The Boyer Lectures are a series of talks by prominent Australians, presenting ideas on major social, scientific or cultural issues, and broadcast on
ABC Radio National
Radio National, known on-air as RN, is an Australia-wide public service broadcasting radio network run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). From 1947 until 1985, the network was known as ABC Radio 2.
History
1937: Predecessors a ...
.
The Boyer Lectures began in 1959 as the
ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission, now the Australian Broadcasting Corporation) Lectures. They were modelled on the BBC's
Reith Lectures
The Reith Lectures is a series of annual BBC radio lectures given by leading figures of the day. They are commissioned by the BBC and broadcast on Radio 4 and the World Service. The lectures were inaugurated in 1948 to mark the historic cont ...
, and renamed in 1961 after
Richard Boyer (later Sir Richard), the ABC board chairman who had first suggested the lectures. The series is broadcast every year in between September and December on
ABC Radio National
Radio National, known on-air as RN, is an Australia-wide public service broadcasting radio network run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). From 1947 until 1985, the network was known as ABC Radio 2.
History
1937: Predecessors a ...
.
The lectures are delivered by prominent Australians selected by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Board, intended to stimulate thought, discussion and debate in Australia on a wide range of subjects, examining key issues and values.
Lectures
1950s
*1959 – Dr
David Forbes Martyn – "Society in the Space Age"
1960s
*1960 – Prof
Julius Stone – "Law and Policy in the Quest for Survival"
*1961 – Prof
W. D. Borrie – "The Crowding World"
*1962 – Prof
W. G. K. Duncan – "In Defence of the Common Man"
*1963 – Prof
J. D. B. Miller
John Donald Bruce Miller (1922–2011), known as Bruce Miller, was an Australian academic.
Education
Miller was educated first at Bondi Public School and then at Sydney Boys High School, completing his education part time at the University of ...
– "Australian and Foreign Policy"
*1964 –
George Ivan Smith – "Along the Edge of Peace"
*1965 – Prof Sir
John Eccles – "The Brain and the Person"
*1966 – Sir
Macfarlane Burnet – "Biology and the Appreciation of Life"
*1967 –
Robin Boyd – "Artificial Australia"
*1968 – Prof
W. E. H. Stanner
William Edward Hanley Stanner Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George, CMG (24 November 19058 October 1981), often cited as W.E.H. Stanner, was an Australian anthropology, anthropologist who worked extensively with Indigenous Australi ...
"After the Dreaming"
*1969 – Sir
Zelman Cowen
Sir Zelman Cowen, (7 October 1919 – 8 December 2011) was an Australian legal scholar and university administrator who served as the 19th Governor-General of Australia, in office from 1977 to 1982.
Cowen was born in Melbourne, and attended ...
"The Private Man"
1970s
*1970 – Dr
H. C. Coombs
Herbert Cole "Nugget" Coombs (24 February 1906 – 29 October 1997) was an Australian economist and public servant. He is best known for having been the first Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, in which capacity he served from 1960 to 19 ...
– "Role of Institutions in Our Lives"
*1971 – Prof
Basil Hetzel – "Life and Health in Australia"
*1972 – Prof
Dexter Dunphy – "The Challenge of Change"
*1973 – Prof Sir
Keith Hancock – "Today, Yesterday and Tomorrow"
*1974 –
Hugh Stretton – "Housing & Government"
*1975 – Dame
Roma Mitchell – "The Web of Criminal Law"
*1976 –
Manning Clark
Charles Manning Hope Clark, (3 March 1915 – 23 May 1991) was an Australian historian and the author of the best-known general history of Australia, his six-volume ''A History of Australia'', published between 1962 and 1987. He has been descr ...
– "A Discovery of Australia"
*1977 –
Douglas Stewart – "Writers of ''
The Bulletin''"
*1978 – Sir
Gustav Nossal – "Nature's Defence"
*1979 –
Bob Hawke
Robert James Lee Hawke (9 December 1929 – 16 May 2019) was an Australian politician and union organiser who served as the 23rd prime minister of Australia from 1983 to 1991, holding office as the leader of the Australian Labor Party (A ...
– "The Resolution of Conflict"
1980s
*1980 –
Bernard Smith – "The Spectre of
Truganini
Truganini (also known as Lallah Rookh; c. 1812 – 8 May 1876) was an Aboriginal Tasmanian woman. She was one of the last native speakers of the Tasmanian languages and one of the last individuals solely of Aboriginal Tasmanian descent.
