2022 Stephen Murray-Smith Memorial Lecture

Join Overland’s editors Evelyn Araluen and Jonathan Dunk as they deliver the 2022 Stephen Murray-Smith Memorial Lecture, ‘A History in Pages’.

Stephen Murray-Smith founded Australian magazine, Overland in 1954 in the spirit of Joseph Furphy’s adage from Such is life, ‘Temper democratic, bias offensively Australian’. Far from endorsing a homogenous nationalist character, the journal has held a longstanding interest in the relationship between literature and political activity in Australia, which has charted diverse forms, styles, and interests. 

In this lecture, Evelyn and Jonathan will situate key moments of radical Australian literary and political history through the pages of one of the country’s oldest ongoing publications. 

Please note: Readings SLV bookstore will have relevant publications available to purchase inside the Conversation Quarter. 

About Evelyn

Evelyn Araluen is a poet, researcher and co-editor of Overland Literary Journal. Her widely published criticism, fiction and poetry has been awarded the Nakata Brophy Prize for Young Indigenous Writers, the Judith Wright Poetry Prize, a Wheeler Centre Next Chapter Fellowship, and a Neilma Sidney Literary Travel Fund grant. Born and raised on Dharug country, she is a descendant of the Bundjalung Nation. Evelyn’s debut collection Dropbear won the 2022 Stella Prize. 

About Jonathan

Jonathan Dunk is a lecturer in Writing and Literature at Deakin University and co-editor of Overland Literary Journal. His scholarly writing has appeared in Textual Practice, the Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, Australian Literary Studies, and the Sydney Review of Books, among others. His poetry, essays, and short fiction are widely published. He is the recipient of the AD Hope prize, the Australia council’s Dal Stivens award for literary merit, and a Sidney Neilma Literary Travel Fund grant.