UC EVENTS

The UCX Op Shop provides students with the opportunity to purchase affordable clothing, homeware, small furniture, study materials and more. It also gives students and the UC Community the opportunity to donate items that they no longer want or need. With a focus on sustainability, the Op Shop is a great place to find amazing items at great prices. The UCX Op Shop is open to all UC community members. Students that are UCX Members will receive a discount on items that are already at a great price! With prices starting at $4 ($2 for UCX Members), the UCX Op Shop is too good to miss.Op Shop regular prices:$4 items will include items of clothing, shoes, stationery, cutlery and glasses.$10 items will include bags, clothing, sets of glassware and cutlery and various homewares.$20 will include small furniture, clothing and limited electronic items.The prices for UCX Members are 50% off the regular prices.

Farm-fresh produce right here on campus? Yes, please! Every Thursday, Allan brings a pop-up selection of in-season fruit, veggies, eggs, and honey for you to purchase right here on campus. He accepts both cash or card (noting a $10 EFTPOS minimum). Details:Every Thursday 11:15am-1:00pm in the UC Refectory He even offers pre-ordering, contact Allan on allan@allansfarmfresh.com.au or via SMS to 0409 909 373 by 10am on Wednesdays.*Pop-up subject to Allan's availability and produce varies depending on season.

Speaker: Russell Smith Date\Time: Thursday 19 February 2026, 12:30-13:30Location: Building 1 Level A Room 1A21, University of Canberra (NB Room 1a21 is accessed from the foyer joining Building 1 and Mizzuna café); or Zoom: http://zoom.us/j/95029077504 AbstractThe first age of wireless communications also marked the twilight of the theory of the ‘luminiferous aether’, the notion of an undetectable substance permeating all space that allows the transmission of light, just as air allows the transmission of sound. For many scientists the theory was definitively laid to rest by Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity in 1905. However, the notion of the ether persisted well into the twentieth century, and the demonstration of wireless signalling was considered by some scientists and engineers, like Oliver Lodge and Guglielmo Marconi, to offer the possibility of communication with the spirits of the dead, or to allow the direct transference of thought without the mediation of speech or writing. Although apparently sceptical about these claims, James Joyce took an interest in this literature, incorporating into Finnegans Wake notes from his reading of Lodge’s Raymond (1916), a best-selling account of the messages Lodge believed he had received through a spiritualist medium from his son killed in the Great War. Joyce also made extensive use of Irish spiritualist Hester Travers Smith’s record of her conversations with the spirit of Oscar Wilde. Furthermore, one of Joyce’s notebooks records the following plan for the third and fourth chapters of the ‘Watches of Shaun’ in Book III: ‘Yawn: telegraph/telephone; Dawn: wireless/thought transference’. Joyce seems to have got this idea of wireless thought transference from A.M. Low’s popular science book Wireless Possibilities (1924). This paper examines how the Wake registers the persistence of the idea of a spiritual ether, and notes that, with key terms like ‘Communicator’ (the spirit of the departed) and ‘Medium’ (the psychically gifted receiver of these messages), these ideas were treated with a seriousness and exerted an influence on communication theory that their later relegation to ‘pseudo-science’ tends to obscure.All are welcome! BioRussell Smith lectures in Modernist Literature and Literary Theory at the Australian National University, Canberra. He has published widely on Samuel Beckett, including the collection Beckett and Ethics (2009) and numerous articles and book chapters, as well as on various topics in modernist and contemporary literature, theory and visual art. His current research examines James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake in terms of the transformation of the idea of communication by wireless and radio in the first half of the twentieth century. He is convenor of the Canberra Finnegans Wake Reading Group, which has been holding readings and performances since 2019.The Culture and Creativity Seminar Series is hosted by the Centre for Cultural and Creative Research (CCCR), Faculty of Arts and Design, University of Canberra. To discover upcoming seminars, please follow us on Facebook @uccccr, or Instagram and Twitter @uc_cccr. Alternatively, join our mailing list by emailing cccr@canberra.edu.au. Any questions and accessibility requests please contact: cccr@canberra.edu.au.

