A cross-cultural encounter.
Dr. Stefan Sippell
University of Munich
Time: 4.15-5.30pm, Wednesday 28 April 2010
McDonald Room, Menzies Library
Australian National University
24th September 1886. They have arrived. Father Adolf Kristen and Brother Vinzenz Scharmer are the first Austrian Jesuits to cast their eyes on the Daly River – here the missionaries are going to attempt to convert the Aboriginal people in the area to the Roman Catholic faith. But – the author of the diary records – as the two men step to the water’s edge they are disappointed: “No doubt they expected to find it resemble the Danube in its majestic flow, and found it smaller than the river Inn!” What they saw in the surface of the water is to all intents and purposes their own reflection … (more…)
