November 15th 2007

In the myths of Indigenous Australians Captain Cook is more than one person. There is the "good" Cook who respected Indigenous law and died on Garden Island; Satan who disappeared into the earth at Sydney Cove where the Cahill Expressway now stands; and the too many Cooks who still come and fail to keep Indigenous law.

As Australian leaders debate the teaching of "accurate" Australian history in schools, this free public lecture takes a Cooks' tour of the different imaginings of what Australia is and how it should be known. One of these is the modern nation of immigrants that began when a British sea captain landed on Possession Island.

Katrina Schlunke
Dr Katrina Schlunke is a Senior Lecturer in Writing and Cultural Studies and Research Coordinator for the UTS Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. With Professor Stephen Muecke she is currently undertaking the Australian Research Council-funded project Voyages of Myth: Captain Cook in the Popular Australian Imagination. She is the author of Bluff Rock, Autobiography of a Massacre, an examination of how history works in the context of violent conflict between Indigenous people and white settlers near Tenterfield in Northern NSW in 1844.

Resources

• flyer (PDF 56k)
• talk
• audio recording (MP3 14.6 MB)

UTSPEAKS: is a free public lecture series presented by UTS experts discussing a range of important issues confronting contemporary Australia