To promote its ninth Calibre Prize for an Outstanding Essay, Australian Book Review has posted a number of past prize-winning or commended entries on its website, including two essays by the Centre for Art History and Art Theory’s David Hansen.

Dr Hansen was a joint winner of the 2010 prize with ‘Seeing Truganini’, which also won the Alfred Deakin Prize for an Essay Advancing Public Debate in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. ‘Seeing Truganini’ explores some of the difficult political and ethical issues surrounding the museum display of historical images of Aboriginal people. An earlier Calibre submission, ‘Death Dance’, also now published online, traces the life and image of the early 19^th century Broken Bay Aboriginal leader, Bungaree.

For the full articles 'Seeing Truganini' and 'Death Dance'.

Full image credits: 

Left image: Thierry frères, lithographers, after Benjamin Law (1807–1890), sculptor, Trouggarnanna, Native de Sullivan-cove, Wan-Dieménie (Mélanésie) c.1850, lithograph, from Charles Jacquinot (ed.), Voyage au Pôle Sud et dans l’Océanie: sur les corvettes l’Astrolabe et la Zélée, exécutée ... pendant les années 1837– 1838–1839–1840, sous le commandement de M.J. Dumont d’Urville, Paris: Gide, 1841–1855, Atlas: Anthropologie, plate 23, La Trobe Rare Books Collection, State Library of Victoria

Right image: Augustus Earle, Bungaree A Native Chief of N.S. Wales, c.1829–38, lithograph, (courtesy of Art Gallery of South Australia)