Having just completed a triumphant 23-date European headline tour and supporting Paul Kelly across Australian arenas, multi-award winning artist Fanny Lumsden announces her national headline tour of Australia, taking place this coming February.Fanny Lumsden and her band The Prawn Stars will traverse the country in February 2026 with shows in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney before wrapping up in Canberra.Recognised for her DIY and trail blazing spirit shown by her regional Country Halls Tour where she has taken her joyous, energetic, and brilliant live show to over 300 halls across Australia, NZ , United Kingdom and Europe.Fanny’s recent shows in Europe included a triumphant 23-date headline tour, a sold-out Country Halls tour in Scotland, no less than 7 festivals plus a support slot with fellow Australian singer songwriter Paul Kelly. Presale starts Wednesday 10 Sept at 9:00 AM AEST. General Admission tickets on sale Friday 12 Sept at 9:00 AM AEST.

Speakers: Kate Grenville (author), Leanne Weber (author), Mary Spiers William (commentator), Kim Rubenstein (host/moderator)Date\Time: Thursday 26 February 2026, 12:00-13:00Location: Building 1 Level A Room 1A21, University of Canberra (NB Room 1a21 is accessed from the foyer joining Building 1 and Mizzuna café); or Zoom: http://zoom.us/j/95029077504 AbstractEach of us – whether we choose to embrace, deny or ignore this knowledge - is uniquely positioned within a shared colonial history. The question of positionality is a central theme for this seminar, to be explored through a comparison of two books that confront Australia’s colonial past and present from different starting points. In ‘Unsettled’, beloved author Kate Grenville examines the spread of white settlements beyond Sydney Cove, by injecting stories and imaginings about the region’s First Peoples into her own family history. In her memoir ‘The Chosen Son’, Leanne Weber grapples with her own experience of growing up in 1960s Adelaide with an Aboriginal foster brother placed by white authorities into her non-Indigenous family. Both books, in their own ways, depict voyages of discovery that draw on historical records, personal memories, empathy and imagination to uncover important truths about our settler colonial society. All are welcome! BioKate Grenville, AO is one of Australia’s most fearless and celebrated writers. She is best known for her novel The Secret River which ignited debate about how Australia should tell its foundational story. She has written across multiple genres, having published 10 works of fiction, three books about the writing process, a biography (of her mother), a memoir (about the writing of The Secret River) and a work of non-fiction she describes as ‘science-y’. Her latest book Unsettled was published in 2025.Leanne Weber is a former academic who is now an Adjunct Professor of Criminology in the Canberra Law School. She has published 11 academic books on the policing of minorities, human rights and border control and has twice been awarded the Christine M Alder Book Prize by the ANZ Society of Criminology. The Chosen Son is her first book intended for a wider readership. Leanne lives with her partner and dog on unceded Ngarigo land overlooking Lake Jindabyne. Until February 2025, Dr Mary Spiers Williams was the Associate Dean in Australian Indigenous Studies at the Australian National University, and worked across schools and colleges to develop a contemporary and innovative Australian Indigenous Studies curriculum there. Mary recently joined the UTS Faculty of Law where she convenes and teaches advanced courses in criminal law and social justice.  In the years before joining academia, Mary was an advocate for desert peoples as a law and justice projects officer, a legal practitioner in central Australia and New South Wales, and was the senior policy officer for the NSW Attorney General's Criminal Law Review Division. Professor Kim Rubenstein is an Australian legal scholar, legal practitioner, professor, who is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law and Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. From 2006 to 2016 she was Professor and Director of the Centre for International Law and Public Law at the Australian National University, from 2011-2012 she was the inaugural Convenor of the ANU Gender Institute and from 2020-2022 she was Co-Director, Academic of the 50/50 by 2030 Foundation. She is currently an Adjunct Professor at the University of Canberra and the University of Technology Sydney and an Honorary Professor at The Australian National University. The Culture and Creativity Seminar Series is hosted by the Centre for Cultural and Creative Research (CCCR), Faculty of Arts and Design, University of Canberra. To discover upcoming seminars, please follow us on Facebook @uccccr, or Instagram and Twitter @uc_cccr. Alternatively, join our mailing list by emailing cccr@canberra.edu.au. Any questions and accessibility requests please contact: cccr@canberra.edu.au.