2006 Media Releases
Friday, 25 August 2006
La Trobe University sponsors opening session of Melbourne Writers’ Festival
La Trobe University is sponsoring tonight’s Melbourne Writers’ Festival opening Keynote Address by leading Australian thinker and writer, Tim Flannery, at the Melbourne Town Hall, 8 pm.
The internationally acclaimed scientist, explorer and conservationist will speak on ‘Global Warning’ dealing with climate change. The opening session will be chaired by ABC Radio National’s Robyn Williams.
Ten members of La Trobe University will take part in the Festival over the coming week – and one of the Festival’s major overseas guests, Bolivian writer, Edmundo Paz Soldán, will next week a bring a segment of the Festival to the University’s main Melbourne campus at Bundoora.
Paz Soldán is a leading figure in the urban, pop culture realist Latin American literary movement known as McOndo. He will give a talk on recent trends in Latin American literature, including his own work, followed by a question and answer session, in the University’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. (This will be held at 11 am, Friday 1 September, Humanities 2 Building, Room 431). At 12.30 pm there will be a book signing in the La Trobe University Bookstore.
Paz Soldán has won the National Book Award in Bolivia and divides his time between Bolivia and the USA, where he is an academic at Cornell. He has written six novels – including ‘The Matter of Desire’ and, ‘Turing’s Delirium’, recently translated into English – and two short story collections.
One of his Melbourne Festival sessions (Saturday, 2 September, 10.15 am, Bagging Room, Event 111) will be chaired by La Trobe Spanish scholar and Deputy Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, Dr Lilit Thwaites.
Vice-Chancellor, Professor Brian Stoddart, said La Trobe University was delighted to be a formal sponsor of the Festival – by supporting a nominated writer in a key area of non-fiction to launch the Festival.
‘Following the recent publication of Reflected Light: La Trobe Essays by Black Inc., this is a further way to highlight the role the University plays as a principal centre for public intellectuals. We are building on our previous strong support for this Festival, as well as for other major cultural, artistic and literary events in Melbourne and regional Victoria.’
Another key focus of the Festival involves recent La Trobe History summiteer,
Dr John Hirst, author of ‘Sense and Nonsense in Australian History’. He will chair a conversation with Geoffrey Blainey, on Thursday 31 August – as well as the ‘The Last Word’ debate on Sunday 3 September, titled ‘Stolen Generation or hijacked history?’
This is the long-awaited debate between Robert Manne (editor of ‘Reflected Light: La Trobe Essays’ and author of ‘Left, Right, Left’) – and Melbourne journalist, Andrew Bolt, which forms the first half of the Festival’s closing night program.
Other La Trobe authors appearing at the Festival include multi-award winning Australian author, Emeritus Scholar Dr Inga Clendinnen; Professor Marilyn Lake, who is working on biographical studies of Australian federal fathers, HB Higgins, Alfred Deakin, Edmund Barton and WM Hughes; historian Dr Richard Broome, whose work on Aboriginal Victoria has been short-listed for the Victorian Premier's Prize for non-fiction; Adjunct Professor and media commentator, Morag Fraser; Media scholar, Dr Sue Turnbull; historian Dr Corinne Manning, co-author (with Richard Broome) of the recent biography of Melbourne Aboriginal activist, Alick Jackomos; and anthropologist Sally Warhaft, editor of ‘Well May We Say: the Speeches that made Australia’ and of ‘The Monthly’ magazine.
For further information:
Details about the Paz Soldán talk from Dr Lilit Thwaites, Tel: (03) 9479 2435 or Email: l.thwaites@latrobe.edu.au.
Festival Programme and bookings: www.mwf.com.au