RE-THINK #4: On a Fatal Shore

This event was held on Thursday 3 November 2016

"Mrs Fraser's Escape from the Savages" (1838)

Re-Think is a public seminar lecture series run by The University of Newcastle’s School of Humanities and Social Science, where UON humanities researchers present their work to the general public via short presentations on connected topics of contemporary interest followed by the opportunity for questions and extensive discussion. It provides a valuable chance for academics who teach into the Bachelor of Arts and the public to interact on contemporary topics and themes in a casual environment, with drinks in hand.

Featuring a diverse array of speakers in regard to discipline area, career stage, and gender, the series runs on the first Thursday of every month throughout Semester 2 2016, and will return during semester in 2017.

Whether you're an academic staff member, student, post-graduate researcher, or member of the public, please come along to this exciting series and listen, discuss, eat, and drink!


Re-Think #4

On a Fatal Shore: A conversation about writing white women’s Aboriginal history.

Co-hosted by The Centre for 21st Century Humanities

Professor Victoria Haskins discusses her recent book Living with the Locals: Early Europeans’ Experiences of Indigenous Life, co-authored with Worimi historian, Professor John Maynard, and particularly the historical experiences of two white women, Barbara Thompson and Eliza Fraser. The story of Thompson, who lived with the Kaurareg people of the Torres Strait in the 1840s, is not so well known as that of Fraser, who spent a brief period with the Indigenous people of present-day Fraser Island and the Moreton Bay district the decade before. In conversation with eminent historian of the Tasmanian frontier Professor Lyndall Ryan, Victoria reflects upon the issues, challenges, and importance of writing about white women in Indigenous histories.

[Image: "Mrs Fraser's Escape from the Savages" in Shipwreck of the Stirling Castle by John Curtis (London: George Virtue, 1838), Rex Nan Kivell Collection, National Library of Australia.]


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