2026 Hall Annual Lecture - A catalogue for the future: Australian archaeology confronts the metacrisis

 Join us for The University of Queensland School of Social Science, 2026 Hall Annual Lecture. We are thrilled to be joined by our guest speaker, Professor Lesley Head from the University of Melbourne. We hope you can attend this special event.

Friday, 25 September 2026

GHD Auditorium, Advanced Engineering Building (49)

   6pm–8pm

A catalogue for the future: Australian archaeology confronts the metacrisis

For more than half a century, Australian archaeology has been making significant contributions to understanding deep time relations between people and their environment on this continent, not least through the work of Jay Hall. How can the discipline help address the current metacrisis entangling climate change, inequality, threats to democracy, and rampant AI?

This lecture explores the kinds of work archaeology can (and should not) do in creatively bringing alternative futures into being. Alternatives are hard for many contemporary Australians to see because we can’t envisage rich social and ceremonial lives that are not dependent on fossil fuels. We can’t envisage rich trade and material culture systems that are not framed by capitalism. But Australian archaeology has thousands of such moments to bring life to, particularly through its engagement with Indigenous communities and knowledges. Using examples, the lecture speculates on how these moments might constitute a catalogue for the future. 

Guest Speaker 

Lesley Head FASSA FAHA is Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Melbourne. A former Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow, she works at the intersection of geography, archaeology, and the social sciences to examine deep-time relationships between humans and nature. Her recent work focuses on the cultural dimensions of environmental change, and she is a vocal advocate for the role of the humanities, alongside Indigenous knowledges, in addressing climate change and other global challenges. Lesley has authored several books, including Beyond Green: The Social Life of Australian Nature (2025), Plants: Past, Present and Future (2022, with Zena Cumpston and Michael-Shawn Fletcher), and Hope and Grief in the Anthropocene (2016). She previously served as President of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and held the King Carl XVI Gustaf Visiting Professorship in Sweden.

About Jay Hall

The Hall Annual Lecture is UQ Archaeology’s annual public lecture in honour of the founder of archaeology at UQ, Associate Professor Jay Hall.

Associate Professor Jay Hall is the former Head of UQ’s Archaeology program. As well as an award-winning teacher, Jay is the editor of Queensland Archaeological research - a publication he started in 1984. Jay retired in 2007 after more than 30 years at the University. He is currently an Adjunct Reader in Archaeology in the School of Social Science at UQ.