Trug ...
"
*1981 – Prof
John Passmore – "The Limits of Government"
*1982 – Prof Sir
Bruce Williams – "Living with Technology"
*1983 – Justice
Michael Kirby – "The Judges"
*1984 –
Shirley Hazzard
Shirley Hazzard (30 January 1931 – 12 December 2016) was an Australian-American novelist, short story writer, and essayist. She was born in Australia and also held U.S. citizenship.
Hazzard's 1970 novel '' The Bay of Noon'' was shortlisted ...
– "Coming of Age in Australia"
*1985 –
Helen Hughes – "Australia in a Developing World"
*1986 – Prof
Eric Willmot
Eric Paul Willmot , (31 January 1936 – 20 April 2019) was an Australian Aboriginal scholar, educator and engineer.
Education
Willmot was educated first at various Queensland schools and then obtained his BSc and DipED at the University of Ne ...
– "Australia The Last Experiment"
*1987 –
Davis McCaughey – "Piecing Together a Shared Vision" (multicultural Australia)
*1988 – "Postscripts: eight previous Boyer lecturers revisit their lectures"
*1989 –
Max Charlesworth
Maxwell John Charlesworth Order of Australia, AO Australian Academy of the Humanities, FAHA (30 December 1925 – 2 June 2014) was an Australian philosopher and public intellectual. He taught and wrote on a wide range of areas including the philo ...
– "Life, Death, Genes and Ethics: Biotechnology and Bioethics"
1990s
*1990 –
Tom Fitzgerald – "Between Life and Economics"
*1991 –
Fay Gale and
Ian Lowe – "Changing Australia (changes through technology)"
*1992 –
Geoffrey Bolton
Geoffrey Curgenven Bolton (5 November 1931 – 3 September 2015) was an Australian historian, academic and writer.
Life
He attended Wesley College, Perth from 1943 to 1947. He published works on Australian history, authoring 13 books, his fina ...
– "A View From the Edge: An Australian Stocktaking (history)"
*1993 – Presented by six Indigenous Australians in the
International Year of the World's Indigenous People (IYWIP):
Getano Lui, Dr
Ian Anderson
Ian Scott Anderson (born 10 August 1947) is a British musician, singer and songwriter best known for his work as the lead vocalist, flautist, acoustic guitarist and leader of the British rock band Jethro Tull. He is a multi-instrumentalist ...
,
Jeannie Bell
Jeannie Bell is an Australian linguist. She is an Indigenous Research Collaborations Fellow in Indigenous Languages and Linguistics at Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education. She has made substantial contributions to the development ...
,
Mandawuy Yunupingu,
Dot West and
Noel Pearson
Noel or Noël may refer to:
Christmas
* , French for Christmas
* Noel is another name for a Christmas carol
Places
* Noel, Missouri, United States, a city
* Noel, Nova Scotia, Canada, a community
* 1563 Noël, an asteroid
* Mount Noel, Brit ...
– "Voices of the Land"
*1994 –
Kerry Stokes
Kerry Matthew Stokes (born John Patrick Alford on 13 September 1940) is an Australian businessman. He holds business interests in a diverse range of industries including electronic and print media, property, mining, and construction equipment. ...
– "Advance Australia Where?"
*1995 –
Eva Cox – "A Truly Civil Society"
*1996 – Prof
Pierre Ryckmans – "Aspects of Culture"
*1997 – Prof
Martin Krygier – "Between Fear and Hope: Hybrid Thoughts on Public Views"
*1998 –
David Malouf
David George Joseph Malouf AO (; born 20 March 1934) is an Australian poet, novelist, short story writer, playwright and librettist. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2008, Malouf has lectured at both the University of Quee ...
– "A Spirit of Play: The Making of Australian Consciousness"
*1999 – Dr
Inga Clendinnen
Inga Clendinnen, (; 17 August 1934 – 8 September 2016) was an Australian author, historian, anthropologist, and academic. Her work focused on social history, and the history of cultural encounters. She was an authority on Aztec civilisation an ...
– "True Stories"
2000s
*2000 – Chief Justice
Murray Gleeson – "The Rule of Law and the Constitution"
*2001 – Prof
Geoffrey Blainey
Geoffrey Norman Blainey (born 11 March 1930) is an Australian historian, academic, best selling author and commentator. He is noted for having written authoritative texts on the economic and social history of Australia, including '' The Tyranny ...
