Really enjoyed speaking virtually through COVID with Paul Barclay, Kate Darian Smith and Alison Paige about recent reflections on Cook. Alison was the Indigenous filmmaker for the National Museum during its Cook extravaganza and created amazing work for it - still viewable online. Kate DS has written extensively on Cook commemoration. I was invited to … Continue reading Cook Revisited at SLQ
COVID 19 mostly wrecked havoc on my teaching, research, and everyday life...but the silver linings have been attending international seminars where the borders suddenly don't matter. I was delighted in late May to "attend" a seminar at the University of Kent's new Centre for Indigenous and Settler Colonial Studies. The lead discussant, Sarah Smeed, wrote … Continue reading A seminar on WVA…
Well, this was a highlight—chatting with a pop star I admired hugely back in the day now turned ABC radio host, who I also follow keenly now, Christine Anu. She had me on her 'Black Life, Matters' evening show in May 2020, discussing some of the Indigenous stories to gain some light last week through … Continue reading Chatting with Christine Anu
For the inevitable Cook250 fest in April-May 2020, Australia's The Conversation commissioned nearly 20 articles highlighting revisionist research on Cook. My bit was on Cook's little-noticed Islander shipmates: https://theconversation.com/the-stories-of-tupaia-and-omai-and-their-vital-role-as-captain-cooks-unsung-shipmates-126674
With the new book out, I'm chatting a lot more about history. Here's a little Sunday morning segment on why I am a historian, the book, and an upcoming Bennelong podcast: thanks to Sydney's favourite community radio, 2SER, for having me along (2nd Feb. 2020): click here for the link: https://2ser.com/the-warrior-the-voyager-and-the-artist/
Tamson provoked me with this recent 14-min video from the IPA. Bella: If you were starting a new society, how would you do it? How would you decide the government you wanted, the type of legal system you wanted to put in place and how to create wealth in your new society? The early Australian … Continue reading If the IPA video on Enlightenment in Australia had included more historians
Kate Fullagar, STEPHEN CONWAY. Britannia’s Auxiliaries: Continental Europeans and the British Empire, 1740–1800., The American Historical Review, Volume 124, Issue 4, October 2019, Pages 1521–1522, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhz297 For a modest book—modest in its claims and its tone—Stephen Conway’s Britannia’s Auxiliaries: Continental Europeans and the British Empire, 1740–1800 is exceptionally moving. It is moving most of all for what it does not say. … Continue reading Review of Britannia’s Auxiliaries
This summer, as the State Library celebrates its new permanent exhibition of paintings — many from the early days of the colony — the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra is rejigging its own ‘early Australian’ rooms. Its Robert Oatley Gallery usually presents the faces of our so-called Founding Fathers, with James Cook taking centre stage … Continue reading Three Portraits in the State Library of NSW
A little booster I wrote for our exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery last summer (only now online). Includes cartoon image of me at end as well! "The National Portrait Gallery rehangs its permanent galleries at least twice a year. This summer, the Robert Oatley gallery, which typically displays the ‘earliest works from the NPG … Continue reading Rethinking Foundational Histories
A Lecture for the Kaldor Art Project 2018: Anri Sala I just noticed that a mini-lecture I did for this fabulous Art Group is up on vimeo. We were all given a brief to help explicate the art work for that year, Anri Sala's intriguing meditation on the so-called clash of Enlightenment (represented in Mozart's … Continue reading Colonialism and the Age of Enlightenment
