Due to scheduled maintenance, the National Library’s online services will be unavailable between 8pm on Saturday 7 December and 11am on Sunday 8 December (AEDT). Find out more.
Endowed by Dr John Seymour and Mrs Heather Seymour AO, the Seymour Biography Lecture provides eminent life writers with an opportunity to explore the business and craft of biography, autobiography or memoir.
Between 2005 and 2009, the Lecture was hosted by the Australian National University's Humanities Research Centre.
In 2010, the Lecture moved to the National Library of Australia, as part of the Seymours' ongoing sponsorship/support program. The Seymours also sponsor a National Library of Australia Scholarship for biographical research being done by young postgraduate students.
Seymour Biography lectures
Professor Chris Wallace, 2023
Jacqueline Kent, 2022
Emeritus Professor Judith Brett, 2019
Richard Fidler, 2018
Raimond Gaita, 2017
David Marr, 2016
Robert Drewe, 2015
Professor Ray Monk, 2014
- How Can I Be a Logician Before I'm a Human Being? The Role of Biography in the Understanding of Intellectuals (transcript)
- How Can I Be a Logician Before I'm a Human Being? The Role of Biography in the Understanding of Intellectuals (audio)
Drusilla Modjeska, 2013
Professor Jeffrey Meyers, 2012
Robert Dessaix, 2011
Professor Frances Spalding CBE, 2010
Earlier Seymour Biography lectures hosted by the ANU Humanities Research Centre
- Dr David Day, 2009, Writing Political Lives
- Richard Holmes, 2008, Biography: The Past Has a Great Future
- Professor Jill Roe, 2007, Biography and the Struggle for the Soul of Australia
- Dr Lawrence Goldman, 2006, Virtual Lives: History & Biography in an Electronic Age
- Dr Brenda Niall, 2005, Walking Upon Ashes: The Footsteps of a Modern Biographer