiddas 4 Tiddas) as they share their hopes for the future of Indigenous Australia with reference to their own experiences, stories and dreams.
Marlee and Rod explore the importance of truth-telling in fostering cultural understanding and the cultural shift being driven through the Black Lives Matter movement. Although National NAIDOC week has been moved to 8-15 November 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Marlee and Rod also touch on the 2020 NAIDOC theme of 'Always Was, Always Will Be'.
“The more we are taking care of nature, the more we are taking care of ourselves.”
Last summer’s bushfires left Australia profoundly changed. Lives and homes were lost; almost 13 million hectares of bush was incinerated. Food and fuel systems broke down, and city-dwellers choked on toxic smoke. From this tumult and devastation, what new vision will emerge? How have the fires forced us to rethink ourselves, our communities and our relationships with nature?
Join social scientist Petra Buergelt, animal ecologist Dale Nimmo and planning expert Barbara Norman – whose family sadly lost a home in the fires – as they explore what will rise from the ash in the months and years ahead. Chaired by Nicole Hasham, Environment + Energy Editor at The Conversation.
Presented by The Conversation, the world's leading free, fact-based news source written by academics and edited by journalists and The National Library of Australia.
Join author of The Catch: The Story of Fishing in Australia and avid fisher, Anna Clark, and senior lecturer at Macquarie University, Dr Leigh Boucher as they discuss the role of fishing throughout Australian history, from indigenous innovations and practices through to fishing for sport and recreation today.
From traditional print news to social media, television to blogs—modern media operates in a complex and hyper-connected environment, and it plays a huge part in our lives every single day. Michelle Lipkin and Gavin Sundwall examine the many ways—positive and negative—that media consumption and digital citizenship affect our lives, and discuss how we can become more literate media users.
Michelle Ciulla Lipkin is the Executive Director of the National Association for Media Literacy Education and an adjunct lecturer at Brooklyn College in media criticism and media literacy. She launched the first ever Media Literacy Week in the U.S. in 2015 and has developed strategic partnerships with media companies including CNN, NPR, The New York Times, Al Jazeera English, Nickelodeon, and Twitter.
Gavin Sundwall has worked throughout his career to deliver the State Department's mission to new audiences in the U.S. and internationally. He has driven media coverage by publications including VICE News Tonight, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Daily Beast, and Vogue, and managed the first-ever documentary television series about the work of a U.S. ambassador and embassy. I am the Ambassador won the Danish equivalent of an “Emmy” in 2014 and became a Netflix and iTunes feature.
Join us as we celebrate the release of internationally bestselling author Kate Grenville’s first novel in nearly a decade - A Room Made of Leaves.
In this special online event, Kate Grenville appears in conversation with award winning historian, author, broadcaster and public commentator Professor Clare Wright OAM.
This event is delivered in partnership with Text Publishing.
What is the Australian dream, and does it mean the same thing to us all? Join us as cross-cultural consultant and author Tasneem Chopra OAM leads a thought-provoking discussion between writer and appearance activist Carly Findlay OAM, founder of YARN Australia Warren Roberts, and writer, gender equality and mental health advocate Tarang Chawla, on what the Australian Dream looks like for people from diverse cultural backgrounds and life experiences.
First woman to head an Australian state or territory government, and first ACT Chief Minister, Rosemary Follett AO, has had a diverse career in both politics and the public service.
Following the dismissal of the Whitlam government, Rosemary became President of the ACT ALP. Her negotiation skills proved of great use during the transition to ACT self-government, where she served two terms as Chief Minister: 1989-1990 and 1991-1995, and as ACT Discrimination Commissioner from 1996 to 2004.
Not only has Rosemary served as Vice Chancellor at the University of Canberra, and Chair of the ACT Board of Senior Secondary Studies, she was also instrumental in bringing Nara as Canberra’s twin city and led a trade mission to Japan.
Image: Greg Power, Portrait of Rosemary Follett during an Oral History Interview at the National Library of Australia, Canberra, 28 February, 2012, nla.cat-vn6186349
We often don’t realise we’re living through a major historical moment until the time has passed. The pandemic we find ourselves in now is one such historical moment.
Dr Chris Wallace and Professor Frank Bongiorno AM talk about why it’s so important to document everyday life during irregular times. Learn about what you can do now to help the historians of the future piece together what it was like to live through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Are you still a liar? From its first icy scenes in the Arctic Circle, Felicity Volk’s new novel tells an epic story of a compulsive, unconventional love that spans decades and crosses continents. Desire Lines sets its exploration of truth and lies against society’s uneasy relationship with its own truth-telling in history, war and politics. Canberra’s coming of age, the construction of its institutional landmarks and milestones in Indigenous relations are the backdrop for the novel’s moving reminder that even truths that seem lost forever can find their way home. Join award-winning author Felicity Volk and Karen Viggers for the launch of Volk’s latest novel, Desire Lines.
Join Paul Sharrad as he explores some of the delights found while researching Thomas Keneally's papers, including the forgotten highlights from his career.
Paul will explore the conditions under which writers in the 1960’s and 1970’s worked to survive, and how writers fit within the drive to create a national culture. How does a writer attempting to create a living from his work assemble a long-lasting career in negotiations with editors, agents, reviewers and markets?
He will also question what the place of the writer who becomes a public celebrity is, and how 'middlebrow' writing is valued.
Image: Robert McFarlane, Author Tom Keneally back stage at the Nimrod Theatre, Sydney, 1980 nla.gov.au/nla.obj-152397918
Join Chet Van Duzer, Cartographic Historian and Board member of the Lazarus Project at the University of Rochester, as he explores the early modern belief that there had to be a substantial landmass in the south to counterbalance the continents in the north.
This hypothetical landmass was depicted on many maps beginning from c.1508, when such a continent appeared on a world map by Francesco Rosselli. Rosselli’s map showed a very large island at the South Pole, yet many maps from the sixteenth century illustrate a remarkable variant of this geographical myth: a continent-sized landmass that forms a ring of land around the South Pole, with open water at the pole itself.
Chet will discuss the sources of this unusual view of the Southern Polar Regions found in classical, medieval, and Renaissance hydrographical theories and geographical texts.
Image: Urbano monte world map 1587 David Rumsey Collection Stanford
The need for a grand narrative in the life and obsessive collecting of Rex Nan Kivell is telling. His collecting stories, invented or elaborated, are engaging and, when examined, often untrue.
Without doubt however, was the significance of the items he collected and frequently ‘boosted’ through imaginative tall tales. Examining key acquisitions made over decades, this illustrated lecture will test the stories surrounding them and what this can tell us today.
A Treasures Gallery Access Program, supported by National Library Patrons.
Join Professor Lyndall Ryan, AM FAHA, from the University of Newcastle, as she discusses her continuing work on documenting the frontier massacres across colonial Australia. Her project includes mapping these sites, to create a historically accurate record of the Frontier Wars (1788-1930).
Join two world-class writers and old friends, Garth Nix and Felicity Packard as they discuss their childhood and University years growing up in Canberra, to their most recent venture together, working on a pilot adapted from Garth’s Old Kingdom books for Amazon Studios.
Having sold more than five million books around the world, you will often see Garth Nix books listed in the New York Times bestseller lists, the Guardian and the Australian, with his work being translated into forty languages. His award-winning fantasy novels for young adults include Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen and Clariel, Shade’s Children, A Confusion of Princes and Newts Emerald. Garth has been a full-time writer from 2001, having previously worked as a literary agent, book editor, book publicist, bookseller and part-time soldier in the Army Reserve.
Felicity Packard is a freelance screenwriter, script editor and producer with her name frequenting Australian screens. Felicity was one of the creators and writers of the true-crime drama franchise Underbelly, wrote and associate produced Wolf Creek season one for Stan, and most recently created and wrote for the Netflix political spy miniseries Pine Gap. She has won the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award for screenwriting and has won five-Australian Writers’ Guild Awards. Over her career spanning more than two decades, she has written hundreds of hours of Australian television drama for shows including Janet King, MDA, G.P. Blue Heelers and Home & Away.
Join award-winning author Helen Ennis as she shares her experience with Alex Sloan about writing the moving and powerful biography of modernist photographer, Olive Cotton.
Olive Cotton was a significant artist and pioneer whose talent was recognised as equal to her first husband's, Max Dupain. Olive and Max could have been Australia's answer to Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, but in the early 1940s, Cotton quit their marriage and Sydney studio lifestyle to live with second husband, Ross McInerney and raised their two children in a tent on a farm near Cowra. Despite the barriers of this new lifestyle and not having access to a dark room, Olive continued her photography away from the public eye until she was shot back to fame in 1985 by a landmark exhibition in Sydney, and a major retrospective at the AGNSW in 2000.
A moving story about talent and creativity, Emeritus Professor Ennis explores the life of Olive Cotton and what it means for an artist to manage the competing demands of art, work, marriage, children and family.
Helen Ennis won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Non-Fiction for her biography Margaret Michaelis: Love, loss and photography, which was also judged Best Book by the Art Association of Australia and New Zealand. Her research on Olive Cotton has been supported by the Australia Council Literature Board, a Peter Blazey Fellowship, and the ABR/George Hicks Foundation Fellowship. Formerly Curator of Photography at the National Gallery of Australia, Helen went on to become Director of the Centre for Art History and Art Theory and Sir William Dobell Chair of Art History at ANU School of Art & Design. Since 2000 she has curated eight major exhibitions for the National Library of Australia, National Portrait Gallery, National Gallery of Australia and other cultural exhibitions. Now Emeritus Professor, Helen is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities.
Alex Sloan AM has been a journalist for 30 years, including over 27 years as a broadcaster with the ABC. An award-winning journalist, Alex is highly regarded as an MC, interviewer and facilitator including: The ANU Meet The Author events, The National Library, National Museum of Australia, National Gallery of Australia and National Portrait Gallery. In 2017 Alex was named Canberra Citizen of the Year and is a member of the ACT Architects Board. At the national level, Alex is a director of The Australia Institute and The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust.
Anyone who has a book collection and a garden wants for nothing.” – Cicero
Bibliophile Rex Nan Kivell agreed with Cicero. He spent his life collecting rare books now generously shared with Australians through the Library, and he gardened at his a mansion El Farah, in Tangier.
Hear about some of the exceptional books and printed items acquired by one of the greatest collectors of the 20th century and his gardening interests.
A Treasures Gallery Access Program, supported by National Library Patrons.
Join us as Morris Gleitzman outlines why young people need stories now more than ever. Stories to delight, stories to beguile, stories to inspire, stories to move deeply. And through these experiences, stories that equip young readers to embrace an often dark and uncertain world with optimism, resolve and creativity.
Stories have always been at the centre of our discourse. They help us explore what is it to be human, and what might be possible in our lives. Our young people face many challenges in the decades ahead as they explore what is possible for our human enterprise. Central among the things that will help equip them for this journey are stories.
Morris Gleitzman has been a bestselling Australian children’s author for more than thirty years and is the current Australian Children's Laureate. His books explore serious and sometimes confronting subjects in humorous and unexpected ways. His titles include Two Weeks With The Queen, Grace, Doubting Thomas, Bumface, Toad Rage, Give Peas A Chance, Extra Time, Loyal Creatures, Help Around The House, and the series Once, Then, Now, After, Soon and Maybe. Morris lives in Brisbane and Sydney, and his books are published in more than twenty countries.
Supported by the Ray Mathew and Eva Kollsman Trust
Think about the children’s books that you see on the selves of Australian bookstores. How many of these books provide insight into non-Western cultures? How many are translations? Multicultural books are important because they can provide windows into other cultures and introduce readers to new ideas. They can also help readers from under-represented groups see themselves reflected in literature. This talk will highlight a range of multicultural picture books that celebrate cultural diversity, focusing on the relationship between word and image and how the verbal and the visual elements work together to produce a dynamic story.
In conversation with writer Chris Hammer, internationally best-selling crime writer Michael Connelly brings to life - once again - Harry Bosch and LAPD Detective Renee Ballard in the impalpable case of The Night Fire.
In association with Allen & Unwin.
Burbang is the Wiradjuri word for Ceremony. In a ceremony, the ritual repeats unchanged, however, the participant arrives each time with greater wisdom and hierarchical standing and can 'peel back' the significance of the ceremony's embedded knowledge. Independent choreographer and dancer, Joel Bray, will share his research into traditional Indigenous ceremonial practices and how it will inform his new project, Burbang, a work of immersive dance-theatre.
Joel Bray is the National Library’s 2019 Creative Arts Fellow. He a choreographer, a performer with CHUNKY MOVE, a NEXT GEN creator of BlakDance, and a proud Wiradjuri man whose work and performances have been seen and toured nationally and internationally.
The 2019 Creative Arts Fellowship is generously supported by the Friends of the National Library of Australia Inc.
We are despised, yet we grow. We are tortured and crucified and yet we flourish. We are hated and still we multiply. Why is that? You must wonder, how is it we survive?'
Christos Tsiolkas' stunning new novel Damascus is a work of soaring ambition and achievement, of immense power and epic scope, taking as its subject nothing less than events surrounding the birth and establishment of the Christian church. Based around the gospels and letters of St Paul, and focusing on characters one and two generations on from the death of Christ, as well as Paul (Saul) himself, Damascus nevertheless explores the themes that have always obsessed Tsiolkas as a writer: class, religion, masculinity, patriarchy, colonisation, refugees; the ways in which nations, societies, communities, families and individuals are united and divided - it's all here, the contemporary and urgent questions, perennial concerns made vivid and visceral.
In Damascus, Tsiolkas has written a masterpiece of imagination and transformation: an historical novel of immense power and an unflinching dissection of doubt and faith, tyranny and revolution, and cruelty and sacrifice.
Dr Laura Millar, independent consultant and scholar in records, archives, and information management, discussed her new publication A Matter of Facts: the Value of Evidence in an Information Age.
The safeguarding of authentic facts is essential, especially in this disruptive Orwellian age, where digital technologies have opened the door to a post-truth world in which “alternative facts” can be so easily accepted as valid.
As Dr. Millar argues in her book, because facts matter, evidence matters. In her talk, she made the case that authentic and accurate records, archives, data, and other sources of documentary proof are crucial in supporting and fostering a society that is respectful, democratic, and self-aware.
Dr Millar has consulted with governments, universities, professional associations, and other agencies around the world, from advising national governments on electronic records management to consulting with aboriginal communities on the preservation of indigenous sources of evidence. She is the author of several award-winning publications and has taught in several universities in Canada and internationally.
Kerry Reed-Gilbert, Wiradjuri woman, writer, artist and activist, passed away on July 2019 shortly before her memoir and final piece of writing was published.
Fellow writers and activists, Yvette Holt and Samantha Falkner, joined us to pay their respects to Aunty Kerry. Reflecting on and celebrating her life and writing, they spoke to Kerry’s latest and final piece of work The Cherry Picker’s Daughter.
