It's been 20 years since Aileen Moreton-Robinson wrote Talkin’ Up to the White Woman, the seminal work of Australian First Nations scholarship that exposed the blinding whiteness, and the serious limitations, of Australian feminist thought. 

In her book, 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, too, 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.

Aileen Moreton-Robinson

To launch our Broadly Speaking series, we’re presenting the formidable Moreton-Robinson in conversation with critical race and whiteness scholar Fiona Nicoll. The pair discuss the twentieth anniversary of Talkin’ Up to the White Woman. What questions and experiences informed the writing of the book, and how does it seek to understand power? How did Moreton-Robinson experience colonialism in academia? How do some feminist movements clash with ideas of Indigenous sovereignty – and what are some alternative ways of thinking?

A transcript of this event is available to read here.

Presented in collaboration with State Library of Queensland and RMIT Social and Global Studies Centre.

The Broadly Speaking series is proudly supported by Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and family.

#TWCBroadlySpeaking

Take Home Reading is a new short-form audio series for readers and writers – shining a spotlight on Australian writers with recently released books. In each instalment, you’ll be introduced to a writer, learn a little about what they’ve been reading lately, and hear a short reading from their latest work. 

In this episode we’re talking to James Bradley about his novel Ghost Species, an exquisitely drawn and deeply affecting exploration of connection and loss in an age of climate catastrophe.

‘It seems to me that the single most defining thing we face as a species is this kind of environmental transformation we're in the middle of, and we just don't talk about it. You know, Amitav Ghosh talks about the great derangement, that kind of complete erasure of this incredibly important thing from our cultural and political lives. And although there is a lot more fiction in this space [recently] ... I find myself wondering: why isn't all fiction about this?’

Ghost Species is out now through Hamish Hamilton.