Saturday April 27
9.00am
60 mins
Sorrento Bowls Club
David Macfarlan Reserve, Hotham Rd, Sorrento
Catharine Lumby, Paddy Manning and Clare Wright with Jamila Rizvi
Saturday April 27
12.00pm
60 mins
The Ballroom, The Continental
1/21 Ocean Beach Rd, Sorrento
Kgshak Akec, Amy Brown, Monique DiMattina and Clare Wright with Fiona Sweet
Sunday April 28
12.00pm
60 mins
The Ballroom, The Continental
1/21 Ocean Beach Rd, Sorrento
Nick Reece, Lyn Swinburne, Grace Tame and Clare Wright with Heather Ewart
Join two of the most admired writers in Australia today, Booker Prize–winning Richard Flanagan and Miles Franklin–winning Anna Funder as they discuss writing in the margins between fiction and non-fiction, history and memoir, personal and public.
Historian Clare Wright leads this conversation, examining their genre-bending masterpieces. Through a hypnotic melding of dream, history, science and memory, Question 7 traces the ripples of history through Richard’s own family and is described by Anna as holding “a life between its covers”. Wifedom is Anna’s “counterfiction”, an attempt to write Eileen O'Shaughnessy, George Orwell’s first wife, back into the narrative from which history has so carefully excised her. Not only a New York Times Notable Book of 2023, Wifedom also described by Geraldine Brooks as “Simply, a masterpiece”.
Join us to hear Ariane Beeston in conversation with Clare Wright.
Ariane Beeston is a child protection worker and newly registered psychologist when she gives birth to her first child – and very quickly begins to experience scary breaks with reality. Her memoir Because I'm Not Myself, You See is a candid, often humorous memoir of motherhood and madness, interwoven with research and expert commentary. It's the story of the impossible pressures placed on new mothers and how quickly things can go wrong during 'the happiest time of your life'. It's also about life on the other side of serious illness, trying to make sense of what doesn't make sense, and finding humour, beauty and joy when things don't go according to plan.
Claire Tonti will also perform songs from her indie folk album, Matrescence. Laugh, cry and stomp your feet with this celebration of the messy, complex, beautiful and sometimes brutal transition to motherhood. Tonti is a songwriter and podcaster. She released her debut album Matrescence in February 2023 with sold out shows both in her hometown Melbourne & across the UK and Ireland. 11 songs about love, loss, identity, motherhood, creative freedom & overcoming birth trauma.
Professor Clare Wright OAM is an award-winning historian, author, broadcaster and public commentator who has worked in politics, academia and the media.
Free, but bookings are essential.
Please book here.
Join us for the first Launches @ the Library event for 2024, with a very special campus appearance by Christos Tsiolkas, to celebrate the release of his latest novel, The In-Between.
Christos will be joined In Conversation by novelist and Associate Professor in English and Creative Writing, Dr Catherine Padmore.
We will also launch the new Literary La Trobe podcast!
This special event will be hosted by Professor of Public Engagement Clare Wright, with the support of the Office of the Vice-Chancellor.
When: Wednesday 17 April, 12.30 pm – 1.30 pm
Where: Seminar Room 1.34, Level 1, Bundoora Library
The Enlightenment was an age of endeavours. As Britain was consumed by the impulse for grand projects, in 1768 the Royal Navy bought a Whitby collier for an expedition to the South Seas. No one could have guessed she would become the most significant ship in the history of British exploration. Her name was Endeavour. Historian and writer Peter Moore’s book, Endeavour: The Ship and the Attitude that Changed the World, presents a vivid biography of the most significant ship in the history of British exploration. In conversation with historian and broadcaster Clare Wright.
Part of the Jaipur Literature Festival - Find out more and get tickets here
Many feminisms and perspectives, both current and prevalent across cultures and societies, have perhaps provided a greater flexibility to the women's movement. Issues such as women rights, intersectional feminism, ethnic marginalisation, social hierarchies and economic deprivation all take on many forms and have to be understood in their multiplicity. This session brings togethers writers and activists from across the world to speak of their immediate contexts and the wider search for equity and justice.
Part of the Jaipur Literature Festival - Find out more and get tickets here
Science journalist, broadcaster and writer Angela Saini’s The Patriarchs: How Men Came to Rule traces the roots of gendered oppression across history. Tracing through the earliest known human settlements and analysing scientific and archaeological data through the lens of cultural and political histories, Saini masterfully covers Asia and the Americas. In conversation with historian, broadcaster and writer Clare Wright, Saini examines why we need to look beyond old narratives to truly understand why patriarchy continues to persist.
