The Making of Aboriginal Heritage: Leonhard Adam and Anthropology at the University of Melbourne

Venue: Dulcie Hollyock Conference Room, Baillieu Library

Presenters: Dr Michael Davis

Berlin born lawyer and ethnologist Leonhard Adam (1891-1960) fled the Nazis, and sought refuge in England in 1939 where he taught briefly at the University of London. In May 1940, as an ‘enemy alien’, he was dispatched to Australia on the Dunera, and was placed in the internment camp at Tatura in Victoria. Released in 1942, he worked at Melbourne University as lecturer and curator, and built up an ethnographic collection which became known as the Leonhard Adam Ethnological Collection, now held by the Ian Potter Museum of Art. Adam remained at Melbourne University until his untimely death in 1960.

This presentation will draw on a close examination of the Adam Papers in the University of Melbourne Archives, to explore Adam’s ethnographic work, and his position within the prevailing anthropological establishment in Melbourne and Australia, and with his large network of correspondents. Davis will consider whether Adam’s status as a European intellectual ‘outsider’ was an influence on his work in Aboriginal art and anthropology.

from
https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/7258-the-making-of-aboriginal-heritage-leonhard-adam-and-anthropology-at