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A sensitive barometer and an inspiring political model of international cooperation, Antarctica is the subject of a free public lecture to be delivered by Antarctic traveler Professor Tom Griffiths at The University of Western Australia.

Joint winner of the $100,000 Prime Minister's History Prize and the Queensland and NSW Premier's Awards for Non Fiction for Slicing the Silence: Voyaging to Antarctica (UNSW Press and Harvard University Press, 2007), Professor Griffiths will argue that Antarctica is intellectually and environmentally central to the world.

Once at the very edge of global knowledge and concerns, the continent of ice is now a primary scientific focus, holding clues to the planet's future. Professor of History in the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University, Professor Griffiths will ask, "How long did it take for humans to discover that the Antarctic was very different to the Arctic, and that there was so much ice down there?"

Professor Griffiths is currently working in Steels Creek, a Victorian bushfire-decimated community where 10 people died. The collaborative community fire history project is recording the stories of those affected by the Black Saturday disaster. Professor Griffiths is donating the money he won for the Alfred Deakin Prize for an Essay Advancing Public Debate (which was about the Victorian bushfires) to the project.

Professor Griffiths is one of three international scholars to take up the prestigious Fred Alexander Fellowship offered by History at UWA this year. His lecture is part of UWA's Institute of Advanced Studies History Public Lecture Series, "Environment and History" hosted by the UWA History Discipline Group and the Institute of Advanced Studies.

WHAT: Free public lecture, "Discovering the Continent of Ice: Antarctica and World History", by Professor Tom Griffiths.

WHEN: Wednesday, September 23, from 6pm.

WHERE: Webb Lecture Theatre, Room G21, ground floor, Geography Building UWA (Carpark 20, Fairway Entrance1).

Professor Griffiths will be at UWA from Tuesday, September 15.

Media references

Professor Tom Griffiths                                   (+61 4) 38 468 613
Professor Jenny Gregory (Head of School of Humanities, UWA)   (+61 8) 6488 2134
Janine MacDonald (UWA Public Affairs)       (+61 8) 6488 5563 /(+61 4) 32 637 716