Part of the Jaipur Literature Festival - Find out more and get tickets here
Presented by SAKAL Media
In order to celebrate World Rivers Day, the Centre for the Study of the Inland and the Office of the Vice-Chancellor are supporting a screening of the documentary 'FRANKLIN' hosted by Prof Clare Wright, Prof of Public Engagement. This screening will be followed up with a panel discussion, facilitated by A/Prof Liz Conor. This Q&A panel will include the film's protagonist Oliver Cassidy and Director of the Centre for Freshwater Ecosystems Professor Nick Bond.
Barry Jones and Tom Keneally talk to Clare Wright about their storied careers and what continues to inspire them.
Don Watson tells Clare Wright the story behind his new biography, The Passion of Private White, from Neville White’s student years at La Trobe University, to his return from the Vietnam War and immersion in the lives of the Yolngu people.
Clare Wright invites extraordinary thinkers to imagine no limits: Megan Davis (co-chair of the Voice to Parliament campaign); Frank Bongiorno (author of Dreamers and Schemers); La Trobe graduate researcher, Akuch Kuol Anyieth (author of Unknown: A Refugee’s Story); and Joelle Gergis (ANU climate scientist and author of Humanity’s Moment).
From the soapbox to the stage, carefully crafted speeches have inspired and persuaded minds throughout the ages. As we lose faith in our leaders and the institutions of civil society cede their moral authority, we gather a group of stirring orators to recreate their favourite moments of speechifying – from the worlds of politics and theatre, cinema and the law – to remind us of the power of words and the thrill of great oration. Including Richard Fidler (The Golden Maze), Sisonke Msimang (Always Another Country), Clare Wright (You Daughters of Freedom) who take to the microphone for this rousing event. Hosted by Sarah Kanowski.
Supported by the JIBB Foundation.
Allocation for Friends, Romans, Countrymen is currently exhausted. Head HERE to join the waitlist for this event.
In this live recording of the popular #peaknerd podcast Archive Fever, historians Clare Wright (You Daughters of Freedom: The Australians Who Won the Vote and Inspired the World) and Yves Rees (All About Yves: Notes from a transition) are joined by literary biographer Bernadette Brennan (Leaping into Waterfalls: The enigmatic Gillian Mears) and filmmaker Tosca Looby (Strong Female Lead) to discuss their mutual addiction to archival research. How do you reconstruct a renowned female author’s life from her public and privately written output? How do you use news and documentary footage alone to tell the story of Australia’s first female prime minister? What gets left on the cutting room floor because it is either too hot or too hard to handle? Can a smoking archival gun kill a biographer?
Book tickets here.
It's hard to imagine two figures with a bigger impact on the cultural and intellectual understanding of contemporary Australia than Marcia Langton and Julianne Schultz. The two professors are unparalleled when it comes to analysis, engagement and understanding of our public and political sphere. As a journalist, editor, academic and writer, Julianne's influence and insights have been considerable and her new book The Idea of Australia: A search for the soul of the nation is nothing less than a manifesto for how we might regard the great myths of national identity that underpin our society. Marcia's academic reputation, policy commitment and various roles as a prominent public intellectual have included a celebrated contribution to the Boyer Lectures and the groundbreaking Welcome to Country: A Travel Guide to Indigenous Australia. The two join Clare Wright to discuss the potential, the disappointments and the state of the nation.
Book tickets here.
Presented by the Wheeler Centre in partnership with Adelaide Writers’ Week.
Hear from internationally acclaimed feminist philosopher, writer and academic Amia Srinivasan as she discusses her debut book, The Right to Sex.
Described by The New York Times as ‘quietly dazzling’, The Right to Sex is a landmark examination of the politics and ethics of sex. ‘A truly inclusionary politics,’ Amia writes, ‘is an uncomfortable, unsafe politics.’ Moving beyond questions of consent, and the notion of wanted or unwanted sex, this formidable collection re-centres the second-way feminist idea of the personal as political in thrilling new ways, asking us to interrogate what it is that shapes our expectations and desires.
For this online conversation, Srinivasan will be joined by celebrated feminist historian Clare Wright.
Pay What You Can tickets available here.
LIVE STREAMED TO THE GARDEN FROM OXFORD, UK
Join Clare Wright in discussion with Amia Srinivasan - Described by The New York Times as “quietly dazzling”, Amia Srinivasan’s The Right to Sex is a landmark examination of the politics and ethics of sex. “A truly inclusionary politics,” Amia writes, “is an uncomfortable, unsafe politics.” Moving beyond questions of consent, and the notion of wanted or unwanted sex, this formidable collection re-centres the second-wave feminist idea of the personal as political in thrilling new ways, asking us to interrogate what it is that shapes our expectations and desires.
