Join us for the launch of this brilliantly entertaining history of Australia’s weird and wonderful natural scientists: Of Marsupials and Men by Alastair Paton.

Of Marsupials and Men recounts the fascinating and often hilarious history of the men and women who dedicated their lives to understanding Australia’s native animals. To the first European colonists, Australian wildlife was bewildering. Marsupials and gum trees seemed strange and hostile; rabbits, sheep and oak trees were familiar and safe. A bustling animal trade soon developed in both directions- foxes, starlings and other reminders of ‘home’ were unleashed on the Australian landscape, while countless Australian animals found themselves in Europe as stuffed specimens or living curiosities in zoos and private collections.

This event is free to attend but bookings are essential.

How did time begin? What conditions led to humans evolving on Earth? Will we survive the Anthropocene? And is it really true that we’re all made from stars? 

The Shortest History of the World follows the continuum of historical change in the cosmos – from the Big Bang, through the evolution of life, to human history. Combining knowledge from chemistry, biology and physics with insights from the social sciences and humanities, The Shortest History of the World takes a bird’s eye view of 13.8 billion years. 

Author David Baker uses Big History to allow us to see beyond the chaos of human affairs to the overall trajectory and consider the dramatic and sudden changes we’re making to our planet and its biosphere and how history hints at what might come next. 

How did time begin? What conditions led to humans evolving on Earth? Will we survive the Anthropocene?

"The Shortest History of the World" follows the continuum of historical change in the cosmos, from the Big Bang, through the evolution of life, to human history.

David Baker is a history and science writer for SimonWhistler.com, he holds the world's first PhD in Big History.

Sam Vincent is a twenty-something writer in the inner suburbs, scrabbling to make ends meet, when he gets a call from his mother: his father has stuck his hand in a woodchipper, but ‘not to worry – it wasn’t like that scene in Fargo or anything’. When Sam returns to the family farm to help out, his life takes a new and unexpected direction.

Whether castrating a calf or buying a bull – or knocking in a hundred fence posts by hand when his dad hides the post-driver – Sam’s farming apprenticeship is an education in grit and shit. But there are victories, too: nurturing a fig orchard to bloom; learning to read the land; joining forces with Indigenous elders to protect a special site. Slowly, Sam finds himself thinking differently about the farm, about his father and about his relationship with both.

By turns affecting, hilarious and utterly surprising, this memoir melds humour and fierce honesty in an unsentimental love letter. It’s about belonging, humility and regeneration – of land, family and culture. What passes from father to son on this unruly patch of earth is more than a livelihood; it's a legacy.

Join Sam and former Wallaby David Pocock for the launch of My Father and Other Animals.

Climate change is a planetary emergency. We have to do something now – but what?

Australian visionary Saul Griffith has a plan. In The Big Switch, Griffith lays out a detailed blueprint – optimistic but feasible – for fighting climate change while creating millions of new jobs and a healthier environment.

Griffith explains exactly what it would take to transform our infrastructure, update our grid and adapt our households. The same natural advantages – incredible resources on an enormous continent – that helped Australia prosper in the 20th century are the ingredients for becoming the most prosperous, entirely renewable, economy in the world.

Dr Saul Griffith has founded and co-founded numerous technology companies including one acquired by Google and another acquired by Autodesk. He’s been a project lead on federally-funded research projects for agencies including NASA, DARPA, ARPA-e, National Science Foundation and United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM).

This event is part of the 2022 Critical Thinking and Ethics program at Newington College. 

We are delighted to have Sam Vincent talking about his hilarious memoir of sorts: My Father and Other Animals.

This is a moving story about a millennial leaving his inner-city life to take over the family farm. By turns affecting, hilarious and utterly surprising, this memoir melds humour and fierce honesty in an unsentimental love letter. It’s about belonging, humility and regeneration – of land, family and culture. What passes from father to son on this unruly patch of earth is more than a livelihood; it is a legacy.

This event is free to attend but bookings are essential.