Authors in Conversation: Professor John Rickard
Professor John Rickard
Understanding the complexities of a marriage will be the topic of discussion at Friday's ‘Authors in Conversation’ at the Matheson Library.
Australian cultural and political historian Professor John Rickard, from the School of Media, Film and Journalism, will join the Manager of Monash University Publishing, Nathan Hollier, to discuss his latest book An Imperial Affair, Portrait of an Australian Marriage.
An Imperial Affair, part biography, part autobiography, part social history, takes the reader inside the marriage of the author’s parents during a time when private lives were properly private and divorce was a scandal.
It shines a light on the family values and sexual dynamics of the period, conditioned as they were by the imperial relationship and cultural dependence on ‘the mother country’, which inevitably helped shape hopes, fears and desires.
An Imperial Affair follows Professor Rickard’s sensitive and courageous quest to understand his parents and the world he came from and grew up in.
Professor Rickard is the author of H B Higgins: The Rebel as Judge (Age non-fiction Book of the Year 1984), Australia: A Cultural History (1988, 1996, new edition 2014) and A Family Romance: The Deakins at Home (1996).
Authors in Conversation: Professor John Rickard, will be held on Friday 24 October in the Matheson Library, Clayton campus from 3-4pm.
Further information on the events can be found on the Monash University Publishing website.