Personal Score: Sport, Culture, Identity

Ellen Van Neerven in conversation with Jeanine Leane

Immerse yourself in an enlightening literary experience with writer Ellen van Neerven (they/them) in conversation with academic Jeanine Leane as they tackle the uneasy and all too easily ignored facets of so-called-Australia’s relationship with - and reverence for - sports from a queer First Nations perspective.

Ellen’s new book ‘Personal Score: Sport. Culture. Identity.' examines sport's troubled relationship with race, gender and sexuality through writing that "weaves history, memoir, journalism and poetry” (UQP,2023). 'Personal Score' is a layered, intricate account that unravels Ellen’s “own personal history and relationship with the sport of soccer: how the game served as a conduit for their personal expression when they were a young player on Turrbal and Jagera land.” (Tang J, 2023). This new work reveals the larger picture of so-called-Australia and the way ‘we’ view sports, race, colonialism, gender and sexuality. Ellen highlights the deep connection between First Nations people on this continent and sport.

"As First Nations people from Australia are the oldest surviving living culture in the world, we are also the oldest living sporting culture and the oldest sportspeople in the world." - van Neervan, 2023.

Don't miss this opportunity to delve in with Ellen (Mununjali Yugambeh and Dutch heritage), an award-winning author whose other titles include "Heat and Light" (2014), "Comfort Food" (2016) and "Throat" (2020), and Jeanine Leane, a First Nations writer and Associate Professor at University of Melbourne, Naarm for a night of thought-provoking, exploratory and riveting conversation. The talk will be followed by an audience Q&A and book signing. Presented by the Lee Ellis Working Group,an initiative comprised of LGBTQIA+ identifying staff from within Merri-bek Libraries. We recognise the leading role First Nations people have had in LGBTQIASB+ communities and that land was never ceded.