The Cherry Picker’s Daughter explores Kerry’s story of love and loss, repeated dislocation, dispossession and the impact of life as an Aboriginal state ward living under the terror of Protection laws. During her childhood, fruit-picking meant the difference between going hungry or having a roof over your head. Kerry’s final piece of writing encompasses her early life, leading us through memories of losing her mother, her father imprisoned for her the murder of her mother, and the vital strength of family ties in Aboriginal communities while surviving the White Australia Policy and everyday racism.
Kerry Reed-Gilbert was a Wiradjuri woman, writer, artist and activist and the inaugural Chairperson of the First Nations Australia Writers Network (FNAWN). She was a member of the ACT Us Mob Writing (UMW) group and was FNAWN co-editor for the Ora Nui Journal collaboration between First Nations Australia writers and Maori writers. Kerry conducted writing workshops nationally and internationally and her poetry and prose have been published in many journals and anthologies internationally.
Yvette Henry Holt is a national multi-award-winning poet, academic, serial photographer and habitual hiker, heralding from the Yiman, Wakaman and Bidjara Nations’ of Queensland. Her poetry has been widely published, translated and anthologised in both in print and online. In 2005 Yvette was awarded the Queensland Premier’s David Unaipon Award for her manuscript, anonymous premonition (UQP), the Victorian Premier’s Literary for Indigenous Writing in 2008, Scanlon Poetry Prize NSW 2008, Kate Challis RAKA Award 2010.
Samantha Falkner is the current Chairperson for US Mob Writing Group of which Kerry was a member. Samantha is a Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal woman from the Wuthuthi / Yadhaigana peoples, Cape York Peninsula and Badu and Moa Islands, Torres Strait. She is the author of Life Blong Ali Drummond: A Life in the Torres Strait, published in 2007 by Aboriginal Studies Press. She has performed at several festivals and conferences and has had poetry and prose published: locally and nationally.
Why did Mr Chicken go to Paris? Why do two blankets change the way we see the world? Why do animals give us insights into ourselves? Join our star-studded panel as illustrators Freya Blackwood, Leigh Hobbs and Alison Lester discuss the ways in which characters are created and go on to warm the hearts of children and readers worldwide. As children, the ways in which we see the world are often shaped from our favourite children’s books and characters, leaving us with a nostalgic vulnerability well into adulthood. Take the opportunity to hear about the creative process from three industry leading illustrators.
Image 1. Leigh Hobbs at Drawing board, photo by Robert Littlewood
NAIDOC Week celebrations (NAIDOC originally stood for ‘National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee’) on 7-14 July are held across Australia each July to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
NAIDOC is celebrated not only in Indigenous communities, but by Australians from all walks of life. The week is a great opportunity to participate in a range of activities and to support your local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.
We were joined by Dr Lynette Riley, Aunty Diane Riley-McNaboe and Shannan Dodson for part two of our NAIDOC Week event. They discussed the struggles of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in campaigning for their rights and recognition of their cultures.
NAIDOC Week celebrations (NAIDOC originally stood for ‘National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee’) on 7-14 July are held across Australia each July to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
NAIDOC is celebrated not only in Indigenous communities, but by Australians from all walks of life. The week is a great opportunity to participate in a range of activities and to support your local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.
Join Dr Elizabeth Burrows in part 1 of this presentation as she discusses her research.
Carry on to Part 2 with Shannan Dodson, Lynette Riley and Diane Riley-McNaboe for a seminar about the struggles of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in campaigning for their rights and recognition of their cultures.
Public Life, Private Man: Writing the Biography of Alfred Deakin
The core challenge of political biography is to answer the question, ‘why politics?’. What inner need did it fulfil, and what emotional and psychological resources were mustered for its accomplishment?
These questions are harder to answer for Alfred Deakin than for less complex political leaders. Deakin was a gifted orator and successful politician who was a father of federation and Australia’s most significant prime minister until the Second World War. Yet he was also a deeply private man, with an intense intellectual and spiritual life, who wondered often if politics was the right path for him. The 2019 Seymour Biography Lecture was delivered by emeritus professor and political historian Judith Brett, who will discussed the tensions and synergies between Deakin’s public and private lives. In 2017, Brett published The Enigmatic Mr Deakin, the final addition to her trilogy of books on the history of Australian Liberals. The first full-length study of Deakin in more than 50 years, The Enigmatic Mr Deakin went on to win the 2018 National Biography Award. Brett’s prior publications include Robert Menzies' Forgotten People, Australian Liberals and the Moral Middle Class: From Alfred Deakin to John Howard and this year’s From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage: How Australia Got Compulsory Voting.
The Seymour Biography Lecture is supported by Dr John Seymour and Mrs Heather Seymour AO.
In this passionate and timely account, Emily Maguire charts a course through the history of Australian feminism—from the First Wave to the Fourth, from suffragists to Riot Grrrls, from equal pay to #metoo. Along the way, she pays tribute to those who’ve spoken up and taken action in the face of ridicule, dismissal and violence.
This Is What a Feminist Looks Like shows us how we got to where we are today—and reminds us that some battles must be fought over and over again.
Author, Emily Maguire and Zoya Patel joined us in conversation to further investigate these themes.
Emily Maguire Emily Maguire is the author of five novels, including An Isolated Incident which was shortlisted for the Stella Prize, the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year and the Miles Franklin Literary Award. Her 2008 non-fiction book Princesses and Pornstars: Sex, Power, Identity was a frank, personal examination of what it meant to be young and female in Australia. A Young Adult version of this book titled Your Skirt’s Too Short: Sex, Power, Choice was published in 2010. Emily works as a teacher and as a mentor to young and emerging writers and was the 2018 Writer-in-Residence at the Charles Perkins Centre at the University of Sydney.
Zoya Patel Zoya Patel is a writer, editor and communications professional, based in Canberra. Her debut book, No Country Woman, a collection of memoir essays on race, identity and the diaspora is out now through Hachette Australia. In 2015, Zoya was named ACT Young Woman of the Year for her commitment to raising the profile of women’s voices in the media. She is the founder and editor of Feminartsy, an online feminist arts and literature journal, and is the former Editor-In-Chief of Lip Magazine. She has written for a number of publications, including The Canberra Times, Right Now, Junkee, Women’s Agenda, and more.
On 24 September 1989, the Canberra Raiders defeated the Balmain Tigers in the grand final of the New South Wales Rugby League Premiership. In the days following the win Canberra was flooded in a sea of green celebration. On the 30th anniversary of this memorable game, the Library’s Director of Exhibitions, Dr Guy Hansen, discussed how success on the sporting field added a new dimension to Canberra’s identity and changed how the city was seen beyond its borders.
Join us for a special event to celebrate the many achievements of Alexander von Humboldt – a polymath, geographer, naturalist and explorer, and the first person to describe the phenomenon and cause of human-induced climate change.
On the 250th anniversary of his birth, the National Library of Australia will host a discussion with expert scientists to discuss von Humboldt’s impacts on the world of science and how they are still effecting leading experts today.
Professor Gabrielle McMullen AM, President of the Australian Association of von Humboldt Fellows, will introduce us to the life and work of von Humboldt, before our panel discusses the impacts of his work more widely.
On our panel:
Dr Judith Reinhard (Head, Science and Innovation - Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Australia) Emeritus Professor Hans Bachor (Research School of Physics, Australian National University)
Professor Timothy J Entwisle (Director and Chief Executive of Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria)
Facilitated by Lish Fejer (ABC Radio Presenter and Science Communicator)
‘Migrant rights’ was a familiar term in the 1960s and 1970s before the introduction of a state multicultural policy. At the forefront were groups within the Italian and Greek communities that worked with trade unions to lobby for better pathways to citizenship, housing, community services and workplace conditions. Dr Alexandra Dellios will be discussing the rich community memory of migrant rights activism.
Dr Alexandra Dellios is cultural historian in the Centre for Heritage and Museum Studies and is a National Library of Australia Fellow.
Curator Grace Blakeley-Carroll offers a behind-the-scenes look at the development of the exhibition Story Time: Australian Children’s Literature. Hear about how she brought together material from the National Library, the National Centre for Australian Children’s Literature and other important collections. She will also explore some of the key themes and books featured in Story Time.
R. G. Casey, the Bengal Famine and Australia-India Diplomacy
R. G. Casey’s Governorship of Bengal (1944-1946) was a short wartime appointment in a province troubled by famine, the threat of invasion, and rising communalism, prior to its partition in 1947. Drawing on the diaries of Casey and his wife Maie, Associate Professor Kama Maclean will focus on Casey’s attempts to ameliorate the effects of the famine, which included working with Australian civil society organisations who lobbied to raise funds for famine relief.
Kama Maclean is an Associate Professor of South Asian and World History at the University of New South Wales, author, and editor. Kama is a 2019 NLA Fellow supported by the Harold S Williams Trust.
In his stunning new book, World Heritage Sites of Australia, a tribute to nature and cultural heritage, Peter Valentine captures the majesty and panorama of Australia’s 19 world heritage sites. Don’t miss this chance to hear Peter discuss this ambitious project, with one of Australia’s most celebrated and dedicated environmentalists, former Greens’ leader Bob Brown. This new book is a celebration of the exceptional contribution Australian sites make to humanity’s collective legacy, and an entreaty to preserve them for future generations.
Anne-Louise Willoughby worked as a journalist in a career that spanned thirty years in Western Australia, first training as a newspaper cadet in the 1970s before moving to magazine publishing with Australian Consolidated Press. As a freelance journalist, she was a feature writer for Australian newspapers and contributing WA editor to Belle Magazine. Anne-Louise has worked as a lecturer and tutor in creative writing at the University of Western Australia with a particular interest in memoir and biography.
About Nora Heysen: A Portrait
The life of artist Nora Heysen was defined by an all-consuming drive to draw or paint. The first woman to win the Archibald Prize, and Australia’s first female painter to be appointed an official war artist, Heysen’s post-war portraiture and still lifes sustained a lifelong career.
In 1989, aged 78, after years of artistic obscurity, she re-emerged on the Australian art scene, and the nation’s major art institutions restored her position as a significant Australian artist.
Extensively researched, and containing artworks and photographs from the life of Nora Heysen, this story of a driven, optimistic and resilient painter is a celebration of that restoration.
Matthew is a former chef and now farmer, so uniquely placed to write about where our food comes from, and the ethics around eating meat. A hugely emotive topic, that is hitting headlines at the moment, but Matthew manages to convey all angles and sides to this complex issue with empathy, wisdom, and objectivity, while still maintaining his core message that
‘Meat eaters need to confront the reality that something dies in their name, and that they should be comfortable with the way it’s done. But that non meat eaters need to reconcile the fact that more suffering happens outside the farm gate than inside.’
Utterly compelling this is an extraordinary book and one that is sure to spark intense conversation and debate.
In this year’s Kenneth Myer lecture, Professor Peter Greste draws on his own experience of imprisonment in Egypt to examine the global political forces that have undermined press freedom both abroad and here in Australia. He considers how we got the laws that created the problem, the media’s own role in getting us there and how we might be able to fix it.
Professor Peter Greste is UNESCO Chair in Journalism and Communication at the University of Queensland. He came to academia after a 30-year career as a foreign correspondent for the BBC, Reuters, CNN and Al Jazeera. He is best known for being charged with terrorism offences in Cairo while he worked for Al Jazeera. Their case became a fight for press freedom and since his release in 2015, he has become an advocate for journalists worldwide. His campaigning earned him numerous human rights awards and in 2017, with two colleagues, he established the advocacy group, the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom.
This event is generously supported by The Myer Foundation.
Librarian Margy Burn shares experiences acquiring rare and unique collections during her career at the National Library and other great Australian research collections.
Margy Burn recently retired as the National Library’s Assistant Director-General, Australian Collections & Reader Services. Before joining the National Library, she held senior positions working with Australiana collections at the State Libraries of New South Wales and South Australia.
Margy began working with archives and special collections at the University of Adelaide Library. Her first ‘field work’ was a series of visits to Mary Clark, the daughter of Federation advocate Sir Josiah Symon, to sort Mary’s large collection of papers documenting work in England and Australia with touring ballet and theatre companies. The octogenarian Mary told stories of nursery life in an Adelaide hills mansion; served a homemade lunch she had cooked on a wood stove, presented on ceramics made by her friend, the influential British potter Bernard Leach, while her cat Fleance prowled hopefully under the table. Margy was hooked.
Since those early days, Margy is proud to have played some role in the acquisition of papers of women including P.L Travers, Eva Cox, Dale Spender, Helen Caldicott, Kay Cottee, Meryl Tankard, Dymphna Clark, Drusilla Modjeska and Anne Summers, to name a few.
Margy has been involved with the Australian Women’s Archives Project since its inception nearly 20 years ago. In retirement she is enjoying having time to read many more books.
In association with the Australian Women's Archives Project.
Image: Margy Burn, image supplied.
Sam Lebovic will explore the transnational history of media deregulation in the age of cable and satellite television, focusing particularly on the intertwined histories of Australian, British and U.S. media politics in the 1970s and 1980s. Understanding the history of those decades, he will suggest, is the key to understanding the rise of the chaotic and fractured media landscapes of our present moment.
Sam Lebovic is Associate Professor of History at George Mason University, and is a 2019 National Library of Australia Fellow, supported by the Minerals Council of Australia.
With the recent boom in family history research, many Australians are discovering that long-held family myths and mysteries can cover hidden truths about our past. Ashley will talk about her work mapping and analysing the Library’s collection of self-published family histories and examine how families use inherited secrets, stories, and memories to both reproduce and challenge silences about Australia’s colonial history.
Dr Ashley Barnwell is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Melbourne and a 2019 National Library of Australia Fellow, supported by the Stokes Family.
Using examples of cartoons displayed in the Inked exhibition, Dr Guy Hansen will provide a short history of Australian cartooning over the last 200 years. Guy will discuss examples of satirical prints from 1780s, cartoons during colonial Australia from The Bulletin and the emergence of cartoonists as social commentator in the twentieth century. Guy will reference works from a range of cartooning superstars including Livingston Hopkins, Phil May, David Low, Stan Cross, Bruce Petty , Ron Tandberg, Michael Leunig, Geoff Pryor, Alan Moir, Cathy Wilcox and Judy Horacek.
NAIDOC Week celebrations (NAIDOC originally stood for ‘National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee’) on 7-14 July are held across Australia each July to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
NAIDOC is celebrated not only in Indigenous communities, but by Australians from all walks of life. The week is a great opportunity to participate in a range of activities and to support your local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.
Join Dr Elizabeth Burrows, Dr Lynette Riley, Aunty Diane Riley-McNaboe and Shannan Dodson as they discuss the struggles of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in campaigning for their rights and recognition of their cultures.
Join Professor Marcia Langton, Dr James Rose and Dr Len Smith as they discuss Digital Curation in the Indigenous Data Network.
Based at the University of Melbourne, the Indigenous Data Network was created in 2017. Its dual purpose is to strengthen local Indigenous communities’ agency in managing their data and to strengthen policy and decision making.
