The Biggest Estate on Earth – CSU public lecture
22 JULY 2016
The next Charles Sturt University (CSU) Exploration Series free public lecture will examine the true nature of the Australian landscape in 1788.The lecture by Emeritus Professor Bill Gammage, AM, from the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra will discuss the subject of his book, The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines made Australia (2011), at CSU in Bathurst on Monday 1 August and at CSU in Dubbo on Tuesday 2 August."Much of the landscape of Australia at the time of British colonisation in 1788 was not natural but made," Professor Gammage (pictured) said."Using illustrations, this public lecture will sketch how Aboriginal people, including Wiradjuri, managed land at the time Europeans arrived. People allied with fire and no fire to distribute plants, and used plant distribution to locate animals, birds, reptiles and insects. Country was carefully arranged to give every species a preferred habitat according to Law, while resources were made abundant, convenient and predictable," he said.Light refreshments and book sales/signings (book cost $35, cash only) will follow both public lectures.Bathurst:The Biggest Estate on Earth public lecture will start at 6pm Monday 1 August in room 223, building 1292, Panorama Avenue, Charles Sturt University; follow the event parking signs to car park P7.For more information contact Ms Tarah Syphers, Regional Relations Assistant on (02) 6338 4645 or tsyphers@csu.edu.auDubbo:The Biggest Estate on Earth public lecture will start at 6pm Tuesday 2 August in lecture theatre 422, building 902, Tony McGrane Place, Charles Sturt University in Dubbo.For more information contact Ms Melissa Britnell, Regional Relations Assistant on (02) 6885 7370 or hocdubbo@csu.edu.au.
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Emeritus Professor Bill Gammage, AM, teaches and researches in the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. He grew up in Wiradjuri country, and was an ANU undergraduate and postgraduate before teaching history at the Universities of Papua New Guinea (1966, 1972-6) and Adelaide (1977-96). He wrote The Broken Years about Australian soldiers in the Great War (1974), An Australian in the First World War (1976), Narrandera Shire (1986), The Sky Travellers on the 1938-39 Hagen-Sepik Patrol in New Guinea (1998), and The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines made Australia (2011). He co-edited the Australians 1938 volume of the Bicentennial History of Australia (1988), and three books about Australians in World War 1. Professor Gammage was historical adviser to Peter Weir's film Gallipoli, and to several documentaries. He served the National Museum of Australia for three years as Council member, deputy chair and acting chair, and was made a Freeman of the Shire of Narrandera in 1987, a fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences in 1991, and an AM in 2005.
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