The 2024 Lesley Muir Address
Writing a ‘Local’ History of Australia
The 2024 Lesley Muir Address will be presented during the 2024 RAHS Conference at Campbelltown by Emeritus Professor Mark McKenna FAHA.
In early 2022, Mark McKenna set out to write a short history of Australia, which will be published late next year by Black Inc. In this year’s Lesley Muir Address, he will explain how local history will form the foundation of his history of Australia.
All too often, history is filed according to its geographical span – local, regional, state, national or global – as if certain histories are only of interest to certain readers. But how can we challenge and enlarge our view of Australian history by dismantling these boundaries? And how might close observation of local history help to radically shift our understanding of the writing of Australian history?
Mark McKenna is one of Australia’s leading historians. He is Emeritus Professor at the University of Sydney and the Australian National University. He is the author of several prize-winning books, including From the Edge: Australia’s Lost Histories, Looking for Blackfellas’ Point and An Eye for Eternity: The Life of Manning Clark, which won the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for nonfiction and the Victorian, New South Wales, Queensland and South Australian premiers’ awards. His latest book, Return to Uluru, won the Northern Territory History Prize and was shortlisted for the Australian History Prize in the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards.
Learn more about the Lesley Muir Address and past addresses.
Find out more about the 2024 RAHS Conference at Campbelltown.
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