Friends of the Baillieu Library
2009 Programme of Events
Tuesday 24 March
5:30 for 6:00 pm Leigh Scott Room – Baillieu Library
Annual General Meeting
Speaker – Mr Philip Kent, University Librarian
Tuesday 21 April
5:30 for 6:00 pm Leigh Scott Room – Baillieu Library
MUP Author Talk
Pattie Wright, author of The Men of the Line: Stories of the Thai-Burma Railway Survivors
The extraordinary engineerring feat of the Thai-Burma Railway, or the Line as it was often called, was achieved with a slave labour force - an Asian contingent and Allied prisoners-of-war, including Australian, British, Dutch and American soldiers.
Construction of the 415 kilometres of railway connecting Ban Pong in Thailand to Thanbuyzayat in Burma commenced in June 1942. This labour force built 688 bridges - eight made of steel and concrete, viaducts, cuttings, embankments and kilometres and kilometres of railway track through thick malarial jungle.
The men of the Line died of starvation, torture and disease at the hands of the Japanese Imperial Army. The Men of the Line recounts the experiences of these men in their own words. For many of the men this maybe their last - and in some case their first - opportunity to put their stories on record.
Pattie Wright has worked as a producer and director in the Australian film industry for most of her working life. Involvement in developing a feature film on the life of Sir Edward 'Weary' Dunlop began her interest in the history and men of the Thai-Burma railway. Pattie is married with three sons and a loud black kelpie.
Tuesday 23 June
5:30 for 6:00 pm Leigh Scott Room – Baillieu Library
MUP Author Talk
Ken Gelder & Paul Salzman – After the Celebration: Australian Fiction 1989–2007
Our second 2009 author’s evening for members and friends in June looks at the broad canvas of Australian fiction writing from 1989 to 2007.
After the Celebration explores Australian fiction from 1989 to 2007, after Australia's bicentenary to the end of the Howard government. In this literary history, Ken Gelder and Paul Salzman combine close attention to Australian novels with a vivid depiction of their contexts: cultural, social, political, historical, national and transnational.
From crime fiction to the postmodern colonial novel, from Australian grunge to 'rural apocalypse fiction', from the Asian diasporic novel to the action blockbuster, Gelder and Salzman show how Australian novelists such as Frank Moorhouse, Elizabeth Jolley, Peter Carey, Kim Scott, Steven Carroll, Kate Grenville, Tim Winton, Alexis Wright and many others have used their work to chart our position in the world.
The literary controversies over history, identity, feminism and gatekeeping are read against the politics of the day. Provocative and compelling, After the Celebration captures the key themes and issues in Australian fiction: where we have been and what we have become.
Ken Gelder is Professor of English at the University of Melbourne. His books include Reading the Vampire (1994), Uncanny Australia: Sacredness and Identity in a Postcolonial Nation (1998, with Jane M Jacobs), Popular Fiction: The Logics and Practices of a Literary Field (2004) and Subcultures: Cultural Histories and Social Practice (2007).
Paul Salzman is a Reader in English Literature at La Trobe University. He has published widely in the areas of early modern literature and Australian literature, including books on Elizabeth Jolley, the writing of 1621 and early modern women's writing.
Ken Gelder and Paul Salzman are also co-authors of The New Diversity: Australian Fiction 1970-1988 (1989).
Friday 10 July
6.00 – 7.00 pm Prince Philip Theatre, Architecture Building
The French Revolution - 220 years On
Free public lecture by Prof Peter McPhee, Provost of the University of Melbourne - The Making of a Revolutionary: Maximilien Robespierre 1758-89
This lecture is co-sponsored by the French Embassy in Australia.
Please join us for drinks beforehand at 5:30 pm (drinks generously sponsored by the Baillieu Library).
Gala Dinner
7.00 for 7.30 pm Karagheusian Room – University House, University of Melbourne
Saturday 11 July
2:00-4:00 pm Leigh Scott Room – Baillieu Library
The French Revolution - 220 years On
Saturday afternoon seminar with speakers on the occasion of the 220th anniversary of the French revolution:
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Not Eating Cake — Dr Juliet Flesch (School of Historical Studies)
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French Voyages to Australia and the South Pacific — Ms Pam Pryde (Curator, Special Collections, Baillieu Library)
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French Prints of the Revolutionary Period – Kerrianne Stone (Curator of the Print Collection, Baillieu Library)
- The 14th of July: A cause for celebration? If so, by whom? — Prof. Colin Duckworth
Tuesday 28 July
5:30 for 6:00 pm Leigh Scott Room – Baillieu Library
Peter Jamieson - Developing new libraries at the University of Melbourne: A Talk and Tour
When the Baillieu Library was opened fifty years ago, it was a place where students sat quietly, working on their own. Today libraries and learning spaces provide a very different environment. The University has recently undertaken major refurbishments of two buildings to provide new learning spaces. These are the ERC (Eastern Resource Centre) and the Frank Tate Learning Centre.
