University of Melbourne Events Calendar

**Cancelled due to illness**

We have regrettably cancelled this lecture. At this stage, we are unsure whether the event will be rescheduled, but will provide an update as soon as possible.

Hosted as part of the Brotherton Fellowship program, Assistant Professor Joanne M Chung (University of Toronto Mississauga) will share her research journey, exploring how culture, race and ethnicity intersect with young people’s emotional lives and personality development.

Psychologists are deeply interested in how people change during key stages of development, such as young adulthood, but much remains to be understood about the experiences of people from minoritised groups in various contexts.

Throughout her talk, Assistant Professor Joanne Chung will discuss the benefits and challenges of integrating community-engaged research practices, particularly how she balances her existing research program with a shift toward more socially just, action-oriented research. She will also highlight how community-engaged approaches have the potential to make research not only more meaningful and impactful for participants, but also to create real change within the broader field of psychology.

Laying Down the Lore: a survey of First Nations speculative, visionary and imaginative fiction with Dr Mykaela Saunders.

Hear from a leading voice in Indigenous storytelling at our annual Hugh D.T. Williamson Lecture.

Dr Mykaela Saunders, a Koori/Goori and Lebanese writer, researcher, and educator, will explore her groundbreaking research on First Nations speculative fiction. She’ll delve into seven key subgenres—fantasy, horror, climate fiction, science fiction, ghost stories & the gothic, futurism, and weird & slipstream fiction—and share how these genres allow First Nations writers and readers to reimagine and reflect on past, present, and future issues in inventive and unfamiliar ways.

Investigating how First Nations writers are employing speculative fiction to tell their stories, Dr Mykaela Saunders reads these texts through a cultural genre lens, not a Western one, though, of course there is some overlap. She takes a long view of First Nations storytelling traditions, rejecting the idea that speculative, visionary or imaginative fiction is new or novel.

Hosted by Matt Coffey, Deadly Science Pathways Program Manager at Walter & Eliza Hall Institute, Melbourne.

Please note Auslan interpretation is available on request, for more information see our Access page.

This event is proudly supported by The Hugh D.T. Williamson Foundation.