Lyndall Ryan facts for kids

Lyndall Ryan, AM, FAHA (born 1943) is an Australian academic and historian. She has held positions in Australian studies and women's studies at Griffith University and Flinders University and was the foundation professor of Australian studies and head of the School of Humanities at the University of Newcastle from 1998 to 2005. She is currently a conjoint professor in the Centre for the History of Violence at the University of Newcastle.

Academic career

Ryan completed a PhD at Macquarie University in 1975, her thesis was titled "Aborigines in Tasmania, 1800–1974 and their problems with the Europeans".

Ryan's book The Aboriginal Tasmanians, first published in 1981, presented an interpretation of the early relations between Tasmanian Aborigines and white settlers in Tasmania. A second edition, published by Allen & Unwin in 1996, brought the story of the Tasmanian Aborigines in the 20th century up to date. Her work was later criticised by Keith Windschuttle who suggested there were discrepancies between Ryan's claims and her supporting evidence, thus drawing her into the "history wars". Ryan contested Windschuttle's claims in an essay entitled 'Who is the fabricator?' in Robert Manne's Whitewash: On Keith Windschuttle Fabrication of Aboriginal History published in 2003 and further addressed them in her book, Tasmanian Aborigines: A History Since 1803, published in 2012.

Colonial frontier massacres project

In 2017, Ryan and her team at the University of Newcastle released an on-line map showing more than 150 massacre sites in Eastern Australia. Within 6 months, the site was accessed more than sixty thousand times and has received coverage in Australia and also internationally. The on-line tool provides approximate locations, dates and other details of claimed massacres and provides corroborating sources. As of 3 March  2019 (2019 -03-03)^[update], the project claimed at least 270 frontier massacres had occurred over a period of 140 years starting in 1794. Ryan has suggested the map is an important step in acknowledging the extensive violence used against indigenous people in Australia's history.

Recognition

Ryan was awarded the 2018 Annual History Citation by the History Council of NSW for "her research and teaching in women's and Indigenous history, and her service to the profession in contributing to the development of Australian Studies and Women's Studies". She was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in November 2018, and appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2019 Australia Day Honours in recognition of her "significant service to higher education, particularly to Indigenous history and women's studies."