“History is booming at a community level around the world and Australia is no exception: there are thousands of local history groups and museums nationally, as well as genealogical societies and family history groups. The past is consumed on a grand scale, popularised by local and imported television programs, enjoyed by study groups and heritage tours around the country. The growing digitization of archives and the reach of the Internet has also enabled unprecedented access for people to research and write their own family histories.”
- Dr Anna Clark
Dr Anna Clark will be the keynote speaker at the ‘Our History, Our Heritage’ Day on Saturday 2nd September at Club Sapphire in Merimbula.
Anna is thrilled to be attending: ‘My connections to the South Coast are long and deep – I’m a Wapengo girl at heart‘ (which may explain her love of fishing – that led to her recently writing a history of fishing in Australia).
Dr Clark is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and Co-Director of the Australian Centre for Public History at the University of Technology Sydney. She co-authored History Wars in 2003, which was awarded the NSW Premier’s Prize for Australian History and the Queensland Premier’s Prize for Best Literary or Media Work Advancing Public Debate.
Her PhD thesis was entitled Teaching the Nation, which examined debates about teaching Australian history in schools. More recently she has been working on Re-Imagining the National Story in which she expands on and questions what constitutes our sense of Australian history, in which she notes that ‘every generation has written the history of Australia quite differently’ and she ‘tests the boundaries of what is and what isn’t history.’
The marvellously-helpful Jodie Stewart from UOW Bega (who helped us organize our South Coast History Day in February) recommended we invite Anna to speak, indicating ‘she is a fabulous historian and orator’, so you’ll understand why we are thrilled that Anna has agreed to present the keynote address at the seminar. She will be talking about teaching and sharing history that people can engage with. So we are looking forward to hearing what she thinks is being done well, what is being done poorly – nationally and locally.
(Through their community assistance program, Bega Cheese is generously supporting this Our History, Our Heritage Day, and Anna seems to be a particularly happy little vegemite indicating to us ‘I’m quite chuffed about being sponsored by Bega Cheese!’)
So please do not miss this all-day seminar on Saturday 2nd September, starting at 10.30am. You can book your place (advance reservations are ESSENTIAL) on our new website www.southcoasthistory.com or by phoning 0448 160 852. (And if you book before August 20th, you’ll be included in a draw to receive a fabulous stack of history-related books.)
A number of other outstanding speakers will also be talking on subjects as diverse as the challenges faced by the early settlers in reaching the South Coast, to the significant but largely-unrecognised contribution that a Chinese population made to the area, to the stories about some interesting local initiatives that never got off the ground or have since disappeared…and more.
Simon Lauder of ABC South East will also be chairing a session at which he will chat with several other locals with specific interests in our history and our heritage. He will also be asking attendees to share their favourite history stories and their knowledge about local heritage, so this should be a particularly entertaining part of the day.
The whole focus of the day will be on intriguing local history and interesting local heritage, and we are again pricing the event so that everyone has a realistic opportunity to attend – it’s just $20, which includes lunch and afternoon tea!
