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 2019 is the International Year of Indigenous Language

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Theresa Sainty and Annie Reynolds 

present

  palawa kani  – The revival of Tasmanian Aboriginal language

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Tuesday, 4  June 2019

  8.00pm in the Royal Society Room,

Customs House Building, entrance from Dunn Place, Hobart

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From the flourishing possibly sixteen original languages spoken in lutruwita (Tasmania), to near extinguishment under post-invasion colonial pressures and sleeping for almost two hundred years, palawa kanihas emerged as the language of Tasmanian Aborigines. It is now fundamental to Aboriginal community activities and family life, with two generations of children having learnt it from infancy.  palawa kaniis shared with the public through renaming of places, and things as varied as a newly discovered squat lobster and the next Antarctic icebreaker. How did this happen? Where does the knowledge of the language come from?  And can it ever be a ‘living’ language, one that is used in daily life?

 

 

Theresa Sainty is a Pakana woman and has been Aboriginal Linguistic Consultant for the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre’s palawa kaniLanguage Program since 1997. Theresa has also worked with the Tasmanian Department of Education, Aboriginal Education Services, developing Aboriginal Cultural Awareness training and a number of curriculum resources about Tasmanian Aborigines. Theresa is current Chair of TMAG’s Tasmanian Aboriginal Advisory Council, and has begun a Senior Indigenous Research Scholarship at UTAS.

 

 

 

 

Annie Reynolds has evolved from graduate studies of Old Norse, Old English and Old Irish in Sydney and Adelaide to coordinating the work of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre’s  palawa kaniLanguage program statewide since the mid 1990s.  Within the TAC she also conducts historical research and writes and edits a variety of material, mostly for the Aboriginal community.

 

For the May lecture of the Royal Society we will hear from the joint winners of the 2018 RST Doctoral Thesis Award. This award is given annually to two recently graduated PhD academics who have made significant advances in the course of their doctoral research. The awards are made for excellence in research in any field within the purview of the Society, so we will be have the pleasure of hearing presentations on very diverse topics.

The Royal Society of Tasmania is pleased to introduce the recipients of the 2018 Doctoral Awards,

Jack Mulder and Feng Pan

 

Tuesday, 7  May 2019

  8.00pm in the Royal Society Room,

Customs House Building, entrance from Dunn Place, Hobart

 

 

Doctoral Thesis Winner: Feng Pan

Title: Individualised osteoarthritis pain treatment based on phenotypes: are we there yet?

Pain is the most prominent symptom in osteoarthritis. Pain experience is a complex and multifactorial phenomenon. Peripheral structural damage has been traditionally considered a source of pain and this has strengthened with MRI studies; however, a discordance between structural damage and pain severity suggests individual variations in pain presentation which may be determined by genetic, environmental (obesity), psychological and neurological factors. Each of factors may play its role or intact with other factors to contribute to the variation which can partly explain the overall lack of treatment efficacy with the current ‘one-size-fits-all’ treatment approach. Identifying pain phenotypes in knee osteoarthritis is promising to develop individualised treatments; however, the validity and reliability of osteoarthritis pain phenotypes have not been tested in clinical practice. Given the heterogeneity of osteoarthritis pain, peripheral, psychological and neurological factors are considered key phenotypic dimensions in the identification of pain phenotypes. This new concept allows for patients’ stratification for clinical trials, thus providing potential for individualised interventions in patients with osteoarthritis pain.

Dr Feng Pan is a Research Fellow at the Menzies Institute for Medical Research, supported by the NHMRC Early Career Fellowship. His research interests span both epidemiology and clinical interventions to osteoarthritis-related pain. Much of his work has been on identifying biomechanical risk factors for chronic pain and osteoarthritis, identifying pain and osteoarthritis phenotypes and testing new therapeutic treatments.

Dr Pan completed a Masters of Medical Oncology in 2012, having completed a Bachelor of Medicine in 2009. His PhD was conferred in May 2017. His thesis work assessed the genetic and systemic factors in knee osteoarthritis and pain. Prior to his PhD, Dr Pan worked as an oncologist at the Anhui Provincial Hospital affiliated with University of Science and Technology of China where he was involved in running multiple clinical trials and assessing genetic contribution to solid tumors through systematic literature review and meta-analysis.

Doctoral Thesis Winner: Jack Mulder

Title: From Rocky Cape to the Rocky Mountains: The geological journey of Tasmania’s oldest rocks

The iconic rugged landscapes of western Tasmania are underlain by an ancient package of rocks that record the very earliest history of Tasmania. The ancient Tasmanian rocks represent a package of sediments that were deposited between 1.4 and 1.0 billion years ago. These sediments are made up of tiny fragments of even older rocks that were eroded from source regions and transported down rivers before accumulating as layers of sand and mud in a shallow sea. The source of these sediments can be traced and used to explore where Tasmania may have been located 1.4—1.0 billion years ago by studying tiny grains of the mineral zircon within the rocks. Zircons contain an ‘internal clock’ produced by the radioactive decay of uranium, which allows these tiny time capsules to be dated.

