National Museum of Australia – Audio on demand program
Summary: The National Museum of Australia's audio series explores Australia's social history: Indigenous people, their cultures and histories, the nation's history since 1788, and the interaction of Australians with the land and environment. The series includes talks by curators, conservators, historians, environmental scientists and other specialists.
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- Artist: National Museum of Australia
- Copyright: © 2007-2018 National Museum of Australia
Podcasts:
The fascination of Australian writers with explorer Ludwig Leichhardt, including Patrick White’s Voss, earlier elegiac poems and Lemurian novels, is examined by English lecturer Susan Martin.
Tom Darragh uses Ludwig Leichhardt’s diaries to show the skill and accuracy with which the explorer and naturalist recorded scientific observations and information about plants and geological specimens, in terminology which is still used today.
Scientist Henry Nix argues that had explorer Ludwig Leichhardt lived, he could have published the results of his scientific observations and joined the company of peers including Alexander von Humboldt and Charles Darwin.
Conservator David Hallam outlines the metal and corrosion analysis which helped to authenticate the Leichhardt nameplate. The plate is the only known artefact from Ludwig Leichhardt’s lost 1848 Australian expedition with a corroborated provenance.
Alice Springs historian Dick Kimber proposes an alternative theory for the fate of Ludwig Leichhardt’s expedition, arguing that it was lost in the Simpson Desert, in a closing discussion with earlier symposium speakers.
An original bamboo musical instrument made by Minh Tam Nguyen, a Vietnamese refugee to Australia, illustrates a meeting of European and Asian traditions and a life changed by war, explains curator Jennifer Wilson.
A set of ten rare glass plates depicting people and places in north Queensland in the mid-1800s reveal much about pioneering geologist and photographer Richard Daintree and life in the colony, according to curator Martha Sear.
An original bamboo musical instrument made by Minh Tam Nguyen, a Vietnamese refugee to Australia, illustrates a meeting of European and Asian traditions and a life changed by war, explains curator Jennifer Wilson.
The convergence of history and fiction and the power of archives and objects to inform their work on Australian women and the League of Nations is explored by political historian Lenore Coltheart and author Frank Moorhouse.
Environmental historian Libby Robin and novelist Nicholas Drayson share an interest in nature and the history of science and discovery. They explore the dynamic relationship between historical evidence, recollections and the reconstruction of the past.
Poet and writer Sam Wagan Watson, historian and Indigenous biographer Peter Read and National Museum curator Margo Neale discuss Indigenous issues and the intersection between historical research and imagination.
Adventurer and author Robyn Davidson joins desert archaeologist Mike Smith for a discussion about her travels in Australia, India, China and Tibet, and 30 years since the publication of her Making Tracks book.
Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton recounts events since her daughter Azaria was taken from a tent in Australia’s Northern Territory in 1980. She speaks about the National Museum’s Chamberlain collection and the public’s fascination with the case.
Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton recounts events since her daughter Azaria was taken from a tent in Australia's Northern Territory in 1980. She speaks about the National Museum´s Chamberlain collection and the public's fascination with the case.
A set of ten rare glass plates depicting people and places in north Queensland in the mid-1800s reveal much about pioneering geologist and photographer Richard Daintree and life in the colony, according to curator Martha Sear.