– "This Land is all Horizons: Australian Fears and Visions"
*2002 –
Ian Castles
Ian Castles (20 February 1935 – 2 August 2010) was Secretary of the Australian Government Department of Finance (1979–86), the Australian Statistician (1986–94), and a Visiting Fellow at the Asia Pacific School of Economics and Government ...
(Not delivered due to bereavement)
*2003 –
Owen Harries – "Benign or Imperial? Reflections on American Hegemony"
*2004 –
Peter Conrad – "Tales of Two Hemispheres"
*2005 – Archbishop
Peter Jensen – "The Future of Jesus"
*2006 –
Ian Macfarlane – "The Search For Stability"
*2007 –
Graeme Clark – "Restoring The Senses"
*2008 –
Rupert Murdoch
Keith Rupert Murdoch ( ; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-born American business magnate. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including ...
– "A Golden Age of Freedom"
*2009 – General
Peter Cosgrove
General (Australia), General Sir Peter John Cosgrove, (born 28 July 1947) is a retired senior Australian Army officer who served as the 26th governor-general of Australia, in office from 2014 to 2019.
A graduate of the Royal Military College, ...
– "A Very Australian Conversation"
2010s
*2010 – Professor
Glyn Davis – "The Republic of Learning: higher education transforms Australia"
*2011 –
Geraldine Brooks – "The Idea of Home"
*2012 – Professor
Marcia Langton
Marcia Lynne Langton (born 1951) is an Australian academic. she is the Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne. Regarded as one of Australia's top intellectuals, L ...
– "The Quiet Revolution: Indigenous People and the Resources Boom"
*2013 – Governor-General
Quentin Bryce
Dame Quentin Alice Louise Bryce, (née Strachan; born 23 December 1942) is an Australian academic who served as the 25th governor-general of Australia from 2008 to 2014. She is the first woman to have held the position, and was previously the ...
– "Back to Grassroots"
*2014 – Professor
Suzanne Cory – "The promise of science: a vision of hope"
*2015 – Dr
Michael Fullilove
Michael Fullilove , a public and international policy academic, is the Executive Director of the Lowy Institute for International Policy, an international policy think tank located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Fullilove is the author ...
– "A larger Australia"
*2016 – Professor Sir
Michael Marmot
Sir Michael Gideon Marmot (born 26 February 1945) is Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London. He is currently the Director of The UCL Institute of Health Equity. Marmot has led research groups on health inequa ...
– "Fair Australia: Social Justice and the Health Gap"
*2017 – Professor
Genevieve Bell
Genevieve Bell is an Australian cultural anthropologist best known for her work at the intersection of cultural practice research and technological development (including as a pioneer in the field of futurist research), and for being an industry ...
– "Fast, Smart and Connected: What is it to be Human, and Australian, in a Digital World?"
*2018 – Professor
John Rasko – "Life Re-engineered"
*2019 – Filmmaker
Rachel Perkins – "The End of Silence"
2020s
*2020 –
Philanthropist
Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives, for the public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private good, focusing on material ...
and business leader Dr
Andrew Forrest
John Andrew Henry Forrest (born 18 November 1961), nicknamed Twiggy, is an Australian businessman. He is best known as the former CEO (and current non-executive chairman) of Fortescue Metals Group (FMG), and has other interests in the mining i ...
– "Rebooting Australia: How ethical entrepreneurs can help shape a better future"
*2021 – Actor
John Bell – "
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
: Soul of the Age"
*2022 –
Noel Pearson
Noel or Noël may refer to:
Christmas
* , French for Christmas
* Noel is another name for a Christmas carol
Places
* Noel, Missouri, United States, a city
* Noel, Nova Scotia, Canada, a community
* 1563 Noël, an asteroid
* Mount Noel, Brit ...
– "Who we were and who we can be"
See also
*
History of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation had its origins in a licensing scheme for individual radio stations administered by the Postmaster-General's Department established in 1923 into a content provider in radio, television and new media. From ...
References
Further reading
*
*
External links
*
*Archive
transcripts
{{Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Australian culture
Lecture series
1959 establishments in Australia
Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio programmes
Australian Broadcasting Corporation original programming