Teaching Australian history will be up for debate when the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Education hosts visiting scholar Professor Kate Darian-Smith later this month.

The University of Melbourne History Professor will participate in a lunch-time colloquium on the 'Teaching Australian History Debate' on Friday October 27 (1pm-2pm at CQU Rockhampton, building 33/G.22), with involvement by local educators and selected University staff.

The one-hour debate will also be videolinked to campuses at Bundaberg, Gladstone, Mackay, Emerald and Noosa.

Professor Darian-Smith will also deliver a lunch-time address on Thursday October 26 (1pm-2pm at CQU Rockhampton building 33/G.14), on ‘Current Issues in Australian Studies’.

She will be involved in an informal discussion with Rockhampton postgraduate students on Thursday evening.

Professor Darian-Smith is currently President of the International Australian Studies Association (www.inasa-home.net), Associate Dean (International) for the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne and teaches in the Department of History.

She has interests in Australian cultural and social history, particularly in the 20th century; war and Australian society, with reference to gender; the relationship between memory and history; museum studies and forms of exhibiting histories and cultures; and colonial discourse and postcolonial studies.

Her current regional research project involves a social and cultural history of agricultural shows in Australia, funded by the Australian Research Council.

Her publications include: 'On the Home Front: Melbourne in wartime 1939-1945' (Oxford University Press, 1990), and the edited collections: 'Memory and History in Twentieth-Century Australia' (Oxford University Press, 1994, 1997); 'Challenging Histories: Reflections on Australian History' (special issue of 'Australian Historical Studies', 2002); and 'Teaching Australian Studies: Thinking Across Cultures' (Queensland University Press, 2004).