Link to livestream here.
In a special live recording of the peak-nerd podcast Archive Fever, historians Clare Wright and Yves Rees dig into settler colonial record-keeping with guests Professor John Carty and Dr Jared Thomas from the South Australian Museum. Launching the fourth season of the popular history podcast, the duo ask how the Museum is grappling with its collection of unidentified Indigenous remains, and explore how its historical artefacts can operate as a cultural seedbank to help Aboriginal people remember and reconnect with Indigenous knowledges.
This event is free: no need to register or purchase a ticket.
Painting Country is about more than words can convey. It is at the heart of some of Australia’s most vital creative, cultural and political movements. To paint Country is to make visible a world of meaning and values that are otherwise often lost in translation.
Aboriginal artists, diplomats and intellectuals have continually sought to cross the divide of cross-cultural ignorance and misunderstanding though the sharing of their Country. From the Yirrkala Bark Petitions, the Barunga Statement, the evolution of the Western Desert painting movement and contemporary Art Centres, to the presentation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, painted Country is how Australian have been asked to listen, and learn. Yet the importance of Country, and the complexity of painting it, is often reduced to the simplistic, landscape-driven language. Worse yet, it is often lost in the language of ‘art’.
So what is Country, why does it matter, and why do so many of the most important documents in Australian History draw upon its authority?
To explore the creative and political importance of painting Country today will be an esteemed panel including Claire G. Coleman, Noongar woman and acclaimed writer, Sally Scales, Pitjantjatjara woman, artist and advocate, Professor Clare Wright OAM, historian, author and broadcaster, and Professor John Carty, scholar and Head of Humanities at the South Australia Museum and author of the acclaimed book BALGO: Creating Country
This talk is being presented as part of the program for UNTOLD: Marking Life, Indigenous reflections on continuing/maintaining/living rituals presented by Agency Projects.
Together with Future Women Readings is delighted to bring you a discussion that will change your mind about history and the future. Join historians Dale Kent and Clare Wright as they discuss Kent’s The Most I Could Be: A Renaissance Story.
In this feminist memoir spanning continents and a lifetime of scholarship, trailblazing historian Dale Kent recounts her battles faced as a female scholar since the 1960s.
Tickets can be purchased here. Each ticket includes a signed first edition of The Most I Could Be: A Renaissance Story.
This year marks 100 years since the first woman was elected to Australian parliament. Despite significant gains for women in politics, recent headlines leave us in no doubt of the volatile, hostile and harmful environment politics can be for women. The numbers in federal parliament speak for themselves, while reports of sexism and harassment abound. Labor MP Kate Ellis (Sex, Lies and Question Time: The Successes and Struggles of Women in Australia’s Parliament), Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi, former independent MP Cathy McGowan (Cathy Goes to Canberra: Doing Politics Differently) and journalist Annabel Crabb talk about how the gender divide runs deeper than party lines and the harsh costs of that divide, with historian Clare Wright (You Daughters of Freedom).
Book tickets here.
In the right hands, a story set in the past can shed new light on the present, set the imagination loose and make for a page-turning read. But what are an author’s responsibilities (and burdens) when it comes to telling the truth? Hear from a panel of celebrated authors of historical novels as they unpack the tricky business of sorting facts from fiction when putting the past to the page. Featuring 2020 ARA Historical Novel Prize–winner Mirandi Riwoe (Stone Sky Gold Mountain), Sienna Brown (Master of My Fate) and Miles Franklin Award winner Steven Carroll (O) on stage with historian Clare Wright (You Daughters of Freedom).
Event is Sold Out.
Art, history, and women in union.
Women unionists have always been active in organising their workplaces, but the history of Victoria's union movement has been written by men, downplaying the role of women activists and literally tearing down their monuments.
Join us as we unveil a bronze relief of union giant Helen Robertson sculpted by Jennifer Mann, an artist passionate about monument equality. With a reading from poet Maxine Beneba Clark with her original piece "We Are Union", and a fiery discussion from a panel of experts including historian Clare Wright and filmmaker Robynne Murphy on how union women can organise to celebrate and centre women's activist history in contemporary culture.
The evening will close with the Melbourne premiere of Murphy's film, Women of Steel. Tickets for the film screening are $12, available on the night.
Clare Wright, Gabrielle Chan, and Nardi Simpson in a conversation chaired by Ashley Hay.
