The Henley & Grange Historical Society is delighted to announce that Dr Kiera Lindsey, South Australia’s History Advocate with the History Trust of SA, will be guest speaker at the society’s July general meeting. The topic of Kiera’s presentation will be ‘Future-proofing South Australia’s Past: Generating renewal for our Hardworking History Community’.
Kiera is an award-winning historian. For over twenty years she has been enthusiastically exploring historical ideas and deepening our interest in and understandings of the past, via books and articles, radio and podcasts, film and television, teaching and talking.
In addition to being the inaugural winner of the Greg Dening Memorial Prize in 2009, Kiera has an award for teaching Australian History at the University of South Australia in 2013, and an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Research Award (DECRA) 2018 for a project entitled ‘Speculative biography, historical craft and the case of Adelaide Ironside’.
Kiera regularly appears on radio and television, produces podcasts and offers advice to the museum and heritage sectors. She has a published monograph, an edited collection as well as numerous single- and co-publications concerned with her research passions, which range from: the nineteenth-century world; biography; creative and public history. Kiera has a particular passion for working at the generative intersections between historical research and historical imagination; using speculation to bring to life all who might otherwise remain under-represented in the historical record.
Kiera loves conversation and curiosity – and a good laugh. She believes genuine respect and fun is at the heart of genuine learning. In addition to teaching within the university sector for more than twenty years, Kiera has enjoyed participating in numerous public talks, chairing and convening conferences, facilitating workshops and hosting – both in person and on-line – events on all sorts of historically speaking topics and for national and international audiences as diverse as: the Sydney Writers Festival; Festival of Big Ideas; University of the Third Age and primary school students. Kiera is currently the Vice President of the History Council of New South Wales, a member of the Sydney Living Museum’s Curatorial and Public Engagement Committee – and the Working party for the Australian Dictionary of Biography. She also serves on the editorial board for the journal of Global Nineteenth-Century Studies.