Dating several thousand individual grains of zircon from the ancient Tasmanian sediments reveals that they were sourced from older rocks that formed 1.45 and 1.70 billion years ago. Surprisingly, these zircon ages are a poor match for the age of potential source rocks in nearby parts of in Australia. This mismatch in zircon ages indicates that when the Tasmanian sediments were deposited, Tasmania did not form part of Australia. Instead, the zircon ages in the Tasmanian rocks closely match the age of 1.45 and 1.70 billion year old rocks that currently underlie much of the southwest United States. Based on the close match of zircon ages, the ancient Tasmanian sediments were likely sourced from the older rocks in the southwest United States, which supports a connection between these regions 1.4—1.0 billion years ago. A connection between Tasmania and North America at this time is also supported by the recognition that rocks a package of exposed in the Rocky Mountains of Montana and Idaho and in Grand Canyon, Arizona are the same age, rock type, and contain the same zircon age signatures as the 1.4—1.0 billion year old rocks in Tasmania. These 1.4—1.0 billion year old North American rocks may represent parts of the same ancient sedimentary basin in which Tasmania’s oldest rocks formed. This ancient basin was fragmented as Tasmania drifted away from North America and subsequently collided with Australia to achieve its present-day position.

Dr Jacob (Jack) Mulder, Research Fellow, Monash University

Jack is a geologist who studies ancient rocks to understand how Earth’s continents are built and how they have evolved through deep time. Jack grew up in southern Tasmania and studied at the University of Tasmania, completing his undergraduate in 2013 and a PhD in 2017. His PhD research integrated field work in western Tasmania and the western United States with state-of-the-art analytical techniques, and plate tectonic modelling to study the earliest geological history of Tasmania. He is currently a post-doctoral research fellow at Monash University where his research focuses on using the sedimentary record to track secular changes in the composition of the continental crust and plate tectonic processes.

 

 

 

The Royal Society of Tasmania 

Presents

Dr Elizabeth Robinson

On educating young people in Tasmania today

A Public Lecture  – 2  April 2019

  8.00pm in the Royal Society Room,

Customs House Building, entrance from Dunn Place.

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Raised and educated in Tasmania, Dr Elizabeth Robinson grew up on the North West Coast, with parents whose lives were carved by the depression and war – timbercutting at the head of the Hellyer Gorge, and placing signal lines across the Owen Stanley Range of Papua New Guinea. These lived-experiences of inter-generational belonging inform the descriptive (mythopoetic) nature of her academic writing, inviting us to explore the historicity of our own lived-worlds and the disruptions that shape our understandings. She is currently principal of Kingston High School.

It seems that society sees schools as highly transactional places, a ledger of sorts, accounting for academic outcomes and failures, selecting consequences in which good and bad behaviours are respectively rewarded and punished. What does this traditional view of education mean in a contemporary context of the neuroscience of ‘growth mindset’, ‘positive psychology’ and ‘trauma informed practice’? Perhaps philosophy, Hermeneutic Phenomenology, might enable us to capture moments of poignancy and reinterpret such moments to come to understand how young people, particularly those who express themselves in a language of distress, given compassionate attentiveness, might find their voices again and return to learning.

Dr Robinson holds a PhD through Curtin University, with her thesis: Pedagogy of being present: An inquiry into the unconditional communion of listening. Her thesis received a chancellor’s commendation due to its contribution to a future of educational change in relation to the effects of trauma on learning and bringing individual students “back into voice and life”. Dr Robinson’s thesis explores the ways in which listening to young people opens up spaces for healing relationships that are both self-educative and mutually transformative.

As a teacher in Tasmanian high schools, Dr Robinson began to define her own teaching as a pedagogy of listening to young people. In the context of her current role as a principal, Dr Robinson notices the tensions between the social/emotional needs of young people and the capacity of schools to meet these needs, navigating the complexities of inter-agency relationships and community demands for student inclusion as well as exclusion. How might a philosophical approach to understanding the needs of young people help inform educational policy in Tasmania and the wider national discourse around needs-based funding?

 

Inclusive growth – creating new pathways out of deep poverty 

by Scott Rankin, Tasmanian Australian of the Year for 2018

 

 

Date: 5 March 2019

Place: Central Gallery, TMAG, Dunn Place, Hobart

Time: 8.00 pm

 

The five Domains of Change which must be tackled together if we are to create sustained positive change in our communities, rather than spinning wheels, more welfare ghettos, and the dulling of potential amongst those in our communities who experience the effects of diminished opportunity. The For Profit sector and the Not For Profit sector must work together, bringing together shared values and practices.

 

Scott will call on examples of the work of Big hART a Cultural Justice organisation which began in Burnie 25 years ago and continues to expand nationally and internationally. Scott will also speak to themes in his recent Platform Paper “Cultural Justice and the Right to Thrive” (Currency Press) and from an unusual childhood growing up on a Chinese Junk. 