The Network aims to archive orphan data sources and increase visibility of existing data; work with government agencies and non-government organisations to ensure Indigenous communities’ access and ownership of data; ensure that official data collection reflect Indigenous priorities; and coordinate educational programs to ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have expertise in data science.
Joint event with Digital Preservation and AIATSIS.
We have always shared our cities with nature – from magpies and remnant bushland to the fish in urban rivers. In this talk A/Prof Andrea Gaynor will illuminate the changing role of urban nature in Australian children’s experience and education from the mid-1960s to the 1990s, using oral history interviews, works and papers of environmental advocates, and evidence from children themselves.
Associate Professor Andrea Gaynor is an environmental historian at The University of Western Australia, and a 2019 National Library of Australia Fellow.
Meghan Oldfield, Executive Group Manager, Light Rail City to Gungahlin, reflects on life before Canberra, family and being a woman in the rail industry.
In association with the Australian Women's Archives Project.
Beginning with Poems of the Atomic Bomb by Sankichi Tōge in 1951, Japan continues to produce literary and pictorial narratives of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - preserving memories of the catastrophe so it wouldn't be repeated.
Join Dr Yasuko Claremont as she explores responses to atomic bomb literature, including the work of Professor John Whittier Treat, author of Writing Ground Zero.
2019 National Library of Australia Fellowship in Japan Studies supported by the Harold S Williams Trust.
Image: Poems of the Atomic Bomb by Sankichi Tōge. Cover detail by Gorō Shikoku (reproduced with permission)
Between them, Geoff Pryor and David Pope have over 50 years of cartooning experience. In this conversation, they will discuss their experiences in editorial cartooning at The Canberra Times. Facilitated by Inked: Australian Cartoons curator Dr Guy Hansen, Pryor and Pope will also turn their keen satirical eyes to politics and the changes they have seen in Australia’s newspaper industry.
Geoff Pryor was the editorial cartoonist for The Canberra Times from 1978 to 2008. During his 30-year career, Pryor often drew seven cartoons each week for the newspaper. Pryor was also cartoonist for The Saturday Paper until his ‘second retirement’ in December 2018.
David Pope replaced Pryor at The Canberra Times in 2008, a position he still holds. Before this, he worked as a freelance cartoonist and illustrator for many years.
Image: David Pope (b.1965), How Your Weekly Cartoon Is Produced (detail) 1997. Courtesy David Pope
How might we best catalogue historical maps featuring words from both Aboriginal languages and English? What does it take to decolonise our view of historical maps?
Spatial scientist and researcher from the University of Sydney, Dr Bess Moylan shares her research into how historical maps can be reviewed to give them a wider audience, and make them more useful when investigating Aboriginal cultural landscapes.
Dr Moylan is the 2019 Fellow in Curatorial Research supported by the Patrons and Supporters of the Library’s Treasures Gallery Access Program.
Throughout the twentieth century, many gay Australian writers and artists left Australia—some of them would never return.
Literary scholar Dr Ellen Smith explores the relationship between expatriatism and queer identity in mid-twentieth-century Australian writing through a number of case studies of writers whose decision to leave Australia can be linked to their sexuality.
About Dr Ellen Smith
Dr Ellen Smith is a literary scholar interested in the global contexts of Australian literature, and a lecturer in Gender Studies and Australian Literature at Deakin University.
Dr Smith is the 2019 Fellow supported by the Ray Mathew and Eva Kollsman Trust for Research in Australian Literature.
Already optioned for a film, Meg Keneally's first solo novel, Fled - based on the extraordinary life of convict Mary Bryant - tells the historical adventure of the only female convict to successfully escape the colony.
About the book, Fled
Jenny Trelawney is no ordinary thief. Forced by poverty to live in the forest, she becomes a successful highwaywoman – until her luck runs out.
Transported to Australia, Jenny must tackle new challenges and growing responsibilities. When famine hits the new colony, Jenny becomes the leader in a grand plot of escape, but is survival any more certain in a small open boat on an unknown ocean?
In partnership with Echo Publishing Melbourne Australia.
Join Alasdair McGregor and Simon Nasht for a dinner discussion on the life and work of Frank Hurley, including his work in the Antarctic and his stunning visual archive of major events both at home and overseas.
The National Library has re-issued the book Frank Hurley: A Photographers Life, written by McGregor, portraying the life and career of Australia's first internationally recognised photographer and highlighting the sacrifices and risks to obtain the 'perfect' photo.
On what would be art dealer and collector Rex Nan Kivell's (1898 1977) 121st birthday, Treasures curator Nat Williams will reveal new insights into the Library's collection.
This lecture will discuss the collector’s life and examine some of the fascinating natural history items he collected.
A Treasures Gallery Access Program, supported by the National Library Patrons. The Treasures Curator is supported by the Australian Governments Catalyst - Australian Arts and Culture Fund.
Using examples of cartoons displayed in the upcoming Inked exhibition, Exhibition Curator Dr Guy Hansen provides a short history of Australian cartooning over the last 200 years, sifting through examples of satirical prints from the 1780's, cartoons from the colonial period and the fleeting commentaries of the digital age.
Dr Guy Hansen will reference works from a range of cartooning superstars including Stan Cross, Livingston Hopkins, Judy Horacek, Michael Leunig, David Low, Phil May, Alan Moir, Bruce Petty, Geoff Pryor, Ron Tandberg and Cathy Wilcox.
In her new book, You Daughters of Freedom, historian Associate Professor Clare Wright brings to life a time when Australian democracy was the standard bearer for progress and the envy of the world.
In conversation with Genevieve Jacobs, Wright will tell the story of that victory—and of Australia’s role in the subsequent international struggle through the eyes of five remarkable players: the redoubtable Vida Goldstein; the flamboyant Nellie Martel; the indomitable Dora Montefiore; the daring Muriel Matters, and the artist Dora Meeson Coates, who painted the controversial Australian banner carried in the British feminist activist marches of 1908 and 1911.
In association with Text Publishing Co.
The first professional woman writer in English, Aphra Behn, was a successful London playwright in the 1670s and 1680s. Professor Elaine Hobby shares how Behn's rare and precious books give insight into her life and writings.
This event will be host to author Bruce Gaunson and a lecture based on his book Fighting the Kaiserreich: Australia’s within the Great War. The book explores World War 1 and Australia’s struggle with Imperial Germany during the Great War.
After some years as a teacher and academic, Bruce Gaunson became the West Europe political analyst at the Office of National Assessments (Canberra) during the Cold War’s final outcomes. His teaching career culminated in thirteen years as Head of History at Sydney Grammar School. Fighting the Kaiserreich is his third book.
The Estaminet Group is an interest group initially created by Great War researchers/specialists associated with The Australian War Memorial and ADFA. It provides a forum based on lectures around the broad topic of Australia’s involvement in world wars; commencing with WW1.
The Estaminet itself is affiliated with the Western Front Association in the UK – one of the largest military history organisations in Europe.
The lifelong adventurer and famous photographer Frank Hurley travelled around the Middle East and North Africa from 1941 to 1946. His official mission was to Australian service members during the desert campaign of the Second World War.
The talk will focus on how Hurley was entranced by the local cultures, architecture and landscape of the middle east and will be delivered by the NLA curator, Rosalind Clarke.
Australia has always punched above its weight in the brilliance of its cartoonists. Cartoonist (and one-time Canberra resident) Judy Horacek gives her perspective on Inked, the NLA’s new cartoon exhibition – what she loves about cartoons and the cartoons she loves. She will give some insights into her own work, and how the profession has changed in the three decades she has been in it, and her musings about whether the medium will survive in this new age.
Judy’s work has been published in all over the world. At different times she has had regular gigs in The Age, the Australian and the Canberra Times. She is currently published two days a week in the Age. Judy also makes children’s picture books, both on her own and with Mem Fox.
Feminist, social activist, public servant and journalist, Marie Coleman was the first woman to head an Australian national statutory authority, the National Social Welfare Commission. She has spent over 60 years campaigning against the gender pay gap and other social injustices. A founder of the National Foundation for Australian Women she was instrumental in establishing the Australian Women’s Archives Project and lobbied for the Commonwealth paid parental leave legislation. Marie has been awarded the Order of Australia, the Public Service Medal, the Centenary Medal of the Public Service Institute, and an Edna Ryan award in government. She was inducted into the Victorian Honour Roll of Women and chosen as 2011 ACT Senior Australian of the Year.
Internationally bestselling author of The Rosie Project, The Rosie Effect and The Best of Adam Sharp, Graeme Simsion in conversation with former ABC Journalist and Announcer, Alex Sloan as they launch the hilarious and thought-provoking new book, The Rosie Result.
About the Rosie Result:
Don and Rosie are back in Melbourne after a decade in New York, and they’re about to face their most important challenge. Their son, Hudson, is struggling at school: he’s socially awkward and not fitting in.
Don’s spent a lifetime trying to fit in—so who better to teach Hudson the skills he needs? The Hudson Project will require the help of friends old and new, force Don to decide how much to guide Hudson and how much to let him be himself, and raise some important questions about his own identity.
In association with Text Publishing.
Welcome to Country Paul House Ngambri-Ngunnawal Custodian
National Library Welcome The Hon. Dr Brett Mason Chair, Council of the National Library of Australia
Introducing the 2019 International Year of Indigenous Languages Sue Moore Secretary-General Australian National Commission for UNESCO
SESSION 1: KEYNOTE ADDRESS A Voice in the Smoke Professor Kim Scott Aboriginal languages might be regarded as major denominations in the currency of identity and belonging. Professor Kim Scott will speak about his involvement in efforts to return archival Aboriginal (Noongar) language material to its home community and landscape, and to empower members of that community through control and sharing of their heritage of story and song
The United Nations has designated 2019 as the International Year of Indigenous Languages. This panel will explore why language revival is vital to the future of Indigenous communities. Chair: Dan Bourchier Panel: Professor Nicholas Evans, Professor Rawinia Higgins and Professor Jakelin Troy
Closing Remarks- Dr Marie-Louise Ayres Director-General, National Library of Australia
Language records are often buried within archival collections, creating many challenges for Indigenous communities in locating and accessing them. This session studies the ways that archive keepers can improve access to their extraordinary resources.
PARADISEC Digital Archive (15 mins) Professor Linda Barwick This talk reports on the Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC), a collaborative digital archive for research recordings in the Asia Pacific region. Linda will show how PARADISEC makes recordings available to those recorded—and their descendants—through partnerships with local communities, and share examples of how PARADISEC’s work is used in the revitalisation of Indigenous languages.
Returning Culture to Country (15 mins) Rebecca Bateman In consultation with community leaders, the National Library has been returning cultural information found in archival records to Indigenous communities. This work requires the development of new protocols and understanding. Rebecca explores what the Library has learned through its work in this space.
Discovering First Nations Content in Trove (15 mins) Allison Lubransky-Moy Trove is a place to discover and engage with the many voices that make up our Australian community. In 2019, Trove will introduce a number of significant enhancements to support discovery and access to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander material and ensure the best experience in Trove for First Nations peoples.
Q&A (15 mins)
European explorers generally mapped placenames from afar. Re-placing examines what happens when Indigenous knowledge and naming is put back on the map.
Using Historical Maps to Identify European Recordings of Aboriginal Language in the Illawarra Region (15 mins) Dr Elizabeth Moylan Early explorers of Australia generally mapped placenames from afar while on their boats. Later, surveyors were directed to map Indigenous placenames, supporting the efficient re-establishment of locations. How placenames are recorded on historical maps reveals the level of interaction between the person recording placenames and those who lived there.
Contemporary Communities and Nineteenth-century Archival Materials (15 mins) Associate Professor Helen Gardner We cannot now research colonial and settler histories about Indigenous Australians without the support of the contemporary Indigenous communities that are the descendants of those represented in archives. This presentation will focus on community interest in language and the partnerships engendered through Helen’s project on the A.W. Howitt material held principally in Victoria.
The Mapping of Aboriginal Language Countries (15 mins) Dr Peter Sutton Early accounts acknowledged a close association between Indigenous Australian languages and physical landscapes, but it has taken over a century for that relationship to be deeply grasped by scholars. The mapping of landscapes in fine detail has been a key factor in furthering this understanding, building a more nuanced and complex picture of language countries.
Q&A (15 mins)
SESSION 5: LANGUAGE LESSON A Lesson in Ngunawal Tyronne Bell
SESSION 6: REVIVING LANGUAGES A panel discussion of language revival across Australian and Pacific communities. Participating Chair: Professor Jakelin Troy Panel: Professor Rawinia Higgins, Elaine Lomas and Dr Michael Walsh
Ginger Gorman is a fearless and multi award-winning social justice journalist. She has an innate ability to connect and communicate with some of the most interesting and marginalised people in our community and works hard to translate those untold stories into powerful and insightful journalism.
In 2013, Journalist Ginger Gorman was trolled online and received scores of hateful tweets, including a death threat. Over the next five years Ginger spoke to psychologists, trolling victims, law enforcement, academics and the trolls themselves, embedding herself into their online communities and their psyches in ways she had never anticipated.
Troll Hunting is an utterly compelling read and an important window into not just the mindset and motivation of trolls, but the history of this kind of aberrant behaviour.
Journalist Ginger Gorman, in conversation with Channel 9's Chris Uhlmann, leads us through the mindset and motivation of online trolls, exploring what makes them tick and who they really are.
How do we use new and emerging technologies to change the way we tell stories?
Panel:
Mikaela Jade - Indigital CEO and Founder Mikaela Jade’s company, Indigital works to develop innovative new ways to digitise and translate knowledge and culture from remote and ancient communities.
Indigital works with some of the most remote Peoples' on earth using cutting edge digital technologies, such as drones, 4D mapping software, image recognition technology and cultural law to bring the world's cultural sites alive through augmented and mixed reality.
Indigital is 100% Indigenous owned and operated for-profit enterprise.
Sam Doust - Latchkey, Writer and Creative Director
Sam Doust is a multi-disciplined visual artist, writer and director, specialising in digital narrative design and production. Recent projects include a series of interactive documentaries on Australia's wartime record during WW1. Doust also spent over 12 years at ABC, with eight years as creative director of Strategic Development for the Innovation Division, leading projects that identify ABC as an innovator in digital content.
Astrid Scott – ABC Education, Senior Producer and Strategist Astrid Scott is a Senior Producer and strategist that focuses on creating accessible, inclusive, and high-value edu-tainment experiences. For the last decade, she has worked across different areas of the ABC as a digital content producer specializing in emerging platforms and has developed award-winning interactives, animations, video content, virtual reality and more.
Anthony Bastic – AGB Events, CEO and Creative Director Creator of the National Library's Beauty Rich and Rare exhibtion, Anthony Bastic from AGB Events, creative talents have brought some of the worlds most inspiring event experiences to life and storytelling that captivates and unites diverse communities.
Since founding AGB Events, Anthony has conceived and produced a multitude of successful events in Australia and internationally, such as Vivid Sydney, The Australian Garden Show Sydney, the Lights of Boston, and the first two iLight Marina Bay in Singapore. Prior to establishing AGB Events, Bastic held creative positions in the events industry including the Sydney Opera House, Sydney 2000 Olympics Live Sites and more.
