ONLINE only lecture: Reimagining James Cook and Australian History

Associate Professor Martin Crotty, UQ

In this lecture Martin Crotty will consider the place of James Cook in traditional narratives of Australian History, and how he might be reconceived as Australia wrestles with and reimagines its national past. Cook, he will argue, need not be written out of Australian History, and need not be posted as some form of villain. But imagining a more united and reconciled future requires that we rethink and add nuance to established narratives of Cook as an heroic British discoverer.

BIO: Associate Professor Martin Crotty studied in New Zealand before moving to Australia to undertake postgraduate studies at Monash University and the University of Melbourne. After four years of teaching History at the University of Newcastle in NSW, he took up his current position teaching History at the University of Queensland in early 2003. He has since served as the Deputy Dean of the Graduate School and as the Head of School for the School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry from mid-2013 to mid-2017.

Martin's major publications include Making the Australian Male: Middle-Class Masculinity, 1870-1920 (1901), The Politics of Veteran Benefits in the Twentieth Century: A Comparative History (2020) and a variety of journal articles, book chapters and edited collections, including The Great Mistakes of Australian History (2006), Turning Points in Australian History (2008) and Anzac Legacies: Australians and the Aftermath of war (2010).

Please note: If you have registered for the Zoom live stream the lecture link will be emailed to you closer to the lecture date. Also, please make sure your microphone and camera are turned off when you join the meeting. The lecture may be recorded as well.

If you have any questions, please email us at info@rgsq.org.au.

RGSQ premises: Level 1, 28 Fortescue St, Spring Hill, Qld, 4000