The first seminar for 2003 - Contested histories, contested sites - was held at the Low Head Pilot Station on February 13 to 14.

The second seminar for 2003 - Tasmanian Aboriginal History: Fabrication or Fact? was a round table discussion held in conjunction with The Centre for Tasmanian Historical Studies at the Inveresk Rail Yards on Friday May 16.

The third seminar for 2003 was a session sponsored by CAIA at the Escape Conference in Strahan, June 26-29.

The final seminar for 2003 was held at the Salmon Ponds, November 21.

CONTESTED HISTORIES, CONTESTED SITES
Thursday 13th - 14th February 2003

Low Head Pilot Station

Thursday 13th February
12.00 - 1.00pm arrival
Visit museum, drink coffee tea etc.

1.00 - 2.10 Session 1 - Identity/identification
Linn Miller (Philosophy) - 'Lost and Longing: A Pathology of Peter Read's Belonging'
Mitchell Rolls (Riawunna) - 'Fucking Whites': Inverting the Politics of Miscegenation

2.20 -3.30 Session 2 - History-Place
Pam Allen (Asian Languages and Studies) - Appropriating paradise: "Our beautiful Bali".
Iain McFarlane (History) - Cape Grim Revisited: Keith Windschuttle gets a serve

3.30 - 4.00 Afternoon tea

4.00 - 5.10 Session 3 - Convict Complications: Survival and Cruelty
Cassandra Pybus (History) - 'Black Jack' Williams: slave, convict and sealer
Meg Dillon (History) - Spies Inside the Gangs: Survival and the Culture of Cruelty

5.15 - 6.00 - ARC Linkages
Mobo Gao & Cassandra Pybus on the Chinese Imprint project
Andrew Pirie on Low Head Precinct project

Friday 14th February
11.15 - 12.30 Site Tour of Low head Pilot Station
With Peter Cox and others

12.30 - 1.15 Lunch

1.15 - 2.30 - Community Connections:
Trevor Sofield on CRC Tourism funding
Lucy Frost to lead a discussion on possible connections with Low Head

2.30 - 3.15 - A sense of Place
Julie Gough on her recent work

3.15 - 3.45 Afternoon tea and depart

For further information contact Cassandra Pybus

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TASMANIAN ABORIGINAL HISTORY: Fabrication or Fact?
Roundtable Conference on Tasmanian History
Friday, 16 May 2003

Launceston Tram Shed
Function Centre and Auditorium
Inveresk Rail Yards

PROGRAM

10:00am

Opening: Prof Michael Bennett, Head of the School of History and Classics.

Welcome: Corrie Fullard, Elder of the Tasmanian Aboriginal community and Board member of Riawanna Aboriginal studies unit.

10:30am to 12:30pm:

Emeritus Prof Geoffrey Bolton: "Historiography - an overview of the issues"
Dr Ian MacFarlane: "The Cape Grim Massacre - what is the evidence?"
John Taylor: "Linguistic considerations: words for ownership, place and number in Tasmanian Aboriginal dialects"
Peter Chapman: "Editing Tasmanian Aboriginal History - then and now"

Lunch (not provided)
2:00pm to 4:30pm:

Dr Bill Gammage: "Plain Facts: Aboriginal Land Management in Tasmania"
John Maynard: "The Lifting Haze of Australian History"
John Connor: "The Fabrication of Aboriginal History as military history"
Prof Mark Finnane: "'The least violent of all Europe's encounters with the New World'? The evidence from Windschuttle's statistics".
Responses from Keith Windschuttle, Lyndall Ryan and Henry Reynolds.

7:30pm to 10:00pm - Roundtable Forum

Chairperson: The Hon Don Wing, President of the Tasmanian Legislative Council
Keynote speakers: Keith Windschuttle, Prof Lyndall Ryan, Prof Henry Reynolds.
Panel: Prof Geoffrey Bolton, Dr Cassandra Pybus, Jim Everett.

Audience participation.

Background notes on speakers

Geoffrey Bolton: Emeritus Professor and Chancellor of Murdoch University. He has held Chairs of History at several Australian universities and is the author of 13 books. He was recently historical consultant to the ABC-TV series 100 years: the Australian Story.