 

 

Scott Rankin is a nationally renowned public speaker, cultural commentator and founder of Big hART – Australia’s leading arts for social change organisation (www.bighart.org). His theatre, documentary and television projects have won multiple awards. He was the 2018 Tasmanian Australian of the Year and Big hART won both the 2017 Telstra Business Awards Tasmanian Small Business and Charity of the Year.

2019 Northern Lecture Series

 

The Royal Society of Tasmania

INVITES YOU TO

 

Walking Backwards into the Future

 – New Directions at QVMAG

 

A PUBLIC LECTURE BY

MRS TRACY PUKLOWSKI

 

       where:Meeting Room, QVMAG at Inveresk

        when: 1.30 pm, Sunday 24^thFebruary 2019

admission:  free for members of the Royal Society of Tasmania*

$6   general admission

$4    for students, QVMAG Friends, and members of Launceston Historical Society

*membership forms available at the door

 

Ka Mua, Ka Muriis a Māori proverb referring to “walking backwards into the future”. The past and future are intertwined, and nowhere is this more salient than in the work of museums.

Tracy Puklowski took up the position of City of Launceston Director of Creative Arts and Cultural Services in October 2018.  She will take this notionas the basis for discussion on how QVMAG’s history forms a platform for her vision for its future.

Tracy has held a wide range of senior roles in the cultural heritage sector, including at the National Museum of New Zealand and the National Library of New Zealand. She has a long-standing interest in Australian art and museums,has an MA in Art History, a post-graduate Diploma in Museum Studies, and is a graduate of the prestigious Getty Museum Leadership Institute.

 

 

Generously supported by

Dinosaur “bling” at Lightning Ridge and dinosaur tracks in “Australia’s Jurassic Park” are just some of the fascinating subjects covered by internationally renowned speakers at our upcoming Dinosaur Symposium (23-24 March) hosted by the University of Tasmania.

Here is a sneak preview of the program – 

 

 

Winton – home of the Big Dinosaur

 

Dr Stephen Poropat, from Swinburne University, will talk about the dinosaurs of the Winton Formation in Queensland. One recent discovery in Winton proved to be the most complete sauropod ever found in Australia.

Sauropods include among their ranks the largest terrestrial animals that ever lived: some were more than 30 metres long, others more than 13 metres tall, and still others tipped the scales at more than 50 tonnes.

 

 

 

 

The eventful Precambrian Era

Dr Indrani Mukherjee, from Earth Sciences at the University of Tasmania, will talk about life on very early Earth, the Precambrian Era. This period, spanning from 4500 million years ago to 540 million years ago, is known to record some of the most significant transitions and breakthroughs in the evolution of life. What shaped the course of evolution has always fascinated us. Whether it was the concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere and ocean, nutrients in the ocean, or supercontinent cycles, or a combination of all these factors, the question is being thoroughly investigated.

This talk focuses on some of the key biological events in the Precambrian, particularly between (3500 to 800 million years ago) and provides a geological explanation for the cause of these events. The talk ties the geochemical conditions of the ocean and the atmosphere with evolution and diversification of complex microscopic life that facilitated macroscopic life on Earth, including dinosaurs!

 

 

 

Dampier Peninsula: “Australia’s Jurassic Park”

Dr Steve Salisbury, from The Queensland University Dinosaur Laboratory, will talk about the discovery of spectacular dinosaur tracks in the Kimberley region of north Western Australia. An unprecedented 21 different types of dinosaur tracks have been identified on a 25-kilometre stretch of the Dampier Peninsula coastline dubbed ‘Australia’s Jurassic Park’.

According to Dr Salisbury, “The dinosaur track fauna of the Broome Sandstone is extremely significant, forming the primary record of non-avian dinosaurs in the western half the continent and providing our only glimpse of Australia’s dinosaur fauna during the first half of the Early Cretaceous Period”.

Fiery dinosaur fossil at Lightning Ridge

Dr Phill Bell, from University of New England, will talk about the amazing opalized dinosaur bones unearthed at Lightning Ridge in NSW, including the recent discovery of the jaw bone of a small ornithopod. The dinosaur has been named Weewarrasaurus pobeni – a name that recognises the fossil’s unearthing in the Wee Warra opal field, and honours Mike Poben, an Adelaide-based opal buyer who donated the specimen for research.

Like all fossils from the Lightning Ridge opal mines, the lower jaw—the only piece of the animal recovered—is preserved in opal. Precious opal gives off a rainbow of colours, in this case shimmering green and blue. Lightning Ridge is the only place in the world where dinosaur bones are commonly replaced by precious opal.

 

 

Evolution: Life on Earth

 

Professor John Long, from Flinders University, will give us the history of evolution of life on Earth, from single celled bacteria to fishes, then dinosaurs, birds and finally humans. He is an internationally acclaimed exceptional speaker and has led fossil digs all over the Earth. He is currently in Antarctica on a dig, but will be back in time for our symposium.

 

PaleoArt