AustLit

'Exactly a quarter of a century ago, on 15 May 1961, 55 scholars assembled in University House to discuss the future of Aboriginal Studies. Stimulated by the prospects, Bill Stanner (Sheils 1963.XIV) later remarked that the participants "had a sense of making history". As convenor of the meeting, Stanner (Sheils 1963:XII) enunciated the following criteria for attendance. "Everyone should be invited who had authoritative knowledge of any relevant field of research; all appropriate academic disciplines should be represented; the sole concern should be with problems of fundamental study; and the approach should be truly national." By 1964, the Act which created the Institute was operating and I was elected to its first Council. As I have served on Council for all but two years since that time, I decided to reflect upon the Institute, its achievements and its critics over its first quarter century, as the first major theme in this lecture. Then follows some consideration of archaeology, its achievements and some of its problems.'  (Publication abstract)