Russel Ward Annual Lecture
The Russel Ward Annual Lecture, delivered at the University of New England, honours the memory and legacy of one of the University's most renowned scholars, Emeritus Professor Russel Braddock Ward. Ward taught at UNE from 1957, and was Deputy Chancellor of UNE from 1981-1989. He was the author of a number of distinguished works, including The Australian Legend (1958), A Nation for a Continent (1977) and Finding Australia (1987). Professor Ward himself delivered the inaugural lecture on 25 August 1986. Formerly sponsored by the UNE Union, the Lecture is now maintained by the School of Humanities. Past speakers include Henry Reynolds, Ann Curthoys, Ken Inglis, Barry Smith, Stuart Macintyre, Geoffrey Blainey and Gillian Cowlishaw.
This Year's Lecture (2012)
Wednesday 19 September 2012
A2 Theatre, Arts Building
University of New England, Armidale
Emerita Professor Jill Roe
Revisiting the frontier, from Miles Franklin’s Brindabella to South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula
The young Miles Franklin experienced the frontier and its closure in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales in the late nineteenth century, as portrayed in her most popular novel All That Swagger (1936). My own forebears experienced the frontier on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula, where it took a different form and its closure came later. This lecture will deal mainly with Eyre Peninsula, still a rather remote region, and its experience as a frontier over time, with a particular reference to the past 100 years, concluding with the current extension of mining leases down the east coast of the peninsula.
Jill Roe AO is professor emerita in modern history at Macquarie University, Sydney. She is the author of Stella Miles Franklin. A Biography, now available as an e-book, and a long-standing member of the Editorial Board of the Australian Dictionary of Biography. She is currently working on aspects of the history of South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula
Past Russel Ward Lectures
2012: Emerita Professor Jill Roe, 'Revisiting the frontier, from Miles Franklin’s Brindabella to South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula' (video)
2011: Associate Professor Jim Davidson, ‘Federation Australia and South Africa: The Boer War and Other Interactions’ (podcast); published in JACH, Vol. 14, 2012.
2010: Professor Hilary Carey, 'Bushmen and Bush Parsons: the Shaping of a Rural Myth', published in JACH, Vol. 13, 2011; - (podcast)
2009: Babette Smith, ''Convict Australia in Legend and Reality: The genius of Russel Ward' (published as 'Legend and Reality: The Genius of Russel Ward', in JACH, Vol.12, 2010)
2008: Richard White, 'When the bush rang with cooees'
2007: Gillian Cowlishaw, 'Principles of the Present: history and anthropology in Australia'
2006: Geoffrey Blainey, 'A New Look at Captain Cook: Some Reflections on Australian History'
2005: Peter Read, 'Murder, ignorance and reconciliation in the Northern Territory of Australia, 1934-2004'
2004: Judith Brett
2003: Stuart Macintyre, 'The History Wars' (published in JACH, Vol.4, No.2, October 2002)
2002: Paula Hamilton
2001: Carl Bridge, 'Anglo-Australian Attitudes. Russel Ward: Gentleman, Scholar, Atheist, Communist' (published as 'Anglo-Australian Attitudes: Remembering and Re-reading Russel Ward', in JACH, Vol.10, No.2, 2008)
2000: John Hirst
1999: John Moses, 'The Terror of Naivety and the Arrogance of Orthodoxy: Australian Historians and the First World War'
1998: Kay Saunders
1997: Don Aitkin, 'Finding a new legend'
1996: Barry Smith, 'The Cattle Plague of 1865-67 and the Politicians'
1995: Marilyn Lake
1994: John Molony, 'From legend to nationality'
1993: Ken Inglis, 'Australian Legend: ANZAC and the Bush'
1992: Ann Curthoys, 'Australian legends: Histories, identities, Genealogies'
1991: Henry Reynolds: (copy held in National Library of Australia, 'Papers of Henry Reynolds', MS 9548
1990: Geoffrey Serle, 'Reflections: The Russel Ward Lecture'
1989: Isabel McBryde, 'Archaeology, History and Social Interaction: Case Studies from Aboriginal Australia'
1988: Eric Willmot, 'Restructuring the First 100 Years'
1987: Patrick O’Farrell, 'Kings Deposed: Irish, Catholic and Immigrant since 1788'
1986: Russel Ward, 'The Back Side of the Australian Legend'