Award-winning author Bruce Pascoe delivers a call to care for our earth through agriculture. As detailed in his book Dark Emu, he provides compelling evidence from the diaries of early explorers which suggests that systems of food production and land management have been blatantly understated in modern retellings of early Aboriginal history, and that a new look at Australia’s past is required.
Bruce Pascoe is Bunurong/Tasmanian Yuin man and an award winning author and story teller. His book Dark Emu: Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident, a history of Aboriginal agriculture, was published by Magabala in 2014 and won both the Book of Year and the Indigenous Writers Prize (joint winner) in the 2016 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. In 2018 Dark Emu was transformed into compelling contemporary dance performance by Bangarra Dance Theatre, touring nationally. Other books include Night Animals, Shark, Ocean, Bloke, Cape Otway, Convincing Ground, Little Red Yellow and Black Book. Bloke, Chainsaw File, Fog a Dox, and most recently Mrs Whitlam. In 2018 Bruce Pascoe was awarded the Lifetime Achievement in Literature Award by the Australia Council.
ERIC ROLLS MEMORIAL LECTURE Eric Rolls was a poet, historian, environmentalist, farmer philosopher and prolific author, including a two-volume history of Chinese immigration, and his classic work A Million Wild Acres, a history of the conquest and destruction of Australia’s wilderness. Eric has been described as 'the finest historian of our natural landscape, who writes books about rabbits, forests, dingoes and turtles, yet can’t stand greenies.' He died in 2007. The Library holds the personal papers of Eric Rolls, as well as oral history recordings, photographs and publications.
The Eric Rolls Lecture was established in 2010 as a bi-annual lecture, organised by the Watermark Literary Society and funded by Elaine van Kempen, the widow of Eric Rolls and executor of his estate. The lecture aims to continue the work of Eric Rolls, highlighting the work of Australia’s environmental scientists and writers.
Image: Bruce Pascoe. Photo courtesy Linsey Rendell.
Dr Anne Summers AO has had an extraordinary career as a journalist, author, policy maker, bureaucrat, editor, publisher, board member and above all change agent. In conversation with Genevieve Jacobs, she will speak about her life and her new memoir Unfettered and Alive.
This is the compelling story of Anne Summers' extraordinary life. Her story has her travelling around the world as she moves from job to job, in newspapers and magazines, advising prime ministers, leading feminist debates, writing memorable and influential books. Anne has not been afraid to walk away from success and to satisfy her constant restlessness by charging down new and risky paths. Whatever position she has held, she has expanded what's possible and helped us see things differently-often at high personal cost.
Anne shares revealing stories about the famous and powerful people she has worked with or reported on and is refreshingly frank about her own anxieties and mistakes. She shares a heart-breaking story of family violence and tells of her ultimate reconciliation with the father who had rejected her. Unfettered and Alive is a provocative and inspiring memoir from someone who broke through so many boundaries to show what women can do.
Image by Kevin McDermott
Markus Zusak, internationally best-selling author of The Book Thief, makes his long-awaited return with a profoundly heartfelt and inventive novel about a family held together by stories, and a young life caught in the current: a boy in search of greatness as a cure for a painful past.
Join us for a special evening at the National Library as Markus is joined by respected journalist and presenter Caroline Baum to discuss his much-anticipated new novel Bridge of Clay.
Image: Markus Zusak, courtesy Hugh Stewart
Share an afternoon tea with a difference as Lish Fejer chats with Annabel Crabb about her new book Special Guest. Co-written with Wendy Sharpe, this is a cookbook for anyone who loves hosting guests at home.
The fraternal twin of Special Delivery - a cookbook for anyone who ever felt like punching a wall before their guests arrive.
If you are someone who prepares for guests by sweeping bills, laundry and newspapers behind sofa cushions, take heart! It's possible to be an imperfect host, but happily so. The essential ingredient is not, paradoxically, the food, nor the perfect house to host in, but the sentiment you convey when you open the door. Do your eyes say: 'I like you and I enjoy your company,' or does a weepy cloud of visceral horror descend as pine nuts burn quietly in the kitchen?
Special Guest is a gentle guide to turning easy basic fare into something of a celebration. For when you want to say to your friends with their spouses and ten small children, 'Why don't you stay for lunch?' without hating yourself afterwards. Learn the lesson of 'one splendid thing done well' without regard to the hundred other things, and call the day a success. Pick up some pointers for the modern conundrum that is cooking for people with seemingly incompatible dietary requirements.
Hosting your friends is not about showing off; it is about delighting others. Your dining table might be decorated with a pile of unmatched socks and kids' homework, but that's no reason not to invite friends in for a chat, a sit-down and something delicious to eat.
Annabel Crabb is one of Australia's best-loved TV and media personalities and a joyfully imperfect host. Wendy Sharpe is Annabel's oldest friend, a recipe consultant on Kitchen Cabinet and co-conspirator in mad-capped cookery projects.
In association with Murdoch Books
Image: Annabel Crabb. Photo courtesy Rob Palmer.
It is frequently contended that present-day working conditions and wagelessness are analogous to those experienced during the severe economic downturn of the 1930s. Using methods of historical sociology, Professor Lisa Adkins explores oral and manuscript testimonies of those who lived through the period to test the claim that the conditions of the present, and especially those associated with work, are comparable to those of the Great Depression.
Professor Lisa Adkins is Head of the School of Social and Political Sciences at The University of Sydney and an Academy of Finland Distinguised Professor (2015-19).
A Family Standing Outside a Tin Shack Called Wiloma during the Great Depression, New South Wales. c. 1932 (detail), nla.cat-vn6247387, courtesy Fairfax Syndication
Treasures Curator, Nat Williams will explore the European discovery and documentation of tapa or barkcloth by Cook’s associates and other navigators and how this ubiquitous material worked its way into cultural exchanges over more than a century. (In association with the Library’s In Cook’s wake: Tapa treasures from the Pacific exhibition until 3 February 2019).
The Treasures Curator is supported by the Australian Government’s Catalyst – Australian Arts and Culture Fund
Canberra journalist and garden-lover Genevieve Jacobs leads a discussion with botanical artist Julia Landford, ANU anthropologist Dr Bronwen Douglas and leading botanist Dr Judy West about the context and importance of the natural history art that arose from the voyages of Captain James Cook, as well as discussing the continuing significance of natural history art in the scientific field today.
Julia Landford is Director of the natural history art school, Canberra NatureArt Lab. In her twenty-year public service career with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Australia’s Aid Program, Julia was deployed to Papua New Guinea, South East Asia and the Pacific Region. The rich biodiversity of these regions was a great source of artistic inspiration and saw her establish Canberra’s first art school dedicated to artistic inspiration from nature. Dr. Bronwen Douglas is an Honorary Professor at the ANU School of Archaeology and Anthropology and was a Harold White Fellow at the Library in 2010. Her research interests include the history of the idea of race, and the history of archaeology, anthropology, and collecting in Oceania.
Dr. Judy West has had an extensive botanical career and in 2003, she was awarded the Order of Australia for her services to Australian botany. Judy has dedicated her career to botany in several executive positions at the CSIRO and ANU, and is currently the Executive Director of the Australian National Botanic Gardens.
Image: Moses Griffith (1747- 1819), Rainbow Lorikeet, 1772, nla.cat-6155314
In the mid-18th Century, Whitby was a booming industrial town, a centre of shipbuilding and a centre of professional maritime training, in particular in mathematics. It was entrepreneurial and aspirational - a place where there were opportunities to make careers, and in some cases considerable wealth.
James Cook is sometimes described as the son of a farm labourer who learnt to sail on collier barks between Whitby and London, and then learnt cartography while serving in the Royal Navy in Canada. Sophie Forgan, (Chairman of Trustees, Captain Cook Memorial Museum, Whitby, UK) challenges this view and argues that Whitby was key to the formation of the young Cook’s skills and aptitudes.
Image: Thomas Luny (1759–1837), The Bark, Earl of Pembroke, later Endeavour, Leaving Whitby harbour in 1768 c. 1790, nla.cat-vn345842
Dr Joy McCann reveals some of the secrets of the Southern Ocean, drawing from sea captains’ journals, explorers’ letters and whalers’ logs as well as her own research into the Antarctic region’s natural and cultural histories.
Discover the Southern Ocean’s intriguing stories and what it can teach us about our past and our future.
Joy's book Wild Sea: A History of the Southern Ocean was published by NewSouth Publishing in 2018 - she will be available to sign copies at the Bookshop after her talk.
Victor Briggs will takes us on a navigational journey via the stars, sharing the essence of the connections with both land and sea people.
Image: John Cleveley (c.1745-1786), Discovery and Resolution at an Island in the Pacific, 1777, 1780's, nla.cat-vn321742
The recent re-discovery of Captain Cook’s ship HMB Endeavour, a joint project between RIMP and the Australian National Maritime Museum, made world headlines.
Staff from the ANMM will discuss this discovery and the ongoing work still to be done.
Image: HM Bark Endeavour model 1967–70, Australian National Maritime Museum, Sydney, 00009219
Professor Gillian Russell explores the Prance collection to explain why British Romanticist Charles Lamb was interested in Australia, and how this was repaid by devotion from Australian readers.
Professor Russell is the 2018 national Library Fellow in Australian Literature, supported by the Ray Mathew and Eva Kollsman Trust.
Join award-winning author, Liam Pieper, as he reflects on researching and writing his revisionist historical novel Bittereinder, which explores the fate of Indigenous Australian soldiers who fought for the British in the Boer War.
Liam Pieper is the 2018 Creative Arts Fellow for Australian Writing, supported by the Ray Mathew and Eva Kollsman trust.
Michel Tuffery maps the collaboration and interaction on first contact between Tupaia and Cookie, his crew, the scientists and the artists at the Echoes of Cook seminar.
John Robson delivers 'A Chain of Surveyors: Cook to Stokes'.
This one-day seminar brings together local and international experts on Cook and his voyages with Indigenous Australian and Pacific Island voices, promising a soul-searching reshaping of our understanding of Cook as a scientist, navigator, and leader, and recognising how the lives of communities in the Pacific were forever changed following his journeys.
A panel of First Nations voices discusses the continuing impact of Cook and his voyages on First Nations peoples today.
The panel will be facilitated by Wiradjuri woman and media personality Rae Johnston.
Professor John Maynard provides the key note topic 'James Cook: An Aboriginal Perspective' at the Echoes of Cook seminar.
Hear from a collection of curators and couriers on the materials of Cook and his voyages as they boldly explore the legacies and controversies of the complex figure that is Captain James Cook.
Dr Susannah Helman gives a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the development of the exhibition Cook and the Pacific.
Richard Fidler outlines some of the tensions that come into play when bringing someone’s life story to a listening audience, and he compares it to the freedoms and constraints involved in writing biography for a reader.
Richard Fidler hosts Conversations on ABC Radio, an hour-long interview show. His guests have included astronauts, authors and scientists, but the program often features remarkable people unknown to the wider world. More recently he's written several historical books, Ghost Empire, and Saga Land (co-written with Kari Gislason), which contain short biographies of historical figures from Byzantium and medieval Iceland.
Our expectations that political leaders should be able to promote a positive agenda for Australia have perhaps never been higher, yet more based in a cynicism about what leaders can actually achieve. In this lecture, based on a forthcoming Quarterly Essay on political leadership, Laura Tingle reflects on our relationship with political leaders and how it is changing around the world.
As a journalist, essayist and author, Laura Tingle has reported on Australian politics and policy for more than 35 years. In 2018, she joined the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as chief political correspondent for its flagship current affairs program 7.30, after 16 years with the Australian Financial Review where she was political editor, and previously, senior reporting positions with other major Australian mastheads.
A multi-award winning journalist, she is the author of Chasing the Future, a book about the early 1990s recession, and two Quarterly Essays: Great Expectations (2012) and Political Amnesia (2015). An assembly of her essays, In Search of Good Government , was published in 2017. Her third Quarterly Essay on Australian politics will be published in September 2018.
Generously supported by the Myer Foundation
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Edinburgh-based mapmaking firm of John Bartholomew & Son Ltd printed a growing number of maps both for the Australian market and depicting Australia.
Chris Fleet, Map Curator at the National Library of Scotland, examines recent research into the Bartholomew Archive and poses the question: how powerful were these maps in defining broader British imperial ideologies and in shaping views of Australia?
Dr Carolyn Young presents the results from her Creative Arts Fellowship research on small endangered Australian mammals, focusing on the original plates for John Gould’s Mammals of Australia (London, 1863). Following the presentation, Genevieve Jacobs and Simon Corbell will officially launch Grassland in Transition by Dr Carolyn Young and Dr Sue McIntyre.
Carolyn’s investigations inspired her body of photography and mixed-media artwork, re-imagining the nineteenth century experience of grassland species. It explores the relevance of native mammals to Australian culture—past and present.
Dr Carolyn Young is the 2018 Friends of the National Library Creative Arts Fellow. She has a PhD in photography (ANU) and honours degree in natural resources (UNE). She won the Pat Corrigan Acquisitive Award, Centre for Contemporary Photography (2016).
Author, illustrator and National Library Ambassador Kaz Cooke talks about using unique objects, documents and photos in state and national library collection to add reality and depth to writing fiction as well as non-fiction, family history and memoir.
Meredith Hinchcliff, Derek Wrigley and Amy Jarvis discuss the work of furniture designer Fred Ward, whose work was commissioned for the Library building in the 1960s.
Join curators Dr Guy Hansen, Dr Grace Blakeley-Carroll and Dr Walter Kudrycz as they discuss the making of the Library's current exhibition, 1968: Changing Times, sharing their discoveries from the Library’s collections and revealing the challenges they faced in producing a history exhibition using just a single year as a frame of reference.
Dr Lucas Jordan reveals the story of the six Australian souvenir hunters who crossed the Somme River and captured Chipilly Spur during what was arguably the most decisive battle of the war.
Join Pictures Acquisition Officer and 2017 National Library Indigenous Graduate Jodie Dowd as she shares her experience as the first Indigenous Australian to undertake a placement in collections management at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. Jodie will reveal how this experience enabled her to have a cross-cultural exchange with indigenous peoples from the Americas, and how the NMAI incorporates indigenous knowledge into western collection management practices.
The generation that made 1968 sought to change the world and to change themselves, shaped by three political conflicts—the Second World War, the Cold War and the Third World Revolution—and the youth cultural revolution of the 1960s. Paris is generally seen to be the epicentre of protest in 1968, but it was just one site of a global revolt that stretched from Mexico to Prague and from Belfast to Cape Town.
Professor of Modern History Robert Gildea (University of Oxford) examines the May 1968 protests in France and the impact that continues to be felt 50 years on.
Yanti Ropeyarn, from the Library's Newspapers and Family History area, shares a digitisation project close to her heart. ‘Back to School at Bamaga High’ saw 22 issues of Karbai magazine—from Yanti's high school, Bamaga State High School—digitised and made available online via Trove.