Was 2020 a year of rupture that will change what we do with what we have? How will it impact on our ideas of access and abundance, of security and agency? How will it alter the way we think about resources – tangible and intangible; animal, vegetable, mineral, more? Contributors Nardi Simpson, Clare Wright and Gabrielle Chan explore new ideas of trade and exchange, sustainability and story, in Griffith Review 71: Remaking the Balance, in conversation with Editor Ashley Hay.
Clare Wright chairs a conversation with Fernanda Melchor.
A savage, violent howl of a book by one of Mexico’s most exciting writers, Fernanda Melchor’s Hurricane Season explores the deep misogyny and femicide of her country. The murder of the town “witch” is the book’s tragic centre, around which swirls streams of brutal, mesmerising, illuminating prose, each chapter told from the perspective of a different but always unreliable narrator. Shortlisted for the 2020 International Booker Prize, Hurricane Season is both a dark celebration of language and a powerful insight into a world of poverty, brutality and gore.
Please note that Fernanda Melchor will join us in the Garden via live streaming from San Puebla, Mexico.
Clare Wright chairs a conversation with Kate Grenville.
Kate Grenville’s latest novel A Room Made of Leaves continues the disruption of conventional colonial narratives that began with her acclaimed The Secret River. What if Elizabeth, wife of the colonial monster John Macarthur, left behind brutally frank secret memoirs, she asks? And they told the real story behind the myth of the 18th century wife? Playful and audacious, this astonishing literary achievement delves into history to examine the very contemporary issues of fake stories and hidden truths, and where stories originate.
Please note that Kate Grenville will join us in the Garden via live streaming.
Clare Wright chairs a conversation with Kate Manne.
Misogyny is the “law enforcement arm of patriarchy” that polices and punishes “bad women” who threaten male dominance, argues philosopher Kate Manne in Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women then outlined the illegitimate sense of entitlement that enables men to grasp power and authority for themselves, and demand emotional and physical care from women. Described as “the Simone de Beauvoir of the 21st Century”, Kate offers a radical new framework through which to understand misogyny.
Please note that Kate Manne will join us in the Garden via live streaming from New York, USA.
Join artists Brook Andrew and Kate Golding in conversation with Professor Clare Wright OAM, for a timely and powerful discussion around Australia’s contested colonial history. Brook is a Wiradjuri/Celtic artist, whose practice critically examines dominant narratives related to global histories of colonialism and modernity. Kate’s work interrogates the memorialisation of Captain Cook, challenging the objective truths claimed by monuments erected in his name. Clare is an award-winning historian, author, broadcaster and public commentator. Clare is spearheading a campaign for statue equality, inspired by her research revealing that only 3% of statues in Australia are of real women. With a multitude of overlapping themes of research this lively discussion should not be missed.
Free, registrations required. This event has a limited live audience capacity and will also be live streamed.
Danielle Wood will discuss the six thought-provoking works chosen for the annual summer recommended reading list for the PM at a free online event with host Geraldine Doogue, and authors Alex Miller, Clare Wright, Evelyn Araluen, and Marian Wilkinson, in partnership with State Library Victoria on Monday 14 December, from 5.30pm-6.45pm.
Registration for this event is required. Register here.
Clare Wright conducts the special screening of BRAZEN HUSSIES, an exciting and revolutionary chapter in Australian history - the Women’s Liberation Movement (1965-1975), with director Catherine Dwyer, co-producer Philippa Campey and activist Robin Laurie.
Book your tickets here.
Bruce and Clare will discuss President Trump and VP Biden's race to the White House; and, what role COVID-19 may play in their campaigns?
This online event is a one-hour Q and A between Professor Clare Wright and US expert Bruce Wolpe from the United States Studies Centre and is organised by the department of Politics, Media and Philosophy at La Trobe University. The zoom link will be available once tickets have been registered.
Tickets are free, register here.
See Clare Wright in the upcoming SBS documentary series Australia Come Fly With Me.
Marking 100 years of civil aviation in Australia, this three-part documentary series looks at how what happened in the air shaped our nation on the ground. It premieres Wednesday 14 October at 8.30pm on SBS.
With Professor Clare Wright at the helm, we hear from Megan Davis, Tony Birch, Lucy Treloar, Chris Flynn and James Dunk responding to the NSW History Week theme, History: What is it good for?
Watch the event in real-time on YouTube or Facebook live.
You don't have to register to view the event but you can RSVP here if you would like to receive a reminder email with direct video links.
Julia Baird, Jean Kittson and David Roland moderated by Clare Wright.
The human spirit rises again and again in the face of adversity. When our physical and emotional world turns on its head, what does it do to us and how do we get from crisis, to acceptance, to survival?
Live stream accessible here.