Peter Chapman: Senior Lecturer in History University of Tasmania. His Publications include The Diaries and Letters of G. T W. B. Boyes vol. 1 1820-1832, and he is General Editor of the resumed Historical Records of Australia Series.

John Connor: doctoral scholar with the UNSW Australian Defence Force Academy. His book The Australian Frontier Wars 1788-1838 has been shortlisted for the UK Royal United Services Institute's Westminster Medal for Military Literature.

Jim Everett: poet and playwright. He lives on Cape Barren Island and is highly respected member of the Tasmanian Aboriginal community who has been active in Aboriginal issues for the past three decades.

Mark Finnane: Professor and Dean of Post Graduate Education at Griffith University. His publications include Police and Government: Histories of Policing in Australia (1994); Punishment in Australian Society (1997); When Police Unionise: the politics of law and order in Australia (2002).

Bill Gammage: ARC Research Fellow in the Humanities Research Centre, ANU. His thesis on Australian soldiers in the Great War was published as The Broken Years (1974). The author of many books, he is now researching Aboriginal land management at the time of contact.

Ian Macfarlane: PhD in History at the University of Tasmania. He is a Vietnam veteran and past president of the Maritime Union of Australia who has particular interest in the Cape Grim Massacre.

John Maynard: Lecturer, Wollotuka School of Aboriginal Studies, University of Newcastle. John's traditional roots lie with the Worimi people of Port Stephens. He is currently engaged in doctoral research and his publications include Aboriginal Stars of the Pigskin.

Cassandra Pybus: ARC Professorial Fellow in History at the University of Tasmania. She is the author of ten books including Community of Thieves (1991), which deals with the dispossession of Aboriginal Tasmanians.

Henry Reynolds: ARC Professorial Fellow in History at the University of Tasmania. He is a leading authority on Aboriginal history and his many books include The Other Side of the Frontier (1981), The Law of the Land (1987) and Fate of a Free People (1995).

Lyndall Ryan: Professor and Head of the School of Humanities at the University of Newcastle. She is author of The Aboriginal Tasmanians, second edition, (1996), has published widely on frontier conflict and women's studies and is currently writing a biography of Edna Ryan.

John Taylor: Tasmanian barrister and author of Dictionary of Tasmanian Place Names (1993), Tasmanian Place Names - the Aboriginal Connection (1995) and Dictionary of Palawa (Tasmanian Aboriginal) Place Names (2003)

Keith Windschuttle: Historian and journalist. He has lectured at the University of NSW and is the author of several books including The Killing of History (1994) and The Fabrication of Tasmanian Aboriginal History (2002), which is the principal focus of this conference.

The roundtable on history was sponsored by:
Centre for Tasmanian Historical Studies
School of History and Classics, Launceston
Colonialism and its Aftermath Research cluster
The Faculty of Arts
The Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor
Riuwunna Aboriginal Studies Unit

Contact Mike Powell for more information.

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ESCAPE CONFERENCE SESSION
Sponsored by Colonialism and its Aftermath

Saturday June 28

The Escape conference was an international and interdisciplinary conference on escape and convict experience, held in Strahan on June 26-29.

Final Seminar for 2003

Friday November 21

Staff Club, Hobart Campus

$20 for staff and $10 for postgraduates, including morning tea and lunch. There is also the option of $5 for a half day (morning or afternoon and no lunch).

DRAFT PROGRAM

9.45-10.00 coffee & tea

10.30-11.30 Postgraduate Research-in-progress reports
Jesse Shipway, Tom Gunn and Terry Moore.

11.30-12.00 coffee tea and cake

12.00-12.50 Paper: Emma Christopher from London University on the interface between slave trade and the convict trade

12.50 -1.30 Research progress reports
Cassandra Pybus on Runaway slaves and Lucy Frost on Convict women

1.30-2.15 Lunch

2.15 ­2.30 Jac Charlesworth on the new website

2.30-3.15 Research Reports:
Anna Johnston on Missionaries and Michael Bennett on Smallpox

3.15-4:00 Plans for 2004
Anna Johnston, Mitchell Rolls and Pam Allen on the conference.
Ideas for Seminar for February/March: The Salmon Ponds?

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