Australia in the World lecture and seminar series

Thursday 5 November 2015, 6-7.30pm

South Lecture Theatre, Old Arts

University of Melbourne

Environmental history and the environmental humanities have attracted significant international interest in recent years, with different emphases in different places. Driven by a new sense of urgency created by contemporary environmental crises and greater degrees of interdisciplinary engagement, Australian environmental historians are increasingly crossing established temporal, geographical, cultural and disciplinary boundaries. Australia has been a world leader in the ecological and environmental humanities, and also in teaching Big History, which is strongly environmental in flavour, and inclusive of geological and evolutionary time scales.

In this seminar, we reflect on the state of the fields and explore how Australian environments and their histories challenge global orthodoxies, from wetlands and bushfires to climate change and the Anthropocene.

Professor Libby Robin, Professor at the Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University, and Senior Research Fellow at the National Museum of Australia.

Dr Grace Moore, Senior Research Fellow, The ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, The University of Melbourne

Dr Emily O’Gorman, Lecturer in Environmental Management, Macquarie University

Dr Ruth Morgan, Lecturer in History, Monash University

More details and registration available here.

Feature image: Cranbourne Gardens, Melbourne by Cameron Muir.