Level 3 Mortlock Wing State Library of South Australia North Terrace Adelaide SA 5000

Lectures

The RGSSA hosts a series of stimulating lectures on a broad range of geographical topics, both current and historical.

Experience. Geography. Together.^TM

Lecture Program

Monthly Lectures are generally held on the third Thursday of the month at 5.30 pm, preceded by drinks and nibbles from 5:00 pm in the Hetzel Theatre, Institute Building on the corner of North Terrace and Kintore Avenue. Members are requested to make a $5 donation to help offset the lecture costs. The cost for non-members is $10. Meetings may be followed by an optional light dinner at a local venue.

Lunchtime meetings are held during the cooler months of the year. Members are requested to make a gold coin donation while the cost for non-members is $5.

Videos of some previous lectures are available on YouTube.

The Royal Geographical Society of South Australia Lecture Program is supported by the State Library of South Australia.

Upcoming Lectures

12 June 2025 | 12:00 pm

Lunchtime Meeting

A Woman’s Voice: Translating Rose de Freycinet’s Journal

Rose de Freycinet’s Journal covered a three-year circumnavigation around the World from 1817 to 1820, including a shipwreck.

Is it more enriching for the Anglophone reader to hear the woman traveller’s own voice, albeit in translation, than to take cognizance of Rose’s adventures in a third-person narrative, as told by several scholars?

Professor Rivière is a recipient of an RGSSA Library Research Fellowship.

Image from Rose de Freycinet - Wikipedia

16 June 2025 | 12:30 pm

Lunchtime Meeting

‘Black Swan’ Futures? Looking backwards to shape new possibilities with Australia’s Black Swans

This lecture traces strands of the environmental history(ies) of the Black Swan – particularly its long disruption of settler-colonial imaginaries of possibility – to open up what ‘black swan’ events and disruptions might yet be crafted for our shared uncertain climatic and ecological futures.

Melina is the recipient of an RGSSA Library Fellowship.

19 June 2025 | 5:30 pm

Monthly Lecture

Mapping early encounters of colonists with Aboriginal people

Skye Krichauff will draw on maps and other historical documents to illustrate the types of country that was most sought after by colonists and to discuss the failure of early-colonial government officials to recognise Aboriginal people’s proprietary rights.

Image from David Collin's account of the colony of NSW, 1798

17 July 2025 | 5:30 pm

Monthly Lecture

Condition Critical: The RGSSA’s Role in Australian Geography's Revival.

Iain will discuss why the public, professional geographers, and their professional associations should engage with voluntary, community-based, learned societies such as RGSSA for mutual benefit and the discipline of geography's sustainability.

Exterior of state library of south australia

23 July 2025 | 12:00 pm

Lunchtime Meeting

Kimberley rock art and other adventures

Privacy