[Anthropgrad] Research School of Humanities - Work-in-Progress Seminar - Stephen Foster

[Sharon Komidar]

Dear All, would you please circulate the following on your email lists.
Apologies for cross posting. Many Thanks, Sharon.

 

The Research School of Humanities presents,
A WORK-IN-PROGRESS SEMINAR

1- 2.30 pm, Friday 20th June 2008, Theatrette, Old Canberra House

Justifying violence on the colonial frontier.

Professor Stephen FOSTER

Research School of Humanities, ANU.

 

I start with the particular: a series of violent encounters in the late
1840s on what became the Maranoa district of southern Queensland. Such
events were commonplace, forming part of a pattern of conflict across
the white man's moving frontier. The evidence, as is generally accepted,
is voluminous and compelling, though often it takes the form of wry
allusions and hearsay. After whites were hanged for killing blacks in
1838, many learnt to hold their tongues. 

 

The events I'll describe in this seminar are unusual in that the
squatters who were involved, and those who were close to them, spoke and
wrote freely about them, endeavouring to explain and justify their
actions. I take their reflections as a useful means of questioning some
of our assumptions about frontier conflict and the words we use to
describe it. 

 

Stephen Foster has worked intermittently on aspects of frontier conflict
since 1980, contributing relevant sections to Australians 1838 (1987)
and editing with Bain Attwood Frontier conflict: the Australian
experience (2003). Now he is exploring various aspects of imperial
history, through the eyes and lives of six generations of a Scottish
family, in Scotland, England, India, the West Indies and Australia.

 

Convenors: Ken Taylor and Stephen Foster
For general enquiries please contact: 
Phone: 6125 2434
Email: administration.rsh at anu.edu.au 
Web: http://rsh.anu.edu.au/


All Welcome

Please Circulate Widely