Featuring local and international feminist thinkers talking culture, media, matriarchy, law, health, sex, sovereignty and more, The Wheeler Centre presents an exciting new 12-part fortnightly series, Broadley Speaking, that deep dives into feminism and gender.
Building on conversations begun at the Centre’s inaugural Broadside festival in 2019, the series will bring contemporary feminist discussions to your screen, wherever you are. Each month Broadly Speaking will present two discussions in dialogue with each other. The first event each month will be a one-on-one in-conversation, and the second one will be a panel conversation that responds to that in-conversation.
To launch Broadly Speaking, distinguished Professor Aileen Moreton-Robinson, whose seminal work Talkin’ Up to the White Woman is celebrating its twentieth anniversary, will be in conversation with Professor Fiona Nicoll, academic and author of Indigenous Sovereignty and the Violence of Perspective, on Indigenous Literacy Day on Wednesday 2 September at 6.15pm.
In Talkin’ Up to the White Woman, Moreton-Robinson traces and honours the history of Indigenous women’s activism in Australia and lays bare some uncomfortable truths about white women’s complicity in racial oppression. She exposes the prevalence of biased and blinkered thought prevalent within white feminist academia. Talkin’ Up to the White Woman has shaped the thinking of feminist and First Nations scholars across the globe.
Moreton-Robinson and Nicoll will discuss what’s changed in Australian and global feminist conversations since Moreton-Robinson first wrote the book. Is popular feminism’s emphasis on intersectionality a sign of progress? And where do traditions of Indigenous women’s sovereignty sit in relation to mass movements like #MeToo and Black Lives Matter? This event is presented in collaboration with State Library of Queensland and RMIT Social and Global Studies Centre.
The first Broadly Speaking panel conversation, hosted by Darumbal and South Sea Islander journalist and podcaster Amy McQuire, will expand on the themes raised in Moreton-Robinson and Nicoll’s conversation.
On Wednesday 16 September at 6.15pm, McQuire will speak to a panel of exceptional minds from Australia and abroad – including lawyer and human rights advocate Nyadol Nyuon – for a discussion of women’s activism online and on the streets today.
What can feminism learn from other movements for justice? How do demands for a more rigorous and inclusive feminism – in popular culture, in social media and in academia – play out in the real lives and real experiences of Indigenous women and Women of Colour? And what should we make of all the anti-racist reading lists and black-square Instagram posts on social media?
“The Wheeler Centre is thrilled to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of Professor Aileen Moreton-Robinson’s ground-breaking book, Talkin’ Up to the White Woman on Indigenous Literacy Day, a day when we also pay tribute to the resilience of Indigenous languages and literacy,” said Caro Llewellyn, CEO, The Wheeler Centre. “I very much hope you’ll join us to honour this important book and salute its trail-blazing author.”
For more information about the Broadley Speaking series, visit: www.wheelercentre.com for details.
Image: Professor Aileen Moreton-Robinson – courtesy of The Wheeler Centre