Led by: Doug Amarfio and Michael Griffith. 

Judith Wright lived her last decades in the Queanbeyan–Palerang landscape  (which includes Bungendore, Braidwood and Lake George). She was passionately committed to working on a Treaty for Aboriginals (with her partner Nugget Coombs) and she was deeply immersed in the native flora and fauna. Her deep friendship with Aboriginal poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal gave focus to her twin passions. 

This course will focus on the prose texts (Cry for the Dead and We Call for a Treaty) and poetry that define her relationship to country. The course will begin with an introduction to the landscape around Silver Wattle and its indigenous contexts and will then move into an exploration of the texts. The course will include a visit to Braidwood, the surrounding countryside and the house which Judith Wright built and where she wrote her major last works in the last decades of her life. We will also have an excursion to the National Gallery to explore developments in Aboriginal art that have a direct bearing on Judith Wright’s vision.