These two spaces are part of the Eastern Precinct project which will consist of the Eastern Resource Centre , where first stage refurbishments were completed in July 2008, the Frank Tate Learning Centre, the Frank Tate Plaza where two sculptural pavilions will provide shelter and amenity and the new Science Student Centre which will be located in a large vaulted public space adjacent to the ERC main entry.
The Frank Tate Learning Centre opened in September 2008 and is the second stage of the Eastern Precinct project. It provides a suite of four chambers which have been created to be complementary zones for students: a dedicated small-group study space, a comfortable reading room, an IT zone providing quick access to terminals and a unique informal learning and social space called the Learning Atoll.
Professor Peter Jamieson is the Policy Adviser to the Provost and has been involved in a range of initiatives to improve the quality of the student on-campus experience, including the Eastern precinct. He will talk to us about these exciting projects and then take the Friends on a guided tour of the Precinct. Peter studied at La Trobe University and RMIT and has published widely in the area of educational innovation and the design of learning spaces.
Tuesday 15 September
Annual Dinner
7:00 for 7:30, Upper East Dining Room, University House
Shane Carmody, Director, Collections and Access at the State Library of Victoria
Collecting in the Public Interest
The Friends of the Baillieu Library are delighted that Mr Shane Carmody from the State Library of Victoria has agreed to be our speaker at the 2009 Annual Dinner.
The collecting of books and materials for a major public institution is no easy job. The mandated rôle of the State Library and public expectations of it must be weighed up against available budgets and competing needs. In his talk to the Friends, Shane will tell some of the stories from his experience of great acquisitions for the State Library as well as the ones that have slipped his grasp. Shane promises us an insider’s account of the sometimes exciting world of collecting in the Public Interest.
Shane Carmody is Director of Collections and Access at the State Library of Victoria. He is responsible, among many things, for: the State Collection; information services and resources; collection conservation; acquisitions, digitisation and cataloguing; and exhibitions and events. In this latter capacity, he will be known to many friends for his pivotal role in organising the highly successful The Medieval Imagination exhibition at the State Library in 2008.
Shane has an honours degree in History from the University of Melbourne with a second major in Fine Arts and a Master of Arts degree from the University of Toronto in History and Historical Urban Geography. Shane undertook his studies in Toronto as a Rotary Foundation Graduate Scholar.
Leanne McCredden
tel: 03 8344 5997 fax: 03 9347 8627
leannelm@unimelb.edu.au
Tuesday 20 October
5:30 for 6:00 pm Leigh Scott Room – Baillieu Library
Members Night
Focus on the Baillieu Library and its collections, especially recent purchases by the Friends.
Tuesday 1 December
5:30 for 6:00 pm Leigh Scott Room – Baillieu Library
MUP Author Talk
Professor Bain Attwood (Monash University) will speak about his recent book Possession: Batman’s Treaty and the Matter of History.
Possession tells the fascinating story of the only treaties ever made between settlers and Aboriginal people in Australia. It contemplates why whites forged these agreements, how the Aboriginal people understood their terms, why the government repudiated them, and how whites claimed to be the rightful owners of the land. It compares the ways settler society has endeavoured to make good its possession by repeatedly creating histories that have recalled or repressed the memory of Batman, the treaties, and the Aborigines' destruction and dispossession; and charts how Aboriginal people have unsettled this history through their remembering.
Bain Attwood is a leading scholar in the field of cross-cultural history. He is professor in the School of Historical Studies, Monash University and adjunct professor in the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, The Australian National University. He is the author of The Making of the Aborigines, Rights for Aborigines and Telling the Truth about Aboriginal History.
Copies of the book will be available for purchase.
Entrance by gold coin donation.
As the Library doors will be closing at 6.00 pm that evening, please arrive before that time.
RSVP by Friday 27 November to:
Leanne McCredden
tel.: 03 8344 5997 fax: 03 9347 8627
leannelm@unimelb.edu.au