Reason and reckoning: provocations and conversations about re-imagining Samuel Griffith's university

This chapter emerged from the 2022 symposium ‘Reason and Reckoning: Provocations and Conversations’ (See, https://app.secure.griffith.edu.au/events/event/70702) held at Griffith University and orchestrated by Fiona Foley as a response to Henry Reynolds 2021 publication Truth-Telling: History, Sovereignty, and the Uluru Statement. Various speakers from different disciplines each engaged with the problematic public figure of Sir Samuel Griffith and the naming of universities commemorating colonial figures in general. The chapter largely focusses on Sir Samuel Griffith, the namesake of Griffith University, and comprises contributions from several of the presentations delivered at the symposium: Aboriginal scholars, Foley, Bargallie and Carlson and settler scholar Fiona Nicoll. There is much to engage with in terms of Queensland’s race politics historically and its legacy left for us today. As Reynolds rightly points out, “the violence of the frontier has flooded back into the national story” (2021, p. 199).