Engaging with Aboriginal history
Thursday 8 September 2022, 6:00-7:30pm
At a time of important conversations in Australia about recognition, respect and reform, this forum discussion will explore approaches to engaging with Aboriginal history through art, museum collections, and teaching and learning on country. The panel discussion represents a valuable opportunity to learn about ways to engage with Aboriginal history through conversation with four of Australia’s leading academics and educators.
SPEAKERS
Professor Julie Andrews
Julie Andrews is descended from the Woiwurrung people of Melbourne and the Yorta Yorta tribe near the borders of Victoria and New South Wales along the Murray River. She is a member of the Dhulanyagan family clan of the Ulupna people. Julie has been teaching Aboriginal Studies for approximately 10 years and has extensive experience in policy and Indigenous higher education.
She teaches the first year Discovery subject HUS1ABS: Introduction to Aboriginal Australia. This subject is taught across all of La Trobe University campuses. It is a blended subject of online lectures and face to face workshops. The subject is basically a very broad introduction to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues. It is useful for those wanting to know more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples or building upon what they may already know. It gives the student an opportunity to explore the many topics that are associated with Aboriginal Australia. Julie also teaches an On Country subject titled Encountering Aboriginal Victoria: Parallel Systems of Knowledge. This subject is taught at La Trobe University's Shepparton campus and focuses on the history and contemporary Aboriginal community of the township of Shepparton and the Barmah region.
Dr Jason Gibson
Jason has worked extensively with Aboriginal custodians throughout Australia on history, museum, and heritage related projects and conducted detailed fieldwork in central Australia for the past 15 years. His award winning book is Ceremony Men: Making Ethnography and the Return of the Strehlow Collection (2020) examines the making of one of Australia’s most important anthropological collections and its relevance to Anmatyerr and Arrernte people.
Professor Gaye Sculthorpe
Gaye Sculthorpe is Research Professor of Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies in the Alfred Deakin Institute and Faculty of Arts and Education at Deakin University. A Palawa woman from Tasmania, Prof Sculthorpe is a descendant of the famous Aboriginal singer Fanny Smith. She has recently relocated to Melbourne after almost 10 years at the British Museum, where she was a curator and Head of Oceania in the Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas.
From 2000 until February 2013, Gaye was a member of the National Native Title Tribunal, and prior to that worked at Museums Victoria as Head of the Department of Indigenous Cultures. She has served on the board of Museums Victoria and the Executive Committee of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge.
Over the last 10 years, Gaye has worked with Australian and British colleagues to research and publish on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander collections in the UK and Ireland. Her most recent publication is Ancestors, artefacts, empire: Indigenous Australia in British and Irish Museums, published by British Museum Press in 2021.
Professor Greg Barton (moderator)
Prof Greg Barton is Research Professor at ADI. Greg is a regular media commentator on matters of national security and international affairs.