Federation University Annual Reconciliation Lecture - With Stan Grant

The National Centre for Reconciliation, Truth, and Justice warmly invites you to the Third Annual Federation University Reconciliation Lecture, presented by Stan Grant.

Doors open from 5:30 PM, Lecture from 6:00 PM.

Ngarinyin mystic and knowledge holder, David Mowaljarlai, wrote that he had lost his past and future, trapped in an endless now that had stolen his soul. He spoke of the unbearable burden of time. In Federation University’s annual Reconciliation Lecture, Journalist, writer and theologian, Stan Grant, inspired by Mowaljarlai, explores the tyranny of time. The invention of time has revolutionised the world. It has upended science, radically altered politics, banished God, turned history into destiny and given rise to a new conception of the human.

What is it to live outside of time? Anthropologist, William Stanner, found that the First Peoples here had no conception of history. They were a people without memory. They lived with the transcendent, with the sacred. Time did not move forward but past, present and future converged in a constant state of being. Today we find ourselves carrying an unbearable burden of history, as Irish writer, James Joyce, wrote ‘a nightmare from which we are trying to awaken.” As David Mowaljarlai wrote: “a burden to hard to bear, with no past, no future.”

In his lecture Distinguished Professor Grant, will put Mowaljarlai in conversation with Saint Augustine, Albert Einstein, Georg Hegel, T.S Eliot, Simone Weil, Rose Ungunmerr Bauman, amongst a cast of thinkers, scientists, mystics and poets who have pondered the mystery of time. Professor Grant will draw on his Wiradjuri culture, his personal and family history and the recent Voice referendum to ask how we can recapture the sacred to break the spell of time and the hold of history.

Professor Grant goes beyond politics, truth telling or mere practical reconciliation to unite us all in a deeper sense of what it means to be human in this land. He seeks a higher justice, offers a profound hope to his people and a gift to all who seek to call this place home.

Stan Grant is a renowned journalist, author, moral philosopher, thinker, film maker and communicator.

A Wiradjuri, Kamilaroi and Dharrawal man, Stan has blazed a trail for First Nations journalists. In a career of firsts he was the first Indigenous Political Correspondent, the first Indigenous Foreign Correspondent, he was the first Indigenous person to present a prime time commercial television news and current affairs program. For a decade he was a senior correspondent for American news giant CNN based in Asia and the Middle East. He has reported from more than seventy countries and has lived in London, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Doha, Hong Kong, and Beijing.

His list of awards include three time winner of Australia’s highest journalism honour the Walkley Award, four time winner of the prestigious Asia TV awards, an Australian TV Logie Award, twice winner of the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts award (Australia’s academy awards), twice winner of the US Peabody Award, a recipient of the Columbia University DuPont award (the broadcast equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize), a GQ Magazine Man of the Year award, Hawaii International Film Festival Indigenous Trailblazer award.

He was writer and producer of the acclaimed feature documentary “The Australian Dream” which told the story of the racial vilification of renowned Indigenous footballer Adam Goodes. The film was screened around the world and at last count has claimed more than twenty international film awards.

He is a best-selling author of seven critically hailed and award-winning books covering world affairs, philosophy, theology, political science, Indigenous history.

Stan is fascinated by global affairs, politics, philosophy, theology and science particularly the baffling engrossing world of quantum physics. He is committed to questions of justice. He has been a passionate and courageous advocate for the rights of First Nations people at times incurring vicious racist attack and threats of violence against himself and his family. Stan demands we do better. Rather than seek to divide he seeks to bring peace and unite. He believes we should love and embrace even those who may hate us yet never lose sight of our moral duty to always stand with those afflicted. He believes the language of politics fails us and increases hostility and Stan is dedicated to finding new words and new ways for us to meet each other beyond our differences.

He is a husband to one of Australia’s leading journalists Tracey Holmes who has been a leading voice for the coverage of sports and society. He is father to four children. He lives in Sydney and spends significant time in Melbourne and his beloved Wiradjuri country of central and southwest New South Wales.

Location: The Edge, Fed Square, Swanston St & Flinders Street, Melbourne Victoria 3000

Date: Monday, 26 May 2025

Time: 6:00 PM - 7:15 PM

Should you have any questions regarding the event please contact: a.radoll@federation.edu.au