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Billy Griffiths is a writer, historian and research fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute (Deakin University) in Melbourne, Australia.

He is the author of The China Breakthrough: Whitlam in the Middle Kingdom, 1971 (Monash University Publishing, 2012) and Deep Time Dreaming: Uncovering Ancient Australia (Black Inc., 2018), which won the 2018 John Mulvaney Book Award. His work has been commended by the Queensland Literary Awards, the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards and the Australian Council for Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.

Deep Time Dreaming: An Exploration of Australia’s Past & Present

Thur, Mar 14, 18:00

Drawing on the work of archaeologists, historian Billy Griffiths journeys deep into the Indigenous history of the Australian continent. He reflects on the voyages of the First Australians some 65,000 years ago, and the ways in which their descendants made the land their own through language, song, story and fire.

In his recent book, Deep Time Dreaming, Griffiths charts the revolution in Australia’s timescale over the past half-century, following the lives, passions, methods and mistakes of some of Australia’s pioneering archaeologists.But the book is also the story of Indigenous activists and their fight to have a voice in decision-making about their land and their heritage.

In this talk, Griffiths explores what it means to live in a place of great antiquity, with its complex questions of ownership and belonging.

Moderated by Michael Smith