Beauty In Thorns By Kate Forsyth by National Library of Australia

Searching For Japan In Contemporary Italy by National Library of Australia

Narratives Of Identity by National Library of Australia

Shōjo, the girl positioned between child and adult, is an iconic representation of femininity and girlhood in Japanese culture. A pretty and stereotypically feminine aesthetic that sometimes disguises dark and disturbing themes, shōjo has fascinated artists working in many fields from literature to manga, film to fashion, and not just in Japan. Researching the National Library’s significant contemporary shōjo collection, Masafumi Monden explores the multifaceted importance of shōjo as a cultural imagination, a complex and sometimes shocking ideal of girlish identity in Japanese popular culture that encompasses both objectification and agency, desire and identification.

Our manuscripts collection holds some of the earliest records of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander languages, written in the post-European contact period. Shannon Sutton provides a fragmentary glimpse of the diverse range of the hundreds of languages spoken in Australia before European contact.

This Capital Ideas event explores the causes of repeated budget projection errors. It will describe how these are affecting policy choices. It will ask whether anything fundamental has changed that might require a rethink of how budgets are prepared. And it will explore the institutional barriers to better outcomes, and the opportunities for reform. Katharine Murphy, political editor at the Guardian, and 15-year veteran of the Canberra press gallery, will discuss the issues with John Daley, CEO of the Grattan Institute, presenting new research from Grattan Institute’s work on budget policy.

Treasures Curator Nat Williams sheds light on the brief life of Dorothy English Paty. Creating two exceptional sketchbooks filled with watercolours of plants, Dorothy’s work is now held in the Library’s Rex Nan Kivell collection.

The National Library has been collecting oral histories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to ensure their life stories, and personal insights are recorded for future generations. Ryan Stoker highlights a variety of interviews, social histories and folklore recordings.

Collection Talk - Indigenous Lives by National Library of Australia

Hosted by the Australian National University and National Library of Australia, prolific and well-known social researcher, writer and commentator Hugh Mackay, discusses his latest book Selling the Dream with Alex Sloan.