Steeped in story-telling and endlessly curious, Reading the Country: An Introduction to Nomadology (1984) was the product of Paddy Roe, Stephen Muecke and Krim Benterrak, experimenting with what it might be like to think together about country. In the process a senior traditional owner, a cultural theorist and a painter produced a text unlike any other. Reading the Country: 30 Years On is a celebration of one of the great twentieth-century books of intercultural dialogue. Recalling a spirit of intellectual risk and respect, in this collection, Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars, poets, writers and publishers both acknowledge the past and look, with hope, to future transformations of culture and country.
Philip Morrissey retired in 2017 after ten years as the Head of Australian Indigenous Studies in the Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne. He is currently the keeper and curator of the Lionel Fogarty archive. His most recent publication, co-edited with Tyne Daile Sumner, is Lionel Fogarty: Selected Poems 1980-2017 (2017).
Chris Healy teaches cultural studies at the University of Melbourne. His publications include Forgetting Aborigines (2008) and Assembling Culture (co-edited with Tony Bennett, 2011).