In the History Council of Victoria’s third Book+Author event for the year, we will be joined by Alexandra Roginski, Melbourne-based historian, writer and heritage worker and Visiting Fellow of Deakin University, who will be discussing her fascinating new book in conversation with convenor Dr Yves Rees. Alexandra completed her PhD at the ANU in 2018 and her work focuses on ideas and practices of the body, past and present. Science and Power in the Nineteenth-Century Tasman World is Alexandra’s second book, and explores the contentious science of phrenology, which once promised insight into character and intellect through external ‘reading’ of the head. In the transforming settler-colonial landscapes of nineteenth-century Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, popular phrenologists – figures who often hailed from the margins – performed their science of touch and cranial jargon everywhere from mechanics’ institutions to public houses. In this compelling work, Alexandra Roginski recounts a history of this everyday practice, exploring how it featured in the fates of people living in, and moving through, the Tasman World.

Time/date: Thursday 27 June, 6pm-7pm

Where: The Wheeler Centre, State Library of Victoria, Melbourne CBD