Join Friends of Lutheran Archives online book launch

Join Friends of Lutheran Archives on 15 August for the online launch of Enlightened Aboriginal Futures by Professor Barry Judd, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous), University of Melbourne, and Associate Professor Katherine Ellinghaus, School of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University and Sandhill Girl by Lorna Wilson.

Sandhill Girl (LWBJKE Books, 2024) by Lorna Wilson tells the story of Lorna’s early life and the way it was changed by her interaction with Lutheran Missionary Pastor FW Albrecht. When Lorna was only 12 years old, she left her home in Central Australia to be fostered and educated. Sandhill Girl is the story of that journey.

Enlightened Aboriginal Futures examines the radical intervention of the German–Australian Lutheran missionary FW Albrecht in the education of Aboriginal children. Albrecht’s ideas about consent, freedom of choice and personal autonomy were expressed in schemes designed to educate and empower Aboriginal people and efforts to find Aboriginal futures through education, training and employment.

This book explores how Aboriginal people understood Albrecht’s work and the Enlightenment concepts on which it was based. In the context of an Anglo-Australian settler-colonialism that sought to systematically remove the freedom and autonomy of Indigenous people, this study demonstrates how those who participated in the Albrecht scheme were able to reconstruct themselves in ways that fused their own Aboriginal culture and identity with the ideas and values imported from an enlightened Germany.

Enlightened Aboriginal Futures will appeal to students and scholars of cultural history, colonialism, Lutheranism, race and ethnicity and Indigenous studies. It will also be illuminating reading to policymakers searching for a deeper understanding of colonial interventions in Indigenous communities.

The livestream will be available via YouTube at www.youtube.com/@friendsoflutheranarchives9644/live on 15 August 2024 at 5.30pm (ACST).