Sydney Environment Institute

Bruce Pascoe’s ground-breaking research completely reconsiders the notion of pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians as hunter-gatherers.

Explore and challenge the colonial myths that have often underpinned efforts to justify dispossession in this fascinating discussion. Reading the diaries of early explorers, both with and against the grain, Pascoe retells Aboriginal history and argues that it is time to take a new look at Australia’s past.

Bruce Pascoe is Bunurong/Tasmanian Yuin man and an award winning author and story teller. His most recent book is Dark Emu: Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident? (Magabala Books, 2014), which won both the Book of the Year and the Indigenous Writers Prize (joint winner) in the 2016 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards.Z

About the Series

From climate change and the sixth mass extinction event, to the pronouncement of a new geological epoch—the ‘Anthropocene,’ the age of humanity—we are increasingly being told that our contemporary period is one of incredible environmental change, and at the same time that human activity is playing an increasingly significant role in shaping the earth and its future possibilities.

In addition to being important scientific and technical challenges, these environmental problems are also profoundly and inescapably social: they are about how we organise our societies and our cities, how we approach questions of ethics and justice, how we find meaning and value in the world. In other words, they concern the deepest dimensions of our human nature, and in so doing perhaps call out for a reconsideration of what it might mean to be human in times like these.

Taking up these important themes, this lecture series will offer a series of talks by leading international scholars in the Environmental Humanities. This emerging, interdisciplinary, field of scholarship draws on the insights of history, literature, philosophy, anthropology, and related disciplines to explore the important roles that the humanities might play in addressing some of the most pressing challenges of our day.

The inaugural, 2018, series includes nine esteemed international and domestic speakers. There is one lecture scheduled each month from February through to October. Further information on each of these speakers and their lecture topics is provided below.

Series Partners

This Lecture Series is jointly funded and coordinated by the Australian Museum, the University of New South Wales, Macquarie University, Western Sydney University, and the University of Sydney. The organising committee for the series is comprised of Thom van Dooren and Astrida Neimanis (Sydney), Emily O’Gorman (Macquarie), Judy Motion (UNSW), and Juan Francisco Salazar (Western Sydney).

Tickets

Tickets for lectures in this series are available to staff and students at partner universities at the reduced rate of $8. Tickets must be purchased in advance online. Please click on “Enter Promotional Code” to apply the discount.

Promotional Code: ENVHUM18

Website: https://australianmuseum.net.au/landing/human-nature

6:00 – 6:30 Welcome, drinks and refreshments
6:30 – 7:30 Lecture