Dark Emu: Bruce Pascoe and Tony Birch in conversation
Date(s) - May 10, 2017
Time - 6:15 pm - 7:15 pm
This is a third-party event not organised by Permablitz. We've added it because we reckon it looks pretty good!
Location - Wheeler Centre
“Is it too late for us to learn from Aboriginal people how to care for our wide and colourful land, and how to tread lightly on its surface?”, asks Hilary in a review of Dark Emu – a book by Bruce Pascoe who unveils Australia’s pre-colonial indigenous agricultural history.
About Bruce Pascoe
Bruce Pascoe, author of Dark Emu, is a Bunurong man born in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond whose career has spanned from being a teacher, farmer, fisherman, barman, fencing contractor to that of a lecturer, Aboriginal language researcher, archaeological site worker and editor. He’s speaking during the Yirramboi Festival, a First Nations Arts Festival taking place in Melbourne from 5-14 May 2017.
About the event (from the program):
Myths about the lives of pre-colonial Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have proven deeply entrenched. But in his 2014 book Dark Emu, Bruce Pascoe struck a grievous blow to one of the most widely accepted assumptions of Australian pre-settlement history. He argued, and presented robust evidence drawn from the journals of European explorers, that Indigenous people were not hunter-gatherers at the time of colonisation. ‘The evidence insists that Aboriginal people right across the continent were using domesticated plants, sowing, harvesting, irrigating and storing – behaviours inconsistent with the hunter-gatherer tag,’ he has said.
Dark Emu, which won Book of the Year at the 2016 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, also challenges existing narratives around housing construction, cooking and clothing prior to European settlement.
In conversation with Tony Birch, Pascoe will discuss the writing, research and reception of his ground-breaking, celebrated book. What does challenging the past of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people mean for the present?
Please note: the event is free but bookings are required.
Acknowledgements
Presented By YIRRAMBOI and The Wheeler Centre.