Why is contemporary Australia seen globally as a successful economic nation? University of Oxford Professor David Vines explores the radical shift in thinking by the HC 'Nugget' Combs' generation of macroeconomists, which took place during World War II, and formed the necessary underpinning of the later Hawke-Keating reforms.
Professor Vines is the 2018 National Library Fellow supported by the Minerals Council of Australia.
Join Treasures Curator Nat Williams in conversation with Alison French, Petherick Reader, art historian and curator, to explore the universe in glass at the Library.
Dr Beatrice Bijon explores the British suffragette movement through the papers of feminist Bessie Rischbieth, followed by a viewing of the exhibition Deeds Not Words: Women's Suffrage in Britain.
Walter Kudrycz discusses the Vietnam war in 1968 – a time of major developments, and public outrage at the images they were starting to see on their televisions.
Ben Law and his mum Jenny Phang are here to save you from yourself with sage (and not-so-sage) advice to desperate lovers and sexual adventurers alike. We’ll explore relationships of all kinds, and delve into the lewd, salacious and just plain funny, with a craft beer (or gin!) in hand and live local music.
What secrets do you wish you’d known about life with a newborn? Jamila Rizvi, editor of The Motherhood, leads a lively and honest discussion with contributors Lanai Scarr, Emma MacDonald and Anna Rose about their experiences as new mothers.
In association with Penguin Random House
Curator Nat Williams explores the items currently on loan to the National Gallery of Victoria for their new exhibition, examining images of the exploration leading to the settlement and expansion of the Australian colonies.
The Treasures Curator is supported by Catalyst – Australian Arts and Cultural Fund. Treasures Gallery Access Program, supported by National Library Patrons.
John Bell is adjunct professor at the Sydney School of Education and Social Work. His ongoing association with the school is integral to the linking of drama and English curriculum.
In 1991, John founded the Bell Shakespeare Company where his productions have included Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew, Pericles, Julius Caesar and Wars of the Roses.
John's personal repertoire of characters from Shakespeare has included Hamlet, Shylock, Henry V, Richard III, Macbeth, King Lear and Titus Andronicus. He has also directed a production of Madame Butterfly for Oz Opera, which toured nationally.
In association with the Canberra International Music Festival.
Dr Rebecca Jones examines how European settlers and colonisers struggled to cope with Australia's extreme weather events.
Dr Rebecca Jones is a National Library Fellow supported by Deidre McCann and Kevin McCann AM, and the Macquarie Group Foundation.
Image:
Carl Dugdale, A Phenomenal Dust-storm at Narrandera, New South Wales (detail), between 1900 and 1915, nla.cat-vn270297
In this lecture, award-winning composer Andrew Fordwill share insights into the creative process of composing, exploring the relationship between music and memory, reflecting on the role that music plays in our lives.
Andrew Ford is a composer, writer and broadcaster who has won awards in each of those capacities, including the 2004 Paul Lowin Prize for his song cycle Learning to Howl, a 2010 Green Room Award for his opera Rembrandt's Wife and the 2012 Albert H Maggs Prize for his large ensemble piece, Rauha . He has been composer-in-residence for the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) and the Australian Festival of Chamber Music. In 2014 he was Poynter Fellow and Visiting Composer at Yale University and, in 2015, Visiting Lecturer at the Shanghai Conservatory. A former academic, Ford has written widely on all manner of music and published nine books, most recently The Memory of Music (Black Inc., 2017). He has written, presented and co-produced five radio series and, since 1995, presented The Music Show each weekend on ABC Radio National. Andrew is an ANU Coombs Creative Arts Fellow in 2018, and this lecture is one event in a program of featuring Andrew’s writing and music, proudly presented by the ANU School of Music.
Light refreshments and a book signing will take place in the Foyer following the lecture.
Image: Andrew Ford, courtesy Jim Rolon.
What was Australia's climate like before official weather records began? Award-winning climate scientist and writer from the University of Melbourne, Dr Joëlle Gergis, pieces together Australia's climate history for the first time and reveals what climate change looks like in our own backyard.
Perhaps the best-known Australian colonial castaway is Eliza Fraser who was shipwrecked in 1836 on K’gari-Fraser Island, where she spent time with local Indigenous peoples.
Many early accounts present Fraser as the civilised captive of cruel and primitive savages. Less known are the many instances of castaways whose survival depended on the sustained assistance of Indigenous peoples, who treated them with care and kindness.
This presentation interweaves some extraordinary stories with artworks to provide fresh perspectives on these shared encounters.
Associate Professor Lisa Chandler is a curator, and Art and Design academic from the University of the Sunshine Coast.
Professor Chandler’s Fellowship for Curatorial Research is supported by the Patrons and Supporters of the Library’s Treasures Gallery Access Program.
- A year of protests, war, Hendrix and a missing Prime Minister. Curator Dr Guy Hansen introduces our new exhibition 1968: Changing Times, and looks at the highlights of that year—locally, nationally and internationally.
The Commonwealth’s Review to Achieve Educational Excellence in Australian Schools (Gonski 2.0 Review) is a serious opportunity for a new nation-wide conversation on school education.
It comes at a critical time. Australia’s educational performance is declining internationally, we face new challenges in preparing students for their future lives and jobs, and equity gaps are too wide.
But this does not mean that the Commonwealth should have a much bigger role in schooling than it does today.
Dr Peter Goss, Grattan Institute School Education Program Director, hosts a panel of leading policy thinkers to explore:
What is needed to lift educational outcomes? What are the benefits, challenges and risks of Commonwealth interventions? Where should the Commonwealth focus its efforts, and why? Speakers
The Hon Adrian Piccoli, Director, UNSW Gonski Institute for Education
David de Carvalho, CEO, NSW Educational Standards Authority
Lisa Rodgers, CEO of AITSL
Moderator
Dr Peter Goss, School Education Program Director, Grattan Institute
Academics Jenny Hocking, Allan Gyngell and Graeme Smith join Julianne Schultz, editor of the Griffith Review, to discuss the contemporary experience of Commonwealth citizens. Is the Commonwealth of Nations an outdated legacy, or is it poised to play a major role again as a values-based network that represents a third of the world’s population?
In association with the Griffith Review
Join Dr Linda Zampol D'Ortia as she considers different understandings of missionary failure, analysing the tensions they created in the Jesuit mission in Japan from 1524 to 1639.
Dr Zampol is an NLA Fellow in Japan Studies, supported by the HS Williams Trust
The Seekers topped charts all over the world in the 60s with hits such as ‘Georgy Girl’ and ‘I’ll Never Find Another you’. Athol Guy and Keith Potger reminisce about their rollercoaster ride of success and the emotional farewell concert in 1968.
Treasures Curator Nat Williams explores the infamous life of George Barrington, celebrity pickpocket, convict and chief of police.
A Treasures Gallery Access Program, supported by National Library Patrons
The Canberra and District Historical Society’s 2018 Canberra Day Oration will be presented by Brendon Kelson, former Director of the Australian War Memorial. He will reflect on the entombment of the Unknown Australian Soldier on Remembrance Day 1993, as well as its significance in present-day commemoration.
Presented by the Canberra and District Historical Society
Genevieve Jacobs leads historians Dr Béatrice Bijon and Dr Clare Wright in a discussion on women’s suffrage in Australia and the UK, followed by a curator-led tour of the Deeds not Words exhibition which showcases the collection of Bessie Rischbieth, an Australian witness to the campaign for women’s suffrage in the United Kingdom.
Curator Dr Grace Blakeley-Carroll looks at the experiences of early twentieth-century Australian female writers Henry Handel Richardson, Miles Franklin and Christina Stead and the publishing industry, as revealed through a new display in the Treasures Gallery.
Emeritus Professor Lesley Johnson explores the history of institutions that have shaped the humanities, and how complex forces continue to create uncertainty about their value today.
The industrial innovation of chilling or freezing perishable produce transformed relationships between climates and the production and consumption of food across the globe. This talk considers how refrigeration was adapted to open up new trades, notably in meat, dairy and fruit, between Australia and the Pacific Islands from the late nineteenth century. Refrigeration also had profound effects on livelihoods, cultural practices and regional relations, creating legacies that continue to shape the Pacific to this day.
Dr Frances Steel is a senior lecturer in History at the University of Wollongong and specialises in histories of empire and mobility in the Pacific.
Dr Steel is the National Library Fellow supported by Deidre McCann and Kevin McCann AM and the Macquarie Group Foundation.
The map Archipelagus Orientalis, sive Asiaticus (Eastern or Asian Archipelago) is a historical goldmine; it records the first sighting of Tasmania and the first mapping of the New Zealand coast by Europeans. It became the template for all subsequent maps of 'New Holland', or Australia. After being acquired by the Library in 2013 and displayed in the exhibition Mapping Our World: Terra Incognita to Australia, the map underwent intense restoration. Now, after four years of conservation work, see for yourself the amazing results. Martin Woods, Curator of Maps, and Libby Melzer, conservator at the Grimwade Centre, will explain the restoration journey as it returns to display in our Treasures Gallery for a limited time only.
A Treasures Gallery Access Program, supported by National Library Patrons
Novelist Kim Scott reveals how reclaiming Aboriginal language and story may offer a narrative of shared history and contribute to social transformation.
The Ray Mathew Lecture was established in 2009 as a major annual event for the National Library of Australia. It is named in honour of the Australian poet and playwright, Ray Mathew (1929–2002), who left Australia in the late 1960s, never to return. Mathew spent most of the remainder of his life living in the New York apartment of his patrons, Eva and Paul Kollsman. The Ray Mathew and Eva Kollsman Trust is a generous bequest, made to the Library by Eva Kollsman, to support and promote Australian writing.
Unbreakable is the story of Jelena Dokic’s survival, in her own words. How she survived as a refugee, twice. How she survived on the tennis court to become world No. 4. But, most importantly, how she survived her domineering coach and father, Damir Dokic.
From war-torn Yugoslavia to Sydney and, later, Wimbledon, Jelena Dokic narrates her hellish ascent to international tennis stardom and her heart-breaking fall from the top.
In association with Penguin Random House
On retiring from the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1971, Director Hal Missingham received an extraordinary gift: a bound volume containing contributions from over 200 Australian artists and cultural figures. Join Treasures Curator Nat Williams, Hal’s son Peter Missingham and publisher and curator Lou Klepac to explore this fascinating volume and celebrate the production of the new Beagle Press book Hal Missingham: Artist Author Photographer.
A Treasures Gallery Access Program, supported by National Library Patrons
Image: Russell Drysdale (1912–1981), The Waitress, For Hal., from Fully Bound: Over to Hal Missingham: A Tribute with Love and Affection, 1971, nla.cat-vn4598533
In this creative presentation, Timothy Daly and actors will show how dormant historical material is turned into viable and exciting contemporary theatre.
Timothy Daly is one of Australia’s most internationally-produced playwrights with a string of national and international productions to his credit and featuring leading companies and actors, including Geoffrey Rush in The Don’s Last Innings, Cate Blanchett in Kafka Dances, and Jacki Weaver in Derrida in Love. Kafka Dances has won over a dozen national and international awards since its première and is the most internationally-performed Australian play of all time. Timothy Daly specialises in the complex and difficult art of dramatising significant cultural and political figures, including Franz Kafka, J.Edgar Hoover, conductor Eugene Goossens and most recently, Donald Friend, the subject of his 2017 National Library research.
Modern life can feel like an injury. Where do we turn for hope when all seems dark? It's times like these we need the consolation of art and ducks. Join us for an evening with Michael Leunig - cartoonist and philosopher - for a glimpse into his twentieth collection of cartoons Ducks for Dark Times. Explore the mind of one of Australia's most treasured artists and find the wisdom and resilience needed for anyone who is losing faith; who's becoming exhausted or fed up with the news, and for those of us who feel we could do well to laugh or weep a little more.
For lovers of Australian fiction, Alex Miller’s novels are essential reading, with writing that reveals his wit, wisdom and keen observations of life’s complexities. In conversation with author and poet Adrian Caesar, Alex Miller will reflect on how love, and the struggle to live a creative life, inspired his exquisitely personal new novel, The Passage of Love. Alex has won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and is a two-time winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award.
In association with Allen and Unwin
To mark the 100th anniversary of the charge at Beersheba, Jenny Horsfield tells the story of Rania MacPhillamy, a remarkable woman who worked tirelessly in difficult conditions to support the men of the Light Horse during the desert campaign in Egypt.
In association with the Canberra Great War Study Group, the Estaminet
Image: Cover detail of Rainbow: The Story of Rania MacPhillamy by Jennifer Horsfield
What were Chinese children reading about Australia and the world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? Dr Shih-Wen (Sue) Chen uses the National Library of Australia’s rich collection of reading materials for children published by Protestant missionaries and Chinese reformers to discuss how texts and cultures were shared between Britain, America and China during a period of uncertainty and political unrest in Chinese history.
Dr Shih-Wen (Sue) Chen is a National Library of Australia Fellow, supported by Ryan Stokes.
Image: Yaquan Du, Hui tu wen xue chu jie, 1903 (detail), nla.cat-vn848005
Dr Michelle Aung Thin reveals how Gordon Luce’s Burmese collection is helping her imaginatively recreate the vanished world of the wealthy, cosmopolitan and colonial city of Rangoon for her new semi-autobiographical novel.
Dr Aung Thin is the 2017 Creative Arts Fellow for Australian Writing, supported by the Ray Mathew and Eva Kollsman Trust.
National Library Fellow in Australian Literature, author Dr Gabrielle Carey explores the inspiring and unique influence the Australian writer Ivan Southall had on a generation of young readers.
In the 1960s and 70s Ivan Southall’s books for young adults sold in the hundreds of thousands and he remains significant in the imaginations of countless Australians today. But Southall was also an object of controversy, his novels criticised for being too dark and pessimistic. Southall argued that he was trying to write about life realistically and to teach children resilience. It was a lesson that his readers responded to mightily.
Dr Carey’s research focuses on the hundreds of letters sent to Southall from his devoted readers and attempts to understand this unique reader-writer relationship.
She is author of several books, the earliest her much loved book Puberty Blues co-authored with Kathy Lette, and her most recent publication, 'Moving Among Strangers: Randolph Stow and My Family', which was the co-winner of the 2014 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Non-Fiction.
Dr Gabrielle Carey is a National Library of Australia Fellow in Australian Literature, supported by the Ray Mathew and Eva Kollsman Trust.
Dr Guy Hansen, Director of Exhibitions, explores the significance of a watercolour sketch that shows the clash between 200 rebel convicts and a contingent of infantry near present-day Rouse Hill on 5 March 1804.
A Treasures Gallery Access Program, supported by National Library Patrons
Join The Saturday Paper’s chief political correspondent, Karen Middleton, for ‘A Month of Saturdays’, one of a series of conversations about Canberra’s big policy debates.
In her new novel, Michelle de Kretser explores the art of fiction and how art can transform and sustain, as well as belittle and betray. Her meditations on time and loss make us laugh and also feel a little paranoid!
The sixties: a decade of safari suits and droopy moustaches? Living the 1960s guides you through the landscapes of 1960s Australia, from the smoke-filled bars and cafes to the pastel lounge rooms and boardrooms.
Charles Massy was once like many farmers, unknowingly contributing to the decline of the soil through the use of chemicals. He is now a radically eco-minded farmer who has carefully nursed a 2,000-hectare property back to natural health. He reveals the real story of industrial agriculture and the global profit-obsessed corporations driving it.
In association with University of Queensland Press
Hear from Raimond Gaita, author of Romulus, My Father as he tackles the big concepts of truth, truthfulness, self and voice in his writing. What do they mean when one is writing portraits that express gratitude to people one loves, unapologetically in a personally inflected voice? Raimond explains further:
I’m writing a book of essays that express gratitude to, often love of, people I have known who have mattered deeply to me, some of whom have inspired me. I’ll include part of one of those essays in my lecture. Perhaps they are better described as elegies. Or, portraits. Some are of teachers, others of friends. One is of my late father-in-law. Writing about him I will, inevitably, write about my wife. The essays (I’ll continue to call them essays) will be worthless if they are not truthful in intent and achievement. In such small pieces (none is longer than 5,000 words) that explicitly express gratitude many things will be left unsaid and I’ll encounter the usual kinds of difficulties non-fiction writers do when they write about people. The difficulties inevitably lead to failures, many of them psychologically and ethically motivated. They make the ambition to be truthful appear naïve, perhaps even culpably so.
Nonetheless, anyone who reads those essays will wonder, “Was that person really like that?” They won’t mean, ‘like that in some respects’. They will mean, ‘like that in essence’. I hope the answer will always be, yes. How could I not? Yet I know that I hope in the face of well know scepticism, often grounded in the observation that when you ask seven people what someone they know well is like, you are likely to get seven different answers, and that the differences may forever be unresolved. More radically, some will say that the difference cannot, in principle, be resolved in a way that could reveal what the person was really like because there nothing in this world, no fact, that is what someone is really like”, against which we could match narratives to assess their truthfulness. Against that, I’ll take heart from, and reflect upon, Iris Murdoch’s remark that to see the reality of another person is an act of love, justice and pity.
For the first time in history, two Australian Divisions fought a battle side by side in the Battle of Menin Road. Whilst a classic example of how a well-prepared and well supported infantry could take and hold ground, Roger Lee explores why this tactic would never win the war on the Western Front.
Random Life finds one of Australia’s favourite cartoonists at the height of her creative career; still making us think and laugh. It is full of all the things we have known and loved about Judy’s work over the years – her concerns for the environment, social justice and feminism, along with her off-the-wall quirkiness and trademark flights of fancy.
Join Judy in conversation with Alex Sloan as she explores the cartoons that will make you laugh a lot, and occasionally weep.
Exhibition curator Matthew Jones gives an insight into the life and work of Peter Dombrovskis, revealing how he created some of his iconic and powerful images and how his work changed the way Australians think about their environment.
Short lectures by former Australian Greens leader Dr Bob Brown and exhibition curator Matthew Jones, introducing the National Library of Australia's exhibition 'Dombrovksis: Journeys into the Wild.'
Peter Dombrovskis was one of the world’s foremost wilderness photographers. His powerful, reflective and deeply personal images of the unique Tasmania wilderness had a lasting impact, changing the way Australians think about their environment. The National Library has over 3,000 Dombrovskis transparencies in its collection, and has printed 70 of the best for a special exhibition in tribute to this remarkable man, the most complete survey of his work to date in Australia.
Hosted by the Friends of the National Library
Image: Peter Dombrovskis, Drying kelp at Sandy Bay, Macquarie Island, Tasmania, 1984, nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn4737917.
Dr Anne Summers AO is a best-selling author, journalist and thought leader with a long career in politics, the media, business and the non-government sector. She is the author of eight books, including the classic Damned Whores and God’s Police, first published in 1975. She has been editor-in-chief of Ms., the landmark US feminist magazine, and her 1988 purchase of Ms. and Sassy magazines with business partner Sandra Yates remains one of only two women-led management buyouts in US corporate history.
Her professional life has seen her run the Office for the Status of Women (now Office for Women) during the Hawke government, and she also advised former Prime Minister Paul Keating on women’s and other issues in the lead-up to the 1993 election.
On matters of gender equality, social responsibility and social justice Anne Summers’ articulate journalism, politics and activism have called us all to account.
At least two million Turks visited the Gallipoli battlefield memory sites in 2015. How do Anzac pilgrims perceive these Turkish visitors and how have Islamist politicians mimicked the Anzacs? Using contemporary accounts held at the Library, Professor Ayhan Aktar traces changing modes of Turkish commemoration and narratives of Gallipoli, through Australasian eyes
Dr Bridget Vincent explores the relationship between Judith Wright’s poetry and her activism, based on new research in Wright’s personal papers. While Wright was careful to keep a distance between her poetic and political commitments, the archives reveal surprising rhetorical continuities between the poetry and the aesthetic dimensions of her other writings.
Author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Forest Unseen visits with nature’s most magnificent networkers — trees. David Haskell spent two years visiting 12 sites around the world revealing the surprising—and surprisingly fascinating—arboreal secrets hidden in the canopies of ordinary trees. With his deep understanding of the complexity of trees and the way they shape their ecosystems, Haskell will make you look at trees in an entirely new way.
For seven years Rusty Young, author of the international bestseller Marching Powder, lived and worked in Colombia, where he interviewed Special Forces soldiers, snipers, undercover intelligence agents and members of two vicious terrorist organisations. The result was Colombiano. Rusty speaks to Karen Middleton about the path that lead to his latest book.
From the internationally bestselling author who Stephen King called ‘an absolute master’ of the psychological thriller comes a riveting suspense novel about the unlikely friendship between two pregnant women that asks: how far would you go to create the perfect family?
Shōjo, the girl positioned between child and adult, is an iconic representation of femininity and girlhood in Japanese culture. A pretty and stereotypically feminine aesthetic that sometimes disguises dark and disturbing themes, shōjo has fascinated artists working in many fields from literature to manga, film to fashion, and not just in Japan. Researching the National Library’s significant contemporary shōjo collection, Masafumi Monden explores the multifaceted importance of shōjo as a cultural imagination, a complex and sometimes shocking ideal of girlish identity in Japanese popular culture that encompasses both objectification and agency, desire and identification.
Our manuscripts collection holds some of the earliest records of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander languages, written in the post-European contact period. Shannon Sutton provides a fragmentary glimpse of the diverse range of the hundreds of languages spoken in Australia before European contact.
This Capital Ideas event explores the causes of repeated budget projection errors. It will describe how these are affecting policy choices. It will ask whether anything fundamental has changed that might require a rethink of how budgets are prepared. And it will explore the institutional barriers to better outcomes, and the opportunities for reform. Katharine Murphy, political editor at the Guardian, and 15-year veteran of the Canberra press gallery, will discuss the issues with John Daley, CEO of the Grattan Institute, presenting new research from Grattan Institute’s work on budget policy.
Treasures Curator Nat Williams sheds light on the brief life of Dorothy English Paty. Creating two exceptional sketchbooks filled with watercolours of plants, Dorothy’s work is now held in the Library’s Rex Nan Kivell collection.
The National Library has been collecting oral histories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to ensure their life stories, and personal insights are recorded for future generations. Ryan Stoker highlights a variety of interviews, social histories and folklore recordings.
Hosted by the Australian National University and National Library of Australia, prolific and well-known social researcher, writer and commentator Hugh Mackay, discusses his latest book Selling the Dream with Alex Sloan.
What made Australian boxing legend Les Darcy stow away to America two days before the 1916 Conscription plebiscite? What crime led Australian and American newspapers to vilify him mercilessly? Why did three American state governors ban him from boxing? Researcher Roger Ley revisits this century old cold case.
Friends of the National Library of Australia hosted an exclusive preview of the new Library exhibition, Melodrama in Meiji Japan, with an introductory lecture by curator Dr Gary Hickey.
Step into the tumultuous world of Japan in the 1800s through a selection of stunning Japanese woodblock illustrations. Used to illustrate Japanese novels, these beautiful images accompany stories filled with drama, tragedy and intrigue, reflecting the uncertainty of the times.
Driven by the sheer scale of losses in 1914, an concerned about how war graves were marked, recorded and cared for, Fabian Ware conceived of and petitioned for the creation of the Imperial War Graves Commission. Join Major-General Paul Stevens as he reflects on the continued commemoration of those who died in war
Drawing on the Library’s extensive collection of Judith Wright’s papers, Professor Tom Griffiths and Dr Georgina Arnott reflect on her status as a historian, exploring what can be learnt from her life’s work.
The Unmourned, a murder mystery set in convict Australia, is a brilliant collaboration by Australian author Tom Keneally and his eldest daughter Meg. Hear more about their creative partnership and the gripping historical crime series, Monsarrat.
On 11 April 1917, an Australian Division made an unsuccessful attack on the formidable German Hindenburg Line defences near Bullecourt in France. Aaron Pegram explores their ordeal in German captivity.
Using manuscripts, music, dance and ephemera materials, Dr Amanda Harris examines these touring performances as diverse expressions of Australian cultural identity.
Dr Guy Hansen, Exhibitions Director, explores how professional sport has been used by advertisers.
What happens to an artist's legacy, home and archive after their death? Explore the life and work of Hans Heysen, his legacy and the role of families and estates in managing the artistic afterlife. Speakers include art historian and publisher Lou Klepac, Treasures Curator Nat Williams and members of the Heysen family.
Andrew Gosling explores how after considerable difficulties, the Library succeeded in obtaining Backhouse's real or imagined adventures in late Manchu China.
Miles Franklin award-winning author Alexis Wright, renowned philosopher Peter Singer, and leading scholars Russell Jacoby and Jacqueline Dutton, together with Paul Barclay from ABC’s Big Ideas, explore the role—or absence—of imagination and aspiration in how we address the vital issues confronting Australia.
Dr Anna Sophie Jurgens provides new insights into the connections between scientific knowledge and the creative imagination in Australia.
Helen Wilson, Frank Jotzo and Grattan Institute's Tony Wood discuss the review and what it is intended to achieve.
Virginia Haussegger AM, Director of the 50/50 by 2030 Foundation at the University of Canberra presents the 2017 Canberra Day Oration.
Old friends Harold Mitchell AC and Alex Sloan share stories of their careers in advertising and the media, reflecting on the history of Australian advertising and how it has shaped Australian society.
The Guardian's Katharine Murphy joins author Charlotte Wood as they delve deep into Wood's provocative, fearless novel.
Madeleine in conversation with Professor Paul Hetherington, exploring this epic and resonant novel about the far-reaching effects of China's revolutionary history, told through the stories of two interlinked musical families, from the 1940s to the present day.
Explore the economic, social, environmental and cultural challenges facing South Australia with Dr Chris Wallace, Angela Woollacott, Peter Stanley and Amrita Malhi. Chaired by Griffith Review editor Julianne Schultz.
Award-winning writer Kate Grenville discusses her latest book The Case Against Fragrance with Gia Metherell, Former Literary Editor, The Canberra Times.
Clementine Ford, columnist for Fairfax’s popular website Daily Life, has a reputation for fearlessly addressing issues of gender inequality in a modern world. Fight Like a Girl is an essential manifesto for feminists new, old and soon-to-be, and exposes just how unequal the world continues to be for women.
As one of the country’s most significant and popular historians, Geoffrey Blainey’s traces our story from the gold rush to the present day.
Cultural historian Gillian Arrighi reveals how the ephemera, manuscript, music and pictures collections are enabling her to piece together this fascinating history, providing new insights into childhood, and Australia’s theatre industry.
Researchers Sally Young and Fay Anderson pose the question: will changes in technology spell the end of traditional press photography? With Andrew Meares, Chief Photographer, Fairfax Media.
Stephen Dupont, acclaimed photojournalist and official war artist, presents a lecture on his artist’s books project, followed by a conversation with Treasures Curator Nat Williams.
Hear author Peter Manning and artist Janet Venn-Brown take an in-depth look at the life and work of an intrepid and passionate artist.
Di Morrissey wanted to tell stories from age 7. Now, she looks back on her years in the Australian media and publishing worlds and speculates on the future.
Di Morrissey has worked around the world as a journalist in newspapers and radio and on television. Since publishing her first novel in 1991, Di has written 24 bestsellers, four children's books and also publishes a community newspaper, The Manning Community News. Di is known for her environmental activisim and has also established a school in Myanmar.
Supported by TFE Hotels.
The latest novel by No. 1 New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult tackles some of the most profoundly challenging yet essential concerns of our time: prejudice, race and justice
Author Paul Ham and Australian journalist and commentator Jack Waterford AM explore how ordinary men on both sides endured this constant state of siege, with a very real awareness that they were being gradually, deliberately, wiped out.
Australian journalist and commentator Jack Waterford AM launches Clive Hamilton’s latest work, which explores the colourful, enthralling and stirring forms of protest used in the big social movements that define modern Australia.
To mark the 400th anniversary of the Hartog voyage, Maps Curator Martin Woods and author Allen Mawer revisit the experiences of the Hartog expedition, and the events that followed.
Reflect on the deep divisions this referendum imposed, and its long-term effects on Australian society, with Professor Joan Beaumont, Dr John Connor, Dr Michael McKernan and Professor Peter Stanley.
Author Paul Daley examines how National Library collections are giving life, shape and voice to the characters and landscape in his new novel, Jesustown.
Louise Maher, ABC journalist, producer and presenter joins master illustrator and storyteller Robert Ingpen AM as he leads us on a journey into the magical landscapes of his own imagination, revealing the places, stories and people that inspired him along the way.
In words and images Tim Cope shares his epic adventure as he journeyed through the land of the nomads following in the footsteps of Genghis Khan’s conquering armies.
Hear 666 ABC’s Alex Sloan in conversation with award-winning actor and, most recently, children’s book author Richard Roxburgh.
Self-professed ‘beevangelist,’ and co-founder of The Urban Beehive Doug Purdie guides gardeners to transform our backyards into bug nirvanas, helping save our bees one plant at a time.
Join us for a rare view of Tim Winton's imagination at work and play as the Miles Franklin Award winning author reveals the real characters and events behind his bestselling novels in this intimate discussion with ABC's Andrea Ho.
Dr Stuart Braga, nephew of Jack Braga, and Professor Jorge Santos Alves, Catholic University of Portugal, reveal the fascinating story of the world’s most enduring European colony, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Library’s acquisition of the Braga Collection.
Exhibition curator, Sasha Grishin in conversation with Virginia Haussegger, exploring the life and art of colonial artist S.T. Gill.
Every biography is shaped by the vantage point of the biographer. But where should that be—safe in the shadows or out on stage with our subjects? David Marr addresses the key challenge of modern biographers: what they do with themselves in their writing?
Chet Van Duzer reveals secrets uncovered by multispectral imaging of the Henricus Martellus World Map, thought to be one of the most important of the 15th century. Dr Martin Woods, Curator of Maps at the National Library and Denyl Cloughley, Manager of Preservation Services, lift the veil on the history and ongoing challenges of preserving the Blaeu wall map of New Holland.
Professor Mark McKenna officially launches A Handful of Sand by Charlie Ward, accompanied by a conversation with Brenda L Croft and John Paul Janke.
Kim Williams AM presents the 2016 Kenneth Myer Lecture Holding To True North: The Promotion of Positive Change in Australia
Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton speaks to Alana Valentine about the making of a stage play based on 20,000 letters sent to Lindy by the public since 1980. Hosted by Canberra Times Arts Editor Sally Pryor.
The Merrigong Theatre Company production, Letters to Lindy, will be performed at Canberra Theatre Centre between 9 and 13 August. Visit the Canberra Theatre Centre website for bookings.
Merrigong Theatre Company, in association with the Canberra Theatre Centre.
Dr Meleah Hampton, Australian War Memorial historian, explores the allied efforts to capture the OG (Old German) trench line near Pozières, France, in 1916. This was among the most costly battles for Australians during the First World War.
In association with the Canberra Great War Study Group, the Estaminet
Peter Porter is considered one of the greatest later twentieth century poets. Expatriate in London since 1951, his reputation was established by his inclusion in the 1961 second volume of the Penguin Modern Poets anthology series. His elegiac poetry following the sudden death in 1974 of his wife Jannice, has been compared to Hardy. Porter was awarded many honours, including the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry and the Gold Medal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature. In Britain he was considered an Australian poet, in Australia he was sometimes considered British, although he often returned for visits, and the series of radio dialogues with his fellow expatriate poet Clive James, was broadcast regularly on ABC radio.
The National Library first acquired papers from Peter Porter in 1982, with some small, later additions, also mainly of drafts and notebooks for his writing. The bulk of the papers of Peter Porter were acquired after his death in 2010, and are an astonishing record of Australian cultural and artistic life from the 1970s. Peter was a prolific correspondent and the more than 69 boxes of letters within the papers are ‘who’s who’ of distinguished literary, artistic and cultural figures, with letters from significant artists such as John Olsen and Arthur Boyd, musical figures like Roger Covell and Don Banks, and many other writers, including Les Murray, Shirley Hazzard, Tom Shapcott, David Malouf.
The correspondence reveals Peter’s great encouragement and generosity towards many Australian poets - including Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Gig Ryan, Peter Goldsworthy, Craig Sherborne and Adrian Caesar, who speak at the symposium. Peter’s widow Christine, and his daughters Katherine and Jane, were present at the symposium, which concluded with a moving tribute by his friend Clive James.
Supported by the Ray Mathew and Eva Kollsman Trust
Peter Porter is considered one of the greatest later twentieth century poets. Expatriate in London since 1951, his reputation was established by his inclusion in the 1961 second volume of the Penguin Modern Poets anthology series. His elegiac poetry following the sudden death in 1974 of his wife Jannice, has been compared to Hardy. Porter was awarded many honours, including the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry and the Gold Medal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature. In Britain he was considered an Australian poet, in Australia he was sometimes considered British, although he often returned for visits, and the series of radio dialogues with his fellow expatriate poet Clive James, was broadcast regularly on ABC radio.
The National Library first acquired papers from Peter Porter in 1982, with some small, later additions, also mainly of drafts and notebooks for his writing. The bulk of the papers of Peter Porter were acquired after his death in 2010, and are an astonishing record of Australian cultural and artistic life from the 1970s. Peter was a prolific correspondent and the more than 69 boxes of letters within the papers are ‘who’s who’ of distinguished literary, artistic and cultural figures, with letters from significant artists such as John Olsen and Arthur Boyd, musical figures like Roger Covell and Don Banks, and many other writers, including Les Murray, Shirley Hazzard, Tom Shapcott, David Malouf.
The correspondence reveals Peter’s great encouragement and generosity towards many Australian poets - including Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Gig Ryan, Peter Goldsworthy, Craig Sherborne and Adrian Caesar, who speak at the symposium. Peter’s widow Christine, and his daughters Katherine and Jane, were present at the symposium, which concluded with a moving tribute by his friend Clive James.
Supported by the Ray Mathew and Eva Kollsman Trust
Peter Porter is considered one of the greatest later twentieth century poets. Expatriate in London since 1951, his reputation was established by his inclusion in the 1961 second volume of the Penguin Modern Poets anthology series. His elegiac poetry following the sudden death in 1974 of his wife Jannice, has been compared to Hardy. Porter was awarded many honours, including the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry and the Gold Medal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature. In Britain he was considered an Australian poet, in Australia he was sometimes considered British, although he often returned for visits, and the series of radio dialogues with his fellow expatriate poet Clive James, was broadcast regularly on ABC radio.
The National Library first acquired papers from Peter Porter in 1982, with some small, later additions, also mainly of drafts and notebooks for his writing. The bulk of the papers of Peter Porter were acquired after his death in 2010, and are an astonishing record of Australian cultural and artistic life from the 1970s. Peter was a prolific correspondent and the more than 69 boxes of letters within the papers are ‘who’s who’ of distinguished literary, artistic and cultural figures, with letters from significant artists such as John Olsen and Arthur Boyd, musical figures like Roger Covell and Don Banks, and many other writers, including Les Murray, Shirley Hazzard, Tom Shapcott, David Malouf.
The correspondence reveals Peter’s great encouragement and generosity towards many Australian poets - including Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Gig Ryan, Peter Goldsworthy, Craig Sherborne and Adrian Caesar, who speak at the symposium. Peter’s widow Christine, and his daughters Katherine and Jane, were present at the symposium, which concluded with a moving tribute by his friend Clive James.
Supported by the Ray Mathew and Eva Kollsman Trust
Virginia Passmore puts the work of fellow Australian geologist Edgeworth David into context.
In association with the Canberra Great War Study Group, the Estaminet
Playwright Alana Valentine discusses the alchemy of turning letters and ledgers into the flesh and bones of drama, transporting our history into the artistry of universal emotional resonance.
Valentine was the Library’s Harold White Fellow in 2013 and devoted her time to researching the papers of Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton for her play, Letters to Lindy.
Supported by the Ray Mathew and Eva Kollsman Trust
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff members Shannon Sutton, John Morseu and Nicolette Suttor share collection items that have special meaning for them.
NAIDOC Week celebrations are held across Australia each July to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the publication of the first volume of the Australian Dictionary of Biography, this conference explores the opportunities in, and challenges of, producing biographical dictionaries.
In association with the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ANU)
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the publication of the first volume of the Australian Dictionary of Biography, this conference explores the opportunities in, and challenges of, producing biographical dictionaries.
In association with the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ANU)
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the publication of the first volume of the Australian Dictionary of Biography, this conference explores the opportunities in, and challenges of, producing biographical dictionaries.
In association with the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ANU)
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the publication of the first volume of the Australian Dictionary of Biography, this conference explores the opportunities in, and challenges of, producing biographical dictionaries.
In association with the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ANU)
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the publication of the first volume of the Australian Dictionary of Biography, this conference explores the opportunities in, and challenges of, producing biographical dictionaries.
In association with the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ANU)
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the publication of the first volume of the Australian Dictionary of Biography, this conference explores the opportunities in, and challenges of, producing biographical dictionaries.
In association with the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ANU)
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the publication of the first volume of the Australian Dictionary of Biography, this conference explores the opportunities in, and challenges of, producing biographical dictionaries.
In association with the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ANU)
Paul West, chef and host of River Cottage Australia, shares his passion for locally grown and sustainable produce with founder and editor of HerCanberra Amanda Whitley.
Paul West, chef and host of River Cottage Australia, shares his passion for locally grown and sustainable produce with founder and editor of HerCanberra Amanda Whitley.
Dr Gerard Vaughan AM, Director of the National Gallery of Australia, launches Hegel’s Owl: The Life of Bernard Smith, which reveals the unique character of an exceptional man. Beginning life as a ward of the state, Smith went on to become a pre-eminent figure of Australian art history.
About the Author: Dr Sheridan Palmer is an art historian and curator and honorary Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Her previous books include Dean Bowen: Argy-Bargy (Macmillan, 2009) and Centre of the Periphery: Three European Art Historians in Melbourne (Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2008).
In association with the Power Institute Foundation for Art and Visual Culture
Dr Anne Summers AO and Dr Béatrice Bijon discuss the suffrage movement in Australia and early twentieth century women's suffrage material held in the collection of the National Library of Australia.
Dr Anne Summers AO is a best-selling author, journalist and thought-leader with a long career in politics, the media, business and the non-government sector in Australia, Europe and the United States. She is author of eight books, including the classic Damned Whores and God’s Police, first published in 1975. A new edition was published on International Women’s Day 2016.
Dr Béatrice Bijon is an Adjunct Fellow with the School of Humanities and Communication Arts at Western Sydney University. Her edited publications include In-Between Two Worlds: Narratives by Female Explorers and Travellers 1850–1945 and The Production of Strangeness in Postcolonial Literatures. She was a Harold White Fellow at the National Library of Australia in 2011. A publication resulting from the fellowship, a documentary history of British and American women’s suffrage campaigns, will appear in France later in 2016.
The future is almost within reach, but the portents are challenging; rarely has the future seemed so difficult a prospect. One of the sternest challenges we face is to imagine the future before it arrives and then attempt to shape it. Will the buzzwords ‘innovation’ and ‘agility’ come to mean anything more than increased efficiency and wealth for the few?
Coinciding with the 500th anniversary of Thomas More's Utopia, Griffith Review founding editor Julianne Schultz launches Griffith Review 52: Imagining the Future. Professor Schultz is joined by co-editor Brendan Gleeson of the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute at the University of Melbourne, and distinguished writers and Griffith Review contributors Jane Gleeson-White and Libby Robin, in a conversation around themes arising from our urgent need to address the world ahead.
In association with the Griffith Review
Even historical documents can have quirky and complicated pasts. Archivist Michael Piggott investigates the provenance of the manuscripts collected by Sir John Ferguson, focusing on the back stories prior to their acquisition by the National Library.
Michael Piggott is a National Library of Australia Fellow.
Associate Professor Michelle Arrow
The 1970s were a time of profound social and political transformation when women’s and gay liberation movements sought to reshape the public meaning of private experience. Through three case studies (early campaigns for homosexual rights, the emergence of domestic violence as a key issue for women’s liberationists and the 1975 Royal Commission on Human Relationships), Michelle Arrow will seek to demonstrate the ways that ‘the personal is political’ reshaped Australian political culture in the 1970s.
Michelle Arrow is Associate Professor of History at Macquarie University. Her most recent book is Friday on Our Minds: Popular Culture in Australia since 1945.
Associate Professor Arrow’s Fellowship is supported by Library Patrons and Supporters.
Dream of the Red Chamber, also called The Story of the Stone, is one of China's greatest literary works. Professor John Minford discusses the background of this novel, written by Cao Xueqin during the High Qing of the 18th century.
Prof. Minford is a sinologist and literary translator, primarily known for his translations of Chinese classiscs such as 'The Story of the Stone', 'The Art of War' and 'I Ching'. He graduated from the University of Oxford with First Class Honours in Chinese Studies, and later studied for his PhD at the Australian National University. Since 2006, he has been Professor of Chinese at the School of History and Language in the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific.
Supported by the Australian Centre on China in the World
Entrepreneur, corporate advisor and opinion-leader Jason Yatsen-Li explores China’s different personalities, and how these help explain its seemingly contradictory actions in the South China Sea, climate change stance, stock market gyrations, a revolution in cross-border ecommerce and the massive One Belt One Road strategy.
Jason Yatsen-Li is one of Australia’s leading and most innovative corporate advisors. Jason is currently Chairman of Vantage Group Asia, a commercial group with offices in Sydney, Beijing and Shanghai and interests in mining & resources, technology and financial services businesses in Asia. Jason is currently a Director of the George Institute for Global Health, Beijing-based research and policy firm China Policy and a Governing Member of the Smith Family. Jason was also past Vice Chair of the Australia-China Chamber of Commerce in Beijing, as well as formerly a director of the Sydney Institute, the National Centre for Volunteering and the New South Wales Government’s Sydney Metropolitan Strategy Group.
Prior to founding his advisory firm—Yatsen Associates—Jason was Head of China Strategy and Head of Sustainability for Insurance Australia Group, Australasia's largest general insurance company. Before that, he was an M & A lawyer with Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York and Corrs Chambers Westgarth in Australia. Jason has also worked for the United Nations and is the former Vice Chairman of the Australia-China Chamber of Commerce in Beijing. Jason speaks fluent English, Mandarin, Cantonese and German. In 2009 he was appointed a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in Davos and currently serves of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council for China.
National Bonsai and Penjing Curator Leigh Taafe teaches the tools of the trade and the principles of the bonsai and penjing practice.
Architectural historian Dr Zeny Edwards explores the vision of Chinese influence in Australia as seen through the eyes of architect, artist and author William Hardy Wilson.
The Library holds hundreds of published recollections of migrants from non-English-speaking backgrounds. What do they tell us about the migrant experience and about Australia as a country of immigration? Do migrants’ life histories form part of Australian history? And what’s food got to do with ‘ethnic writing’? Klaus Neumann answers these and other questions in discussing six authors, including a Canberran born in Hungary.
Klaus Neumann is Professor of History at Swinburne University. His most recent book, Across the Seas: Australia’s Response to Refugees, has been shortlisted for a NSW Premier’s Literary Award.
Professor Neumann’s Fellowship is supported by Deidre McCann and Kevin McCann AM and the Macquarie Group Foundation.
Matteo Ricci, the famous sixteenth century pioneer Jesuit missionary to China, noted that books enabled people to understand the events of yesteryear. Thus, the Jesuits founded libaries throughout the world in a desire to share knowledge across cultures. Dr Jeremy Clarke describes the role of such books and libraries, and discusses some of the treasures on display from the NLA collection.
Dr Clarke lived in Beijing and Shanghai for a year after finishing high school, as the inaugural recipient of the Australian Young Scholar in China scholarship. He completed an undergraduate degree in Chinese language at Macquarie University, later obtaining a PhD in Pacific and Asian history at the Australian National University. He has spent a number of years as an Assistant Professor in the history department of Boston College.
In association with the Australian Centre on China in the World
Initiated in 1951, the Volunteer Graduate Scheme was a world leading and globally influential program, helping Australia's neighbours develop, free from colonialism. Dr Agnieszka Sobocinska reveals its history.
Dr Agnieszka Sobocinska’s Fellowship with the National Library of Australia is supported by Ryan Stokes.
Barbara Blackman AO launches her new collection of essays, introduced by Kerry Stokes AC, and in conversation with journalist Alex Sloan.
Marking Europe Day and the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, Emeritus Professor Ian Donaldson (University of Melbourne) and Professor Ian Gadd (Bath Spa University) explore how the playwright and poet became a global phenomenon.
Humble House Director Roger Carter explores the evolution of Chinese furniture.
Established in 1998, Humble House Gallery collects, conserves and sells authentic Chinese furniture.
Why was it Sir Robert Menzies who laid the Library’s foundation stone 50 years ago on March 31, 1966? Senior Curator Robyn Holmes has scoured the Library’s collections to unravel a mystery.
Dr Nathan Woolley, curator of Celestial Empire, introduces the religious landscape under the Qing dynasty.
Dr David Brophy discusses the distinctive historical traditions of the Manchus, and the place of Manchu culture and identity in the Qing dynasty.
Professor Nicholas Jose reflects on Eric Rolls' research of China's centuries-old relationship with Australia and his own experiences as a researcher, writer and former cultural attache in Beijing.
Linda Jaivin discusses the perils and seductions of writing about China as a foreign journalist, memoirist, travel writer, librettist, essayist and novelist.
Dr Stephen Whiteman, lecturer in Asian Art at the University of Sydney, discusses the significance of printing and publishing in the articulation of Qing imperial authority.
Emeritus Professor John Warhurst AO delivers the annual Canberra Day Oration, this year titled 'A Pleasant Drive from Sydney: The Mystery and Magic of Canberra.'
Chinese-Australian multimedia artist Tianli Zu and Chinese art scholar Edmund Capon AM OBE discuss their appreciation of Chinese culture.
Dr Natalie Köhle, postdoctoral fellow at the Australian National University, discusses Chinese medicine, focusing on shifts in the tradition that culminated in the Qing dynasty.
Celebrated poet, author, translator, academic and critic Ouyang Yu discusses the challenges of operating in 2 languages with Canberra poet Melinda Smith.
Josette Sheeran, the seventh president and CEO of Asia Society Australia, discusses how China's ascendence is transforming the global order.
Anthropologist Jinghong Zhang presents a vivid account of the transformation of a cottage handicraft into a major industry - with predictable risks and unexpected consequences.
Chinese historians Barbara Nichol and Julie Stacker explore the establishment and nature of very early Chinese restauarant businesses, together with their food offerings, and the role they played in the history of Chinese migration to Australia.
Benjamin Penny, Director of the Australian Centre on China in the World, ANU, discusses how two cultures met on the southern coast of China and how the encounter had a profound effect half a world away.
Geremie Barmé, Founding Director of the Australian Centre on China in the World, ANU, and Professor of Chinese history, provides an introduction to the Qing dynasty.
Historian Kate Bagnall shares stories of some of the women who left China for Australia in the late Qing dynasty, and of the families and communities they formed here.
Brother and sister Benjamin and Michelle Law divulge real-life experiences of growing up Chinese in Australia.
Celestial Empire curator Nathan Woolley explores life under the Qing dynasty through the collections of the National Library of Australia and the National Library of China.
Hannie Rayson delivers the inaugural Harold White lecture, reflecting on the public role of the writer and the reality of having to blog, post, be liked and followed, while really being 'the head-marketer for the brand called You.'
Enjoy bluegrass and old time tunes selected from our Oral History and Folklore Collection by 2015 National Folk Fellow Miriam Jones, and performed by her band Catgut.
Much-loved Australian artist Michael Leunig discusses his new collection, 'The Wayward Leunig: Cartoons that Wandered Off'.
Keynote lecture by Jeanine Leane. This seminar examines the legacy of one of Australia's outstanding novelists.
Professor Jane Lydon, Wesfarmers Chair, University of Western Australia speaking as part of a panel discussion with Jane Lydon, Liz Conor and Russell McDougall. This seminar examines the legacy of one of Australia's outstanding novelists.
Professor Russell McDougall, University of New England speaking as part of a panel discussion with Jane Lydon, Liz Conor and Russell McDougall. This seminar examines the legacy of one of Australia's outstanding novelists.
Dr Liz Conor, LaTrobe University speaking as part of a panel discussion with Jane Lydon, Liz Conor and Russell McDougall. This seminar examines the legacy of one of Australia's outstanding novelists.
Lecture by Professor Ann McGrath, ACIH, ANU. This seminar examines the legacy of one of Australia's outstanding novelists.
Heide Museum of Modern Art curators Lesley Harding and Kendrah Morgan discuss 'Modern Love,' an intimate biography of the unconventional marriage of Heide founders John and Sunday Reed.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author, former journalist and foreign correspondent Geraldine Brooks talks about her latest novel, The Secret Chord.
Madeleine Say, Pictures Collection Manager, State Library Victoria, discusses Strutt's iconic work Black Thursday, which depicts the devastating fires that swept Victoria on 6 February 1851. Hear about Strutt's approach to creating the masterpiece.
Authors of The War at Home discuss the far-reaching effects of World War I on Australian life.
Nat Williams, James and Bettison Treasures Curator, tells the stories behind the faces in the Portraits of the Famous and Infamous: Rex Nan Kivell Collection exhibition.
Longtime friends Marion Halligan and Carmel Bird catch up to discuss life, literature, and Carmel's newly published memoir and collection of short stories.
Hear about the world that colonial artist William Strutt was living in, how he spent his time in Australia, and his legacy.
A discussion of Keith Murdoch's 1915 Gallipoli letter, which changed attitudes to Australia's most famous military campaign.
Hear 2015 Australian of the Year, Rosie Batty, as she reveals the grief, passion and purpose uncovered in her heartfelt memoir, A Mother's Story.
Hear beloved Australian author and poet Kate Llewellyn discussing her latest book, a collection of letters from her private correspondence with artists and writers with editors Ruth Bacchus and Barbara Hill.
Hear Robert Drewe, Australian author of the prize-winning memoirs The Shark Net and Montebello, as he presents a lecture exploring the complexity of writing a memoir. Hear about the literary, personal and public issues involved in writing this increasingly popular and often misunderstood art form.
Senator Nova Peris in discussion with photographer Mark Lang and John Paul Janke about her great-uncle, Big Bill Neidje, a Gagudju elder.
Journalist Jon Ronson joined us to discuss how to spot a psychopath and making Twitter more compassionate. Along the way he introduces us to corporate psychopath 'Chainsaw Al', the acceptable level of madness for daytime TV and shaming of Justine Sacco for a badly told joke. Honest and funny, Ronson explores how we can become a mob and he struggles between being funny and betraying his interviewees.
Warning: this audio contains language offensive to some listeners. It includes references to suicide, drug use and violence against women, if this content raises issues of concern you can call Lifeline (within Australia) 13 11 14.
The Friends of the National Library of Australia and the Friends of Ireland, in association with the Embassy of Ireland, presented an afternoon of poetry and music celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of the Irish poet William Butler Yeats. Hosted by Professor Ronan McDonald, Professor of Modern Literature at the University of New South Wales, the event features performances by Dr Jeff Brownrigg, John Collard, Jenny Gall, Genevieve Jacobs, Margaret Naylor, Richard O’Brien, and Dr Richard Reid.
The Friends of the National Library of Australia and the Friends of Ireland, in association with the Embassy of Ireland, presented an afternoon of poetry and music celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of the Irish poet William Butler Yeats. Hosted by Professor Ronan McDonald, Professor of Modern Literature at the University of New South Wales, the event features performances by Dr Jeff Brownrigg, John Collard, Jenny Gall, Genevieve Jacobs, Margaret Naylor, Richard O’Brien, and Dr Richard Reid.
Acclaimed artist John Olsen AO, OBE, joins the Friends of the National Library of Australia for the launch of his new book, My Salute to Five Bells. In conversation with Dr Deborah Hart, senior curator at the National Gallery of Australia, John Olsen discusses his journals which formed the basis for this book, his inspiration for the Five Bells mural and his long, illustrious career.
Hear Professor Mick Dodson AM as he delivers the 2015 Kenneth Myer lecture on a topic close to his heart. Drawing on his years of community and government engagement, he offers his thoughts on creating social change and solidarity for our country.
Hear Professor Julianne Schultz AM, founding editor of Griffith Review, and three outstanding young writers as they provide fresh perspectives on life in the world’s most populous region.
Buk bilong Pikinini, meaning ‘books for children’, is an independent not-for-profi t organisation based in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, which aims to establish children’s libraries and foster a love of reading and learning. Join Anne-Sophie Hermann, founder of Buk bilong Pikinini, to learn more about this brilliant initiative.
Join Marjory Harper, Professor of History at the University of Aberdeen, to explore the history of the Scots in Australia.
This talk explores narratives of adventure and exile in Scottish emigration to Australia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, examining the participants’ motives, the different ways they came to Australia, and the consequences of their relocation.
Join acclaimed writer Steven Carroll, winner of the Prime Minister’s Literary Award, Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the Miles Franklin Award, and ABC radio presenter Louise Maher as they discuss Carroll’s latest novel, Forever Young. Forever Young is set against the tumultuous period of change and uncertainty that was Australia in 1977.
Dr Michael McKernan is a historian, commentator and writer with extensive experience in teaching, the media and practical presentation of history. During his career he has written and edited more than twenty books, including Australians at Home: World War I (2014), and discusses the significance of Keith Murdoch’s letter directed to the Australian Prime Minister Andrew Fisher, which led to the evacuation of the Gallipoli peninsula.
Historian and biographer Dr Ross McMullin has researched and written extensively about Australia’s involvement in World War I. His biography of the famous Australian commander, Pompey Elliott, won awards for literature and biography, and discusses his significant and compelling leadership and on the Western Front, making him the most revered and famous Australian fighting commander, with a great command of words.
Dr Susannah Helman is Curatorial Manager, Exhibitions Branch, National Library of Australia, and one of the curators of Keepsakes: Australians and the Great War, which presents some of the Library’s unique collection of manuscripts, ephemera, artworks, photographs and documents relating to the First World War. She discusses Arthur Wheen’s translation of All Quiet on the Western Front in the context of his other papers displayed in the exhibition Keepsakes.
Peter Rees has been a journalist for more than forty years, working as federal political correspondent for the Melbourne Sun, West Australian and Sunday Telegraph. He is the author of three Great War books, most recently, Bearing Witness: The Remarkable Life of Charles Bean, Australia’s Greatest War Correspondent (2015), and discusses the overarching influence of Bean on subsequent researchers, historians and how Australians remember Gallipoli and the Great War.
Dr Clare Rhoden is a lecturer and researcher at the University of Melbourne. In The Purpose of Futility (2015), she surveys Australian Great War narratives, demonstrating their particularly Australian features which help to explain the unique and disputed position of the Great War in Australian history. She discusses the polarity of Australian perspectives of its involvement in the First World War: the myth of the heroic young nation proving itself, and this concepts link to militarism, or obedience to British Empire demands, and links to a disenchantment myth.
Dr Philip Butterss studied at the University of Sydney where he studied Early English literature, Middle Welsh, and a PhD on Australian ballads. His recent book, An Unsentimental Bloke: The Life and Work of C.J. Dennis (2014), explores the poet’s imagining of Australian identity and influence on the Anzac legend. He discusses how the ending of C.J. Dennis’s The Moods of Ginger Mick, launched in October 1916, could be seen as its author’s attempts to find the narrative shape to tell the story of Gallipoli during the legend’s first slippery year.
Dr Ann Vickery is senior lecturer in Literary Studies at Deakin University. She is the author of Stressing the Modern: Cultural Politics in Australian Women’s Poetry (2007). Vickery discusses the role of women responding and commenting on the First World War and their instrumentality in public debate.
Dr Adrian Caesar has held various appointments at Australian universities including the ANU and UNSW@ADFA, where he taught courses in English and Australian war literature. Caesar discusses his research on the war cemeteries of the Western Front which contributed to his latest novel, The Blessing, set in the First World War. It is due for publication in Spring 2015.
Malcolm St Hill is a poetry editor and independent researcher focused on the literature of the First World War, and discusses how Australian Great War poetry is often overlooked as a pillar of Great War memory that should sit alongside film, fiction and memoirs. St Hill discusses the contribution Australians made, particularly the combatants and the soldier poets to this fundamental artistic endeavour of war poetry.
Dr Janet Butler is an honorary research associate in the History Program at La Trobe University. She discusses Kit McNaughton’s daily diary, exploring how it reveals Kitty’s life in process, not only what her experiences were, but also the changes in her ideas about herself and her world in response to them. Her book, Kitty’s War, based on the diaries of First World War army nurse Kitty McNaughton, was awarded the 2013 New South Wales Premier’s History Prize for Australian History.
Professor Joan Beaumont is an internationally recognised historian of Australia of the two world wars, Australian defence policy, and heritage of war. Her presentation reflects on the publications and interpretations of the First World War, and whether Australia’s Great War historiography is too narrow, neglecting some of the writers, individuals and battles.
666 ABC’s Genevieve Jacobs talks with author Robyn Cadwallader about her passion for the medieval era and her debut novel, The Anchoress.
Professor Emerita Michelle P. Brown explores the world of medieval illuminated manuscripts, their makers and readers, in the context of the famous Rothschild Prayer Book.
Hear Margaret Manion and Erika Persak discuss the stunning 16th Century Netherlandish illuminated manuscript, The Rothschild Prayer Book, recently acquired for the Kerry Stokes Collection.
Join Michael Connelly and Jeff Popple as they discuss the latest Hieronymus Bosch thriller — set in the LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit. The case starts with a fresh body, a bullet that’s been lodged in the victim’s spine for a decade, and new leads revealing that the shooting may have been anything but random.
Frank Moorhouse, author of the beloved Edith trilogy, delivers the Australian Society of Authors’ 2015 Colin Simpson Memorial Lecture on the topic, 'Does the imagination have ethics?'.
Listen to Nick Davies as he speaks about breaking the News of the World phone hacking story in the United Kingdom.
To mark their 25th anniversary, the Friends of the National Library of Australia explore how libraries inspire and inform us all. Writers Don Watson, Marion Halligan and Omar Musa speak about why supporting libraries is important and why libraries matter to them personally.
Tragedy delivers bad news. It tells us that we are not in control of our own lives. Peter Holbrook, Professor of Shakespeare and English Renaissance Literature from the University of Queensland addresses this in the context of tragic drama in the time of Shakespeare.
Join Graeme Simsion, best-selling author of The Rosie Project and The Rosie Effect, as he talks about his literary journey, as well as his insightful and endearing characterisation of Asperger Syndrome via hero, Don Tillman.
Griffith Review’s editor Julianne Schultz leads a conversation with contributors Frank Bongiorno, Tim Bonyhady, Meredith McKinney and Peter Stanley on the lingering social impact of conflict – the Enduring Legacies – the subject of Griffith Review edition 48.
Andrea Goldsmith has chosen the mysterious workings of the imagination as her subject for the 2015 Ray Mathew lecture. She has long been fascinated by the strange alchemy whereby the private and ephemeral meanderings of a freely-ranging, borderless mind transmogrify into tangible, observable behaviours – whether it be a decision to marry or move house, or an artwork such as